For years, many of us leading inclusive schools have felt like we were trying to hold together a system that everyone knew was creaking but few were prepared to confront.
The previous government talked a lot about standards, attendance and behaviour but did not address the reality that the special educational needs and disabilities system had become financially unsustainable, legally adversarial and deeply frustrating for families and schools alike.
This government has at least decided to tackle the problem. The White Paper and associated funding announcements represent the most serious attempt in a decade to reset mainstream inclusion.
Around £8 billion of additional investment into SEND and inclusion over the spending period is a significant commitment. It recognises something that many of us have been saying for years: you cannot expect schools to deliver inclusion on a shrinking budget.
The focus on strengthening mainstream capacity matters enormously, too. If more children are to succeed in their local schools, those schools need the expertise, staffing and structures to support them.
The tone is also different. Inclusion is increasingly being described as part of the standards agenda rather than something that sits in tension with it. All of this is welcome.
Improving SEND support
But having cautious optimism is not the same as assuming that the job is done. What will determine whether this becomes genuine reform rather than another cycle of announcements is what happens next. To my mind, there are five things that need to happen.
1. Accountability
The first thing the government will need to get right is accountability. Schools respond to what the system measures.
If accountability focuses almost entirely on attainment metrics while inclusion sits somewhere in the background, behaviour will not change.
Schools that invest time and resources in keeping pupils in lessons should see that effort reflected in how they are judged.
2. Inclusion
Another test will be how the idea of inclusion spaces in every school is implemented.
Done well, these spaces can help pupils to regulate and return to learning quickly. But a room on a floor plan does not make a school inclusive.
In the wrong culture, it simply becomes a place that allows pupils to be quietly removed from lessons.
What matters is the quality of practice, the expertise of the staff and the expectation that the classroom remains the central place of learning.
3. Sustainable funding
Funding also remains a real concern. Even with additional investment, school budgets remain extremely tight.
Any policy that effectively removes money from schools will inevitably affect the most vulnerable pupils first. Unfunded or partially funded pay rises are a good example.
Schools want to pay staff fairly, but when those costs are not fully covered, leaders are forced to find the money elsewhere.
In inclusive schools, that often means reducing the support disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND rely on most. If government is serious about inclusion, national pay decisions and wider funding policies cannot quietly undermine it.
Trusts and local authorities need confidence to invest in specialist staff, professional development and early intervention without fearing that support will disappear at the next government spending review. Inclusive schools should not be placed at a financial disadvantage for keeping children in their community schools.
4. Rebuilding trust
The system will also need to rebuild trust with families.
Any changes to plans and processes must reassure parents and carers that support will be timely and reliable.
If families feel their rights are being diluted rather than strengthened, the adversarial nature of the system will simply continue.
5. Finding what works
Finally, policymakers should spend time looking closely at the schools that already make inclusion work.
Across the country, there are schools combining high expectations with deep inclusion. They have invested in teacher development, adaptive teaching and relational practice.
They have reduced exclusions while improving outcomes. Their experience should shape how reform is delivered nationally.
Cautious optimism
This government has taken a step that its predecessor avoided. It has acknowledged the scale of the SEND challenge and committed serious funding to addressing it.
The next step is making sure that reform reaches classrooms. Inclusion cannot simply be announced and partially funded. It has to be embedded in accountability, supported by sustained investment and expected in every school.
If those pieces come together, we have a chance to move towards something the system has long struggled to achieve: schools where support is timely, families feel confident and inclusion is the norm rather than the exception.
That is something worth being cautiously optimistic about.
Vic Goddard is executive principal and CEO of Passmores Cooperative Learning Community in Essex. He is a founding member of the Headteachers’ Roundtable
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