A layered approach to SEND support

The new schools white paper has set out the government’s plan to overhaul the SEND system, introducing new funding, layered interventions and more help from health professionals. We break down the changes on the horizon and examine what this means for schools

More children are being educated in specialist settings now than at any time in the last half century, alongside more moving into unregistered alternative provision or home education due to unmet SEND needs. But if the barriers are removed, it is possible for many children and young people with SEND to thrive in mainstream schools and learn alongside their friends. 

Acknowledging this, the government has launched its long-awaited schools white paper, which highlights major reform to the SEND system. It sets out how more children with special education needs and disabilities  (SEND) will be able to receive better support, earlier, closer and ‘without a fight’.

One of the major challenges of the present system is that it takes too long to get support and too often relies on statutory assessments. A major aim, therefore, is to integrate the SEND system within mainstream schooling, so that support can be provided earlier.
The government says this will require more flexibility, with support that can adapted to the needs of children as they grow and move through different education phases. 

Over the next three years, the government will be investing £1.6 billion to make the mainstream system more inclusive.

In practice, this means that ‘commonly occurring needs’ that every school should be familiar with, can be met in mainstream education through adaptive teaching, calm environments and enrichment opportunities. 

The fund can be used to run targeted and small group interventions at the earliest signs of children having additional needs.

When announcing the changes, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “I’ve heard first hand the struggles and exhaustion faced by too many parents who feel they have to fight the system to get their child the support they need.

“But getting the right support should never be a battle – it should be a given.

“That means no more ‘one size fits all’ system that only serves children who fit the mould. Instead, families will get tailored support built around their child’s individual needs, available on their doorstep.”

Layers of support

The government is aiming for a more layered approach to SEND intervention, with Targeted, Targeted Plus, and Specialist support.
Targeted (including Targeted Plus) will provide structured, evidence-based interventions within mainstream schools, drawing on the new ‘Experts at Hand’ service to involve education, health and care professionals where needed.

The Specialist layer will provide a higher level of provision for children with complex needs, through new Specialist Provision Packages, which will form the basis of EHCPs.

For every child receiving Targeted or Specialist support, regardless of their educational setting, schools will be required to develop an Individual Support Plan. This plan will describe the child’s day-to-day educational provision and the support required, and will be created collaboratively with parents.

Specialist support will use nationally defined Specialist Provision Packages for children with the most complex needs. These will be developed and reviewed by an independent expert panel and will guide provision and eligibility for EHCPs across mainstream and specialist settings. 
EHCPs will continue to set out the statutory entitlement to support for children and young people with SEND, with Individual Support Plans describing the day-to-day provision delivered in schools. 

Individual Support Plans

Schools will be required to develop Individual Support Plans for any child or young person with identified SEND. The plans will capture barriers to learning, day-to-day provision, any reasonable adjustments and intended outcomes. They will be developed with input from parents, strengthening collaboration between home and school. 

These plans will be interactive, digital, accessible and integrated with wider services over time, so that identifying and communicating any support required is simpler and more effective. This approach will ensure support remains responsive throughout a child’s education, facilitating smooth transitions. 

Individual Support Plans will be reviewed annually at a minimum, which will involve discussions with parents. 

The use and quality of Individual Support Plans will also be assessed through Ofsted’s inspections and assessment of SEND provision at a setting level.

Experts at Hand

Teachers and education leaders frequently say they want better access to expert advice and support from health professionals, such as speech and language therapists and educational psychologists, in order to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND.
The new ‘Experts at Hand’ support will primarily help children for whom specialist input is essential to help them thrive in mainstream education or the specialist system. 

The government will create more opportunities for health professionals to work directly with school staff and groups of children as needed. This will help upskill staff in mainstream schools, provide timely support for commonly occurring needs, and ensure schools have quick and flexible access to expert advice.

The government will invest £1.8 billion over the next three years to improve access to these health professionals.

£1 billion will fund expert professionals to work directly with mainstream schools, improving early support without requiring an assessment or referral, while £800 million will build the capacity of mainstream schools through expanding outreach from specialist and alternative provision settings. 

The government anticipates that by the end of academic year 2028 to 2029, this funding would mean a typical school could benefit from annual support equivalent to 40 days per average primary school, and 160 days per average secondary school.

Schools will be able to use the Experts at Hand offer for pupils, regardless of whether they have an EHCP.

Inclusive mainstream fund

The £1.6 billion Inclusive Mainstream Fund is for the academic year 2026 to 2027 onwards, over three years. It will give schools and other education settings direct responsibility over funding, enabling them to plan proactively and flexibly for commonly occurring needs and encourage earlier and more effective support. They will be able to use this funding to develop targeted, evidence-based support offers such as transition programmes or group interventions – without requiring formal assessments or diagnoses. 

For example, programmes like NELI (Nuffield Early Language Intervention) and ELSEC (Early Language Support for Every Child) could be funded to strengthen language development and early communication skills. This funding will also help strengthen the universal offer and targeted layers of support.

Schools will be required to publish an Inclusion Strategy outlining how resources are deployed to benefit children with SEND, which will be subject to oversight and challenge, with schools being held accountable for how they use all their inclusion funding.

Schools will be expected to place inclusion at the centre of their approach. This will involve understanding needs, adaptive teaching, a well-sequenced curriculum, calm environments, high standards of attendance and behaviour, and access to a broad range of academic and enrichment opportunities so that all children are supported to achieve and thrive. 

Specialist Provision Packages

The legal entitlement to support in an EHCP will be based on a specialist provision package, similar to clinical pathways used in health – improving the quality and consistency of support across the country. These will be for children with the most complex needs.

At present, there is inconsistency in how needs are identified and met. The current EHCP model makes it hard for schools to promptly adapt as needs emerge and change over time, which leaves too many children and young people with provision that is not suitable. Specialist Provision Packages,  therefore, will form the basis for an EHCP.

These will be nationally defined, evidence-based packages of support, setting out the specific interventions, resources, and standards required to support them. 

EHCPs will guarantee statutory entitlements to the educational provision from the Specialist Provision Package, and their expected outcomes, alongside care provision and statutory entitlements to health provision. 

Meanwhile, the detailed day-to-day educational provision will be set out in Individual Support Plans. 

Draft packages will be published later this year and designed with independent experts and parents, guiding provision in specialist places in mainstream and special schools – for example physical disability requiring personal care assistance or severe learning difficulty.

For children under five who have been identified as having complex needs, the DfE will work with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to introduce a fast-track route to support.

From now until new legislation begins, the current SEND system – including all existing duties, rights and funding routes – will remain in place. 

The complaints process

The DfE has said they will create a new digital, accessible solution for handling complaints that will aim to simplify the process, improve coordination between multiple bodies, improve complaints data collection, and stop complaints being escalated through multiple avenues in parallel.

They will set out new mutual expectations for complaints handling with clear and consistent timeframes for resolving complaints to help schools with managing expectations.

The DfE will update guidance to make clear to parents and the sector which national organisation is best placed to consider specific complaints, to reduce complaints going to multiple organisations at once. They will also consult on introducing the requirement for maintained schools to include an independent member on complaint panels.

Schools designed to be inclusive

The DfE is  investing £740 million in 2025-26 to create 10,000 more mainstream school and college places for children and young people with SEND. 

This funding will support a more inclusive mainstream school system by increasing the number of specialist and support bases and adapting the school estate so that more children with SEND can learn in a local mainstream setting in their community. 

This includes creating breakout rooms or sensory spaces where children can regulate, improving ventilation to create a more comfortable sensory environment, or adding ramps and accessible changing facilities. 

The DfE has also announced it will create a further 50,000 new specialist places, including the creation of ‘inclusion bases’, backed by £3 billion investment over the next four years. These will give children with additional needs the opportunity to learn in mainstream schools, alongside their peers. Funding can be used to adapt buildings and buy equipment to make the estate more inclusive and accessible. 

Inclusion bases will offer specialist support in mainstream schools and colleges. For some children, this support will enable them to gradually transition to full participation in mainstream classes. For others, ongoing support from the base will help them access mainstream learning, education and their wider community in a way that works for them.

Bases will be backed by clear guidance, which will form the benchmark for Ofsted inspections, and national best practice networks to ensure that settings high-quality inclusion bases and specialist provision in mainstream schools and colleges are recognised and celebrated, while also being held to account for delivering high-quality provision. 

Training for teachers

In the DfE’s School and College Voice survey from January 2025, less than three quarters of mainstream school leaders agreed or strongly agreed that their school could effectively support children with SEND or learning difficulties and disabilities despite many teachers being keen to expand their knowledge. To address this, the DfE has launched a new training package for school staff on supporting children with SEND, with an investment of over £200 million over three years.

From September 2026, all staff nationwide will be able to benefit from new training across early years, schools, and post-16, supported by government-backed training materials. The updated SEND Code of Practice will set out a requirement for all schools to ensure that their staff receive training on SEND and inclusion.

Industry reaction

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), which represents leaders in the majority of schools in England, is optimistic that the changes announced contain the foundation of a successful new approach to education and support for children with SEND.  However, he said it will require the necessary funding: “Success will require sufficient funding and availability of support services and we are pleased to see new money committed to the plans and ambitions to expand support services. 
“Parents, teachers and school leaders will now assess if the commitments are sufficient to ensure success.”

For those parents fearing that they may miss out on support, Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza gave some reassurance. She said: “Families will understandably be anxious about what this moment of change will bring, but this is an opportunity to move to a system that acknowledges that every child, at some point in their lives, will require help and support. It’s an opportunity to rebuild trust with families and offer children greater ambition, instead of telling them they are the problem. 

“Under these plans, no child should fear losing support. I will be working closely with ministers and families over the coming months to make sure that becomes a reality.”

Amanda Allard from the Council for Disabled Children, said: “We welcome the commitment to retain statutory education, health and care plans for children and young people whose needs cannot be met through this new model. We know that many parents will welcome the legal requirement for schools to create individual support plans for all children with SEND.   

“At the same time we know they will be concerned to understand how accountability will work. The consultation is an opportunity to clarify those details ensuring families have clear routes to action where these ambitions are not being delivered.”

Chair of the Education Committee, Helen Hayes MP, said: “While the current system may be broken, it is not beyond repair. In our inquiry last year, the Education Committee saw examples of genuinely inclusive SEND support both abroad and at home. This is not a pipe dream: we can build a mainstream education system that works for every child. But it will require hard work, proper resourcing and a real desire to rebuild trust with parents, many of whom understandably feel let down by a system in which they have to fight for support at every stage.”
    
The long-term effect

The government aims for these reforms to enable more children with SEND to receive better support, earlier, closer to home, and ‘without a fight’.

At the moment, the proportion of school children with an EHCP is currently 5.3 per cent, and has risen sharply in recent years.
The DfE expects that with these changes, EHCP numbers will increase but at a slower rate through to 2029 to 2030 as it begins to invest in the new system and equip mainstream nurseries, schools and colleges to meet needs earlier.

As reforms become embedded, the DfE expects the number of children and young people needing a Specialist Provision Package, and hence an EHCP to access support, will return to around today’s level by 2035, with many more children having their needs met through an ISP in mainstream education.