I’m optimistic about the government’s schools and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) White Paper, due in early 2026. Much is already written, but there’s still more to resolve in response to the SEND crisis.

Over the past decade we’ve built collateral in systemic understanding of children with SEND, and in the past two years we’ve turned a corner with the renewed focus on inclusivity.

But there is an extraordinary amount of systemic debt (literally in the case of local authorities) in the way our children and young people continue to pay the price of poor decision making and unaligned policy thinking.

Small wins in SEND support

Let’s look at the many small wins thus far. The sector is putting inclusion front and centre. So many school and trust leaders endeavour to meet the needs of their children and young people as a priority, deliberately building the distinction between equity (giving more support to those who need it) and equality (treating everyone the same).

We can be grateful for the increasingly skilled Sendco community. We can celebrate a workforce of SEND leaders, with examples of local networks and collaborations. We are gradually building a stronger research platform in what works in special and mainstream, to achieve the evidence base we need.

Curriculum pathways that have been good for young people with complex needs have been developed on a school-by-school basis. We can now build these systematically.

Local areas have developed clusters to put in place shared funding models for early release of money, rather than waiting for stalled education, health and care plans (EHCPs). This has been an effective innovation.

We’ve learned so much about what barriers to learning are, and how to remove them. We’ve recognised the need to rethink how teachers can be confident in teaching children who learn differently, with inclusive pedagogy fundamental to good practice.

Education debt

This is all strong collateral - assets already in the system that the White Paper must build on. And that brings me to tackling education debt.

It’s a familiar list: cash-strapped local authorities; the medical model still needed to access funding for the social model that schools endeavour to operate; escalation in the numbers struggling to come into school, to access the curriculum; schools losing staff. Once we could expect regular speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and educational psychology; post-pandemic, these services are rarer than the proverbial hen’s teeth.

And there’s the motivational challenge. Leaders who bring more children with additional needs into their schools also disadvantage themselves with the extra costs of change, extra staff investment and a specific challenge with the new inspection framework. It’s an enormous step forward for Ofsted to focus on the experience of the most vulnerable, yet there remains an underlying paranoia that inclusion brings lower standards.

To reach the “expected standard” under the new inspection framework, pupils must “achieve well” and have attainment and progress scores “broadly in line with national averages”. This places a ceiling on the attainment of inclusive schools operating in disadvantaged areas. This perverse incentive must be addressed.

Five principles for an inclusive system

So, what can we expect from the White Paper?

The government has set out five principles to create an inclusive system with better outcomes for children with SEND: early intervention, local provision, fairness in school resourcing for support, effective evidence-based practice, and shared partnerships between education, health and care.

The most important thing to get right is being clear that inclusive mainstream is a true commitment to improving the experience of young people with SEND. Clearing a path to this requires alignment around equity in policy design.

We don’t need money and effort wasted in fuelling perverse incentives. We can’t have one expectation for behaviour or attendance and another for inclusion. Rather like the barriers to learning, we should break the barriers in the system.

Inclusive curriculum design

The curriculum review needs more work to align with the inclusive ambition we expect from the White Paper. Forcing students with complex needs to wait until post-16 for relevant entry level study is not inclusion by design.

To use a standard metaphor, the current curriculum is like a staircase: while the review suggests adding a few handrails (reducing GCSE content; adaptive teaching; an oracy framework), it fails to install the ramps that would allow every student to climb.

Without inclusive curriculum design, universal provision is harder to achieve and it will rely upon comprehensive and substantial investment in effective inclusive pedagogy training for the profession, both in ITT and CPD.

There will be substantial debate on any raising of thresholds, which will be a false economy without strong universal and targeted support. However, a more straightforward attempt to reduce bureaucracy with an EHCP that is agile, standardised and digitised would be helpful.

Finally, expectations of more for less are not sustainable. As one head told me this month, “an effective White Paper would allow leaders the freedom to do what’s best for pupils in their community. This currently requires too much bravery and not everyone possesses this or is rewarded for their efforts.” All this is in the gift of government.

The sector has demonstrated such imagination and innovation in a system designed not to be inclusive. Just imagine what we could do with an infrastructure that is.

Margaret Mulholland is the special educational needs and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders

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