The special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system has been in desperate need of reform for some time. Since the 2014 Children and Families Act, the system has become so dysfunctional that it is unclear whether it has been influenced more by Franz Kafka or MC Escher.

It is impenetrable for far too many families, and both they and their children are failed in too great a number as a result.

So it is heartening to see the government’s SEND review Green Paper recognising, if not quite apologising for, the failings of the system.

But what of the actual proposals, of which there are many? How will they drive forward the reform that is so desperately required? How will they secure the change that children with SEND and their families deserve?

Here are a few thoughts on some of the aspects of the Green Paper that stand out, from a special-school leadership perspective.

The SEND review Green Paper: the key policies

Boosting capacity 

A focus on building special-school capacity is of critical importance: quite simply, there are not enough places to meet demand.

This is a crisis that has not been alleviated due to the government’s steadfast attachment to policy priorities such as the free schools programme.

If this problem is to be addressed, as the Green Paper suggests, it will need a far more imaginative and flexible response, informed by far more accurate pupil projection data, than we have seen previously. 

Only then are we likely to see fewer special schools full to capacity 18 months in advance of admission.

Funding

The focus in the Green Paper on the way in which special schools are funded is of vital importance, and necessary to resolve the huge variances in financial resources available to schools to meet the educational requirements of children with comparable levels of complexity.

However, change here will need to be approached with caution.

As the review itself acknowledges, there is significant “challenge and complexity” in embarking on this work, but for too long location has been too great an influence on how much funding schools receive.

This may be a big step towards creating a more equitable national funding system, but its success must not be predicated on a reduction in expenditure. Instead, we need a focus on generating a better impact from the money that is required.

Standards 

A recognition of the need to better codify what the system should offer, as suggested by the new national SEND standards, is welcome.

The system is currently hampered by far too much inconsistency - and this can lead to a postcode lottery of opportunity that has immediate impacts and lifelong consequences.

However, significant thought needs to be given to how we will secure the distribution of expertise necessary to support the raising of the mainstream complexity threshold that will be required.

Thought, too, needs to be given to how we find the right teachers for specialist provision. For years, the specialist sector has reported the highest proportion of temporarily filled or vacant posts, and yet there is still no plan, either here or in the White Paper, to address this particular workforce issue.

The academies question

Building a system that promotes the notion of a community of schools working in partnership to serve a community of children sits at the heart of affecting the changes necessary within the SEND system.

However, the move towards all schools becoming academies, however they are defined or structured, is not one that will automatically secure this change. The failings of the SEND system are not just structural, but also cultural: a consequence of a lack of value being applied to those who need to be valued most.

As such, it is hard to see how academisation will improve things, unless this process is accompanied by government prioritising cultural change at the heart of the education system.

A cross-sector approach 

This may, in part, be where the proposed local SEND partnerships can help. By locating the solution to the problems within the local community, it may be that those communities can prioritise the changes that local evidence bases determine are required.

However, to do this well, we will need a significant shift in culture and process, and, for many, a total reconceptualisation of what effective co-production looks like.

A move towards a low-ego, high-impact approach to change management will be required in order to build the enduring partnerships necessary for this to be successful.

More broadly, the recognition within the review of the need to build collective responsibility across the system is important, not least because the distribution of expectation and accountability across education, health and social care is uneven.

However, this alone will not resolve the deep social inequalities that affect people with learning disabilities and have long-reaching impacts across all aspects of their lives and those of their families.

A chance to restart we must seize

In the Green Paper there is an ambition that services and families alone cannot realise; one that requires a broad coalition across all parts of society if real change is to be affected and real good is to be done.

However, for all of the well-intentioned ambition, this still feels like a journey being steered by finance rather than a moral imperative.

The emphasis sits too greatly on the need to secure financial sustainability, rather than seeing financial sustainability as being the consequence of successful policy.

But the review does create a space in which the conversation can restart to build a renewed focus on accountability and opportunity, and to seek more equal and enduring partnerships in the best interests of children and families.

But that will require meaningful change, not just in the systems and processes but in the cultures and behaviours.

This is a change that is more likely to be secured if we all commit ourselves fully to the consultation and process of reform that follows.

Simon Knight is joint headteacher at Frank Wise School in Oxfordshire, a special school for children aged 2-19