There was a clear sense of shared relief among politicians, officials and the sector as the Department for Education got over the hurdle of finally announcing its special educational needs and disabilities reform proposals this week.
But will it prove to be short-lived?
There are certainly major changes that need to be digested: new individual statutory plans with layered support for all pupils with SEND; education, health and care plans (EHCPs) being retained, but perhaps radically reformed; and new national inclusion standards for schools to adhere to.
For those who have been tracking SEND policy for a decent chunk of time, there was also a sense of deja vu as, once again, much of the implementation is very much in the future.
Experience tells us this is a world where the promise of tomorrow has never quite arrived.
If reforms are introduced in 2029 as planned, it will be 10 years after the last government ordered a SEND review aimed at resolving the same challenges we are still grappling with now.
Four years into the future is a long time in politics and in the lives of children.
SEND reform challenge must not be underestimated
Of course, there are reasons for stepping carefully. It could be argued that the DfE has listened to warnings that schools could not simply flick a switch and move to a transformed system of mainstream inclusion.
It’s true, also, that the scale of the challenge facing the government in delivering a reformed system should not be underestimated.
It has faced warnings that, without major changes, current spending on SEND provision risked bankrupting councils - while any move to curtail spending by reducing the rights of children would result in a political backlash at a time when it could ill afford one.
So there is little surprise, perhaps, that there is a sense of satisfaction from those around the DfE that, in that difficult context, they have been able to come up with a way forward that provides some financial certainty for councils by writing off most of their deficits, while also creating a rationale and plan for genuinely improving the system for young people.
But there are serious tests to come. The success of delivering its plan will firstly depend on convincing MPs that it is not going to cost them their seat.
SEND crisis is a capacity crisis
Will the retention of reformed EHCPs be enough to achieve this? There is certainly some detail in the plans that will concern parents of children with SEND: EHCPs being reviewed at the end of primary school for children who are currently in Year 2 or younger, moving to a system where these plans are underpinned by national support packages, and the reach of SEND tribunals being reduced, are all likely to be contested.
The government has framed the current system as not working because it has become an adversarial one where parents have had to fight for support. But many believe this risks treating a symptom as the problem.
Talk to those who work in schools, and many will say the SEND crisis has really been a capacity crisis. I think at a political level, until now, it has also been a status crisis.
Deficits have gone up and failings have occurred because the state system at council and school level has not had the capacity to meet need.
Young people with SEND have been let down by a system that was designed to say that, at an individual level, their needs mattered and must be delivered upon. But at the same time, it has not done enough at a national, regional or local level to ensure that this happens.
Tricky job of rebalancing the system
The government now has the tricky job of rebalancing this - moving to a system where national expectations are in place to meet need, but without making parents feel their child’s voice and needs are no longer being properly regarded in the process.
To do this, it will need to take both the schools sector and parents with it in the next few years.
Will inclusion funding be sufficient to deliver meaningful change? How much workload will the new system create and, crucially, will the lived experience of families and children with SEND show them that mainstream schools can meet their needs?
The government has acted to improve the capacity of the system through plans for training, inclusion bases and perhaps most significantly through its investment in ”experts at hand” for schools.
But as a parent of a child with special needs, I have a particular concern not just regarding these planned SEND reforms but also the wider policy discussion. That is the need for more recognition of the value of special schools - their staff and their pupils.
Sense of community in special schools
Much of the mention of special schools in the DfE’s consultation is on how they can do more to support mainstream schools, which makes absolute sense and is something leaders in the sector have called for.
But there is a line I have seen repeatedly in the debate around the need for more inclusion in mainstream schools, which is that more children should be able to attend a local school with local friends rather than facing a long bus journey elsewhere.
This might seem like a laudable and uncontroversial ambition, but there is something about the bleak way in which the alternative is framed that troubles me.
It might seem silly to have to say it, but special school pupils have friends in their classes, too, and there is a sense of community among special school families who have shared lived experiences in what can otherwise feel like an isolating world.
This is something that I think is missing in how we think about the system as we look to reform it - I really hope this changes.
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