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The much-anticipated schools and proposed herald ambitious plans for a shake-up of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision, while acknowledging today’s broken system and the bleak legacy of previous landmark . Unsurprisingly, given this history, the consensus among key stakeholders, pivotally the families at the heart of these reforms, has been to welcome the latest proposals with cautious optimism.

The government is calling for a total reset on how mainstream schools are equipped and how they collaborate with specialist services to facilitate all children and young people’s (CYP) right to ‘achieve” and ‘thrive’ in education. This commitment is underpinned by a collective approach – one that purportedly unites families, schools, local services and everyone working with CYP. A bold vision of improved academic standards, increased pupil engagement and sense of school belonging is clearly desirable but translating pledges to effective practice and positive pupil outcomes is not a surefire trajectory, as recent history shows.

The current white paper openly invites further discourse on what improved inclusion looks like in order to organically inform emerging guidance. In response to this call for comment, greater clarity over how all SEND families are effectively and sustainably brought in from the sidelines and valued as pivotal change agents would be welcomed. The key question is: Will the government’s fervent rhetoric translate to authentic collaboration and meaningful change for the many families previously failed? Considering that one in three pupils are identified with SEND during their schooling, it is remarkable that such a significant minority of the school community have hitherto lacked a strong voice at the table.

‘Will the government’s fervent rhetoric translate to authentic collaboration and meaningful change for the many families previously failed?’

Delivering on wellbeing or ‘all about the learning’?

Under the new proposals, high academic standards and inclusion are pitched as ‘two sides of the same coin’, justifying plans to update school performance measures to promote generic high standards and applaud mainstream schools that demonstrate substantive academic progress for pupils with the greatest barriers to learning. However, a holistic understanding of inclusive education should also embrace the universal conditions for generating optimal pupil wellbeing.

Previous evidence from families (Jayman et al., 2025) showed that the wellbeing needs of pupils with SEND were often overlooked due to schools’ principal concern with learning targets. Moreover, parents’ views on more inclusive support for their child were typically dismissed or ignored. CYP with SEND are at elevated risk of poor mental wellbeing; while there have been substantial increases in education, health and care plans (EHCPs) related to social, emotional and mental health needs and incidents of emotionally based school avoidance since the previous raft of reforms. Nonetheless, it seems that the thrust of new reforms rests on CYP’s ability to ‘achieve’ rather than ‘thrive’.

Although the overall importance of fostering a sense of school belonging is explicitly stated, this comes on the tail of academic aspirations for pupils in early years education through to key stage 4. Crucially, evidence-based recommendations for nurturing belonging and engagement in school settings for CYP with SEND are notably lacking. Worryingly, universal socioemotional learning approaches may be inappropriate and unintentionally create barriers to some SEND pupils; therefore, flexible, tailored and inclusive provision is imperative (Budden, 2025).

Placing families at the heart of meaningful reforms

The pledge to tackle barriers to learning and deliver ‘calm’, ‘safe’ classrooms with ambitious standards for behaviour and attendance is inevitably tied to pupils’ sense of belonging and wellbeing. Achieving universal improvements therefore requires greater parity in the attention given to pupils’ academic progress and their socioemotional development in schools.

Furthermore, the government must demonstrate its commitment to putting families’ voices at the heart of decision-making. This requires a seismic shift from parents feeling ignored to being treated as true partners in the SEND process – for example, by making valued contributions to the development of Individual Support Plans. Establishing Parent Carer Forums and a Pupil Engagement Framework to channel family voice is a tentative indication of progressive action with the hindsight of previous failures.

The government claims that improvements from this decade-long reform programme will be visible from the very start; while this remains to be seen, some cautious optimism for real change for SEND families is certainly warranted.

References

Buden, A. (2025, January 13). Social emotional learning (SEL) & neurodivergence. Children and Young People’s Mental Health Support Blog. ).

Jayman, M., Edmonds, S., & Gudbrandsen, M. (2004). Driving innovation to support pupils with SEND through co-production in education and research: Participatory action research with 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome families in England (2024). Behavioural Sciences, 15(1), 22. ��