On Monday, 23 February 2026, the government published its long-awaited Schools White Paper — 'Every Child Achieving and Thriving' — alongside a major package of proposed reforms to the SEND system in England. The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, described it as a generational opportunity to fix a system that is widely acknowledged to be broken.

At Envision Education, we've spent 11 years working alongside schools across London and the Home Counties, supplying teaching assistants and SEND specialist support staff. These reforms affect the schools we work with every day, and the children within them.

I want to cut through the noise and give you a genuinely useful overview of what has been announced, what it means in practice, and where the important questions still lie unanswered.

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Important to note: This is a White Paper and consultation — not yet law. The publication does not change a single line of existing SEND legislation. Any legal changes are proposed from 2029 at the earliest, and the full transition runs through to 2035. You have time. But you also have an opportunity to shape what happens next.

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The Context: Why Reform Was Needed

The current SEND system was designed in 2014, under the Children and Families Act, for what was then a relatively small proportion of children. It isn't small anymore.

Today, over 70% of children in England's schools with additional needs — more than one million children — have no legally enforceable rights to support.

The number of children with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) has doubled over the past decade. Local authority high needs budgets are under severe strain — the OBR has forecast a £6 billion deficit across councils by March 2026. Families are routinely waiting over a year for assessments. Too many parents describe the process as a fight they didn't ask for and shouldn't have to have.

The system, as it stands, isn't working well enough for children, for families, or for schools. That much is not in dispute.

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What Has Been Announced: The Key Changes

1. A New Legal Right for Every Child with SEND

The most significant structural change is the introduction of Individual Support Plans (ISPs) for every child identified with SEND. This is a genuinely meaningful expansion of rights.

Currently, the majority of SEND children have no legally enforceable entitlement to support. Under the proposed reforms, every child with SEND — regardless of whether they have an EHCP — will be legally entitled to a documented, school-led support plan drawn from a national framework of evidence-based interventions.

For school leaders, this means a new duty to identify, document and resource support for a wider cohort of children than those currently on your EHCP register. The ISP will be developed with parents, digitised, and regularly updated as a child's needs change.

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One important detail that hasn't received enough attention: unlike EHCPs, ISP decisions cannot be appealed to the SEND Tribunal. Families can appeal decisions about specialist provision packages and EHCPs — but not ISPs. This is likely to be a significant point of contention during the consultation.

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2. EHCPs Are Staying — But Changing

There has been considerable anxiety among parents about the future of EHCPs. The government has been clear: EHCPs are not being abolished. They will be retained and improved for children whose needs cannot routinely be met in mainstream schools.

What is changing is who qualifies. EHCPs will increasingly be reserved for the most complex cases, with a new Specialist Provision Package forming the legal basis of entitlement. A triple lock of protections has been promised:

–       No child currently in a special school will lose their place when reforms begin in 2029, if they wish to stay.

–       Children currently in Year 3 or above will not be moved from an EHCP to an ISP until the end of secondary school — unless they choose to.

–       ISPs will be in place for any child transitioning before the new system is ready, so there is no break in support.

Reassessments of existing EHCPs will begin from 2029 as children move between phases of education, with transitions to ISPs starting from 2030 — and only once the government deems the mainstream system ready to support them.

3. Significant New Funding — Directed at Mainstream

The reform is backed by a £4 billion investment package. The headline figures school leaders need to know:

–       £1.6 billion over three years to early years settings, schools and colleges through a new 'Inclusive Mainstream Fund' — direct funding to build schools' capacity to support SEND pupils.

–       £1.8 billion over three years to create an 'Experts at Hand' service — a bank of SEND specialists including speech and language therapists, educational psychologists and occupational therapists, available to any school in their local area, on demand, regardless of whether children have EHCPs.

–       £200 million for a national SEND training programme for all teachers and support staff, beginning 2026/27.

–       £3.7 billion in capital funding to 2030 to create tens of thousands of new specialist places.

This is meaningful money. But it is tied to a clear expectation: that mainstream schools become genuinely inclusive. The funding follows the accountability.

4. The Direction of Travel: Mainstream Over Specialist

Underpinning all of this is an ideological shift. The government is explicitly moving away from a model where children attend expensive specialist schools as a default, toward a model where high-quality inclusion in mainstream is the norm — with specialist provision reserved for those who genuinely need it.

This is not a criticism of specialist schools, which play a vital role for children with the most complex needs. It is a recognition that too many children have ended up in specialist settings, not because that was the best environment for them, but because their mainstream school wasn't resourced or trained to support them adequately.

For mainstream school leaders, this is a clear signal: the expectation of what an inclusive school looks like is rising. Schools that invest now in staff training, inclusive practice and SEND expertise will be significantly better placed when the changes land in 2029.

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What This Means for Your School: My Honest Assessment

I've been in SEND education recruitment for 14 years. I know how hard school SEN Leaders, teaching assistants and support staff work every single day. These reforms are not a reflection of failure on their part. They are an acknowledgement that the system around them has not given them what they needed to succeed.

Here is my honest view on what these announcements mean in practice:

The next three years are a preparation window, not a waiting game. The legal changes are years away. But schools that use this time to upskill their workforce, review how they deploy SEND support, and build genuinely inclusive cultures will be the ones that thrive. Schools that wait for legislation before acting will find themselves under-resourced and under pressure when 2029 arrives.

The ISP duty will be significant operationally. Creating, maintaining and regularly reviewing legally-backed plans for every child with SEND — not just those with EHCPs — is a substantial undertaking. SENCOs and support staff will need time, training and capacity to do this well.

The Experts at Hand service could be a genuine game-changer. If implemented effectively, on-demand access to speech and language therapists and educational psychologists — without an EHCP being required — could transform early intervention for many children. The details of how this operates locally will be critical to watch.

The consultation matters. This is not done and dusted. There is a 12-week consultation open now. School leaders, SENCOs and those working with SEND children every day are exactly the voices that should be informing what the final legislation looks like. If you have concerns or insights, submit them.

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The Questions That Remain Unanswered

I want to be transparent about what we still don't know, because I think honest commentary is more useful than premature reassurance.

–       How will ISP quality be assured? Ofsted will have a monitoring role, but the detail of inspection frameworks for ISP delivery is yet to be set out.

–       What happens to children who need more than an ISP but don't meet the new EHCP threshold? The line between the two will require very careful definition in the final legislation.

–       Will the Experts at Hand service have sufficient capacity? The ambition is clear, but recruiting enough SEND specialists to serve every local area on demand is itself a significant workforce challenge.

–       How will funding be distributed? The Inclusive Mainstream Fund sounds significant — but how it reaches individual schools, and whether it is genuinely additional, will determine its real-world impact.

–       Draft Specialist Provision Packages are not expected until Autumn 2026. Until those are published, the full picture of what EHCP entitlement looks like under the new system remains unclear.

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What You Can Do Right Now

While the policy landscape settles, there are concrete steps school leaders can take today:

–       Respond to the consultation. It closes in mid-May 2026. Your frontline experience is invaluable in shaping what the final system looks like.

–       Audit your current SEND provision honestly. Where are the gaps in your inclusive offer? Where are staff under-trained or under-supported?

–       Invest in your SENCO. The role is about to become significantly more demanding. SENCOs need time, resource and seniority to lead the changes ahead.

–       Review how you deploy SEND support staff. The reforms signal a move toward flexible, adaptive support rather than rigid one-to-one models. Is your current deployment aligned with best practice?

–       Start conversations with your local authority about what the Experts at Hand service will look like in your area.

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A Final Thought

The children who need SEND support most are among the most vulnerable in our schools. They deserve a system that works — one that doesn't require families to fight for what their child is entitled to, and one that gives schools the tools, training and funding to deliver genuine inclusion.

These reforms, if implemented well, have the potential to be genuinely positive for children. There are real risks in the detail that need to be scrutinised carefully through the consultation. But the ambition is right.

At Envision Education, we will continue to work closely with schools to place skilled, passionate SEND teaching assistants and support staff who make a real difference — whatever the policy landscape looks like.

If you'd like to talk through what these reforms might mean for your school's staffing and SEND support structure, we're always happy to have that conversation.