Over a Million Kids with SEND to Receive Enhanced Support from Major School Reforms

MORE than a million children with special needs will gain new legal rights to classroom support under sweeping school reforms announced today.

The Education Secretary unveiled a major overhaul of the SEND system, promising a “radical expansion” in help for pupils with disabilities.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson unveiled a new schools white paper todayCredit: PA

At the heart of the shake-up is a new legal duty on to create Individual Support Plans – known as ISPs – for every child identified with SEND.

Currently, more than 70 per cent of children with additional needs in England have no legally enforceable entitlement to support.

This will change, with ISPs giving each child a personalised plan from a nationally set menu of support, such as sliteracy programmes, speech and language therapy, behavioural support and small-group teaching.

ISPs will cover children whose needs can be met in mainstream schools, while Education, and Care Plans (EHCPs) will remain for pupils requiring specialist or intensive provision beyond what schools can normally deliver.

The estimates the new approach will result in 300,000 fewer EHCPs.

Ministers say reforms will end a “one size fits all” system and make help available “without a fight”.
ISPs will be drawn up by and specialists who know the pupil best.

A funding package includes £1.6 billion to deliver targeted support, £3.7 billion to create more than 60,000 additional specialist places, and £1.8 billion for an “Experts at Hand” service to boost access to educational psychologists and other specialists.

An extra £200 million will fund training so teachers and support staff can better meet SEND needs in every classroom.

But the new arrangements will not wipe out existing council SEND deficits, which stand at a staggering £6.6 billion nationally.

Education Secretary said: “The SEND system designed ten years ago for a small number of children is now broken.

“Parents end up fighting tooth and nail for entitlements on paper that don’t see them getting additional support.

“Today’s plans will take children with SEND from sidelined and excluded to seen, heard and included.

“Every child will get the brilliant support they deserve, when they need it, as routine and without a fight.”

Children with EHCPs will also receive an ISP explaining how their support is delivered day to day.

Both EHCPs and ISPs will be digitised to cut bureaucracy and improve transparency for families.

A “triple lock” of transitional protections has been promised so that any child with a special school place in 2029 will keep it if they wish until they finish education.

No child currently in Year 3 or above will have to move from an EHCP to an ISP before the end of secondary school.

And where transitions do happen in future, ISPs will be in place beforehand to ensure there is no break in support.

Parents will continue to have access to the SEND Tribunal, retaining the right to appeal decisions about specialist provision packages and school placements.

Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said:“Families will understandably be anxious about what this moment of change will bring, but this is an opportunity to move to a system that acknowledges that every child, at some point in their lives, will require help and support.

“It’s an opportunity to rebuild trust with families and offer children greater ambition, instead of telling them they are the problem.

“Under these plans, no child should fear losing support.”