Major SEND System Overhaul: New Legal Rights for Children with Additional Needs
Radical government plans to reform the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system have received a cautious but welcome response from leading charities and education experts. The proposals aim to address a system currently described as broken, where more than a million children with additional needs lack legally enforceable rights to support.
New Legal Requirements for Schools
Under the new plans outlined in the government's schools white paper Every Child Achieving and Thriving, all schools will face a new legal requirement to create individual support plans (ISPs) for every child with SEND. This represents a significant expansion of legal entitlements for children who currently have no guaranteed support framework.
Education, health and care plans (EHCPs) will be retained and improved under the proposals, offering a wider legal entitlement beyond the ISP for children requiring more intensive or complex support than schools can routinely provide. However, by 2035, only children with the most complex needs will qualify for EHCPs, marking a fundamental shift in how support is allocated.
Education Secretary's Vision
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson stated: "The SEND system designed 10 years ago for a small number of children is now broken. These plans will take children with SEND from sidelined and excluded to seen, heard and included. Every child will get the brilliant support they deserve, when they need it, as routine and without a fight."
Charity Responses: Cautious Optimism
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, expressed optimism: "We welcome the white paper, and are optimistic that it contains the foundation of a successful new approach to education and support for children with SEND."
Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza acknowledged family anxieties while highlighting the opportunity: "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."
Key Concerns and Implementation Challenges
Amanda Allard of the Council for Disabled Children welcomed the vision but raised accountability concerns: "We welcome the scale of vision contained in the white paper which has the potential to create an education system that fully values children and young people with additional needs and their families. At the same time, we know parents will be concerned to understand how accountability will work."
James Watson-O'Neill, chief executive of national charity Sense, emphasized implementation challenges: "This shows a real commitment to fix the broken SEND system. The commitment to expanding legal entitlements through new Individual Support Plans (ISPs) is a positive step. If implemented effectively, this could shift the system towards more local and consistent support for children. Early intervention must remain central, specialist schools must continue to play an integral role, and families must retain real choice."
Specialist Support Requirements
Craig Brown, head of education at the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), highlighted specific needs: "We need the right tailored support for every child with vision impairment, whether that's in mainstream schools or in specialist settings, with support plans that have legal status available to those who need them. There are an estimated 35,000 children and young people with vision impairment in England – it's vital that their needs are explicitly addressed. We know that 70 per cent of children with vision impairment are in mainstream education. Without enough specialist teachers, it will be impossible to turn improvements on paper into reality in the classroom."
The National Deaf Children's Society echoed concerns about specialist staffing, with head of policy Justin Cooke stating: "The commitment to put specialist expertise within reach of every mainstream school is potentially transformative. For this investment to deliver for deaf children, it must mean training and employing more qualified Teachers of the Deaf. This White Paper could mark a turning point for deaf children, but we need to study the detail. Specialist provision must be strengthened, not diluted, and families must retain confidence that their children's rights and support will be protected."
The proposed reforms represent the most significant overhaul of the SEND system in a decade, promising to transform support for over a million children while raising important questions about implementation, accountability, and specialist resource allocation that will determine their ultimate success.
