Special educational needs system to be overhauled in England

Only children with the most complex special educational needs will be eligible for education, health and care plans (EHCPs) from 2035 in England, the government has said.

Pupils who already have the plans will be able to keep them until at least September 2029, when children will start to have their support entitlements reassessed at the end of primary school and GCSEs.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said plans would make mainstream schools more inclusive and "deliver better life chances for children".

The National Education Union said the government "must not put more expectations on schools without real additional resources" and that "the funding currently announced is not enough".

The government announced changes to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system as part of its broader Schools White Paper, a policy document that lays out plans for legislation.

It announced it would spend £4bn to make mainstream schools more inclusive for children with SEND over the next three years.

That includes £1.6bn going directly to schools, early years settings and colleges and £1.8bn to provide more access to experts like specialist teachers and speech and language therapists.

The looming question in the run-up to the White Paper was how the government would handle the growing demand for EHCPs - the legal documents that identify children's needs and set out what support they should receive - and the rising costs of a system that has been called broken by the National Audit Office.

Under the changes, those who already have an EHCP will be able to keep them until they finish whichever phase of education they are in, at which point – starting from September 2029 - they'll be reassessed.

For example, pupils who are now in Year 2 will undergo the reassessments when they reach Year 6.

The new system will mean all pupils with SEND have a new type of document called an individual support plan (ISP), which will be drawn up by schools in consultation with parents and set out the child's needs, as well what support they should have.

Only children receiving specialist support will be eligible for EHCPs.

Speaking at a school in Peterborough on Monday, Phillipson said the new system would "take away that fight that so many parents have had over such a long period of time to get the support that should be much more readily available to their children".

She said the plans would take children with SEND "from sidelined and excluded to seen, heard and included".

The Schools White Paper also set out plans to address other key issues in the sector.

It contains measures to tackle the recruitment and retention of teachers, for example, by improving maternity pay and introducing financial incentives for head teachers.

It said a new attendance target would bring about "the fastest rate of improvement in a decade", and that new initiatives in the North East and coastal areas would "transform outcomes" for white, working class children.

The Office for Budget Responsibility forecast in November's budget that the gap between government funding given to councils in England to spend on SEND, and their actual spending, would reach £6bn by 2028-2029.

Luke Sibieta, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the government's short-term plan to build up SEND provision in mainstream schools while leaving EHCPs in place would be "expensive".

"While the government builds up capacity for the transition to a new system, they must also contend with large and growing spending pressures in the existing system," he said.

The Conservative shadow education secretary, Laura Trott, said ministers "still have not been clear how they will plug the £6bn black hole", and that parents needed more clarity.

"The white paper includes five principles, three tiers and seven packages, but no clear explanation of who qualifies for which tier, what support will be provided, what outcomes are expected, or what funding will follow the child," she said.

Liberal Democrats education spokeswoman, Munira Wilson, said the government was taking "solid steps" to address the system, but that "the devil will be in the detail".

Teaching unions welcomed efforts to reform the SEND system, but said plans would need sufficient funding to work.

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said the funding announced alongside the White Paper was "not enough", while Matt Wrack, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said it was "barely a drop in the bucket".

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said success also depended on "availability of support services", and Pepe Di'Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the government needed to be aware of teachers' workload.