SEND Reform 2026: 13 key changes for school leaders to know

February 25, 2026

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After a long wait, the plans for SEND reform have finally been published. On the 23^rd of February, the consultation plans alongside the Schools White Paper went live.

The consultation will last for 12 weeks. After that, we’ll get the final plans the government has for how the SEND system will change over the next few years.

In this blog, we share an easy-to-digest summary of the key points from the SEND reform and unpick what that might mean for SEND pupils in schools.

The key 13 changes to the SEND system

The consultation document includes several ways the government plans to reform the SEND system over the next ten years.

Although it is important to remember that the timeline for implementing the proposed changes exceeds the current government’s term, meaning new parliamentary leadership, a different party in power can change how these plans are carried out.

We’ve sifted through the Schools White Paper and the SEND reform consultation with a fine-tooth comb to collate the 13 key proposed changes to the SEND system.

 

Here’s an overview of what changes you can expect as a school leader.

1. A new structure of SEND support
2. Individual Support Plans (ISPs)
3. Inclusion Bases
4. Specialist Provision Packages
5. Experts at Hand
6. Funding proposals
7. Workforce and training
8. National Inclusion Standards
9. The SEND Code of Practice
10. New areas of SEND need
11. Best Start Family Hubs and early years
12. School and SEND groups
13. Accountability and oversight

The vision behind the SEND reform

This is a 12-week consultation, open until mid-May 2026. As with the Ofsted reforms, some detail will likely shift before the final version is published, but the overall direction is unlikely to change beyond recognition.

The core idea behind the SEND reform is one education system, not two.

The government wants children with SEND to be supported in their local mainstream school wherever possible, with specialist settings available for those with complex needs.

The SEND system hasn’t been functional for a long time. Arguably, it’s never been fit for purpose.

 

With some significant figures to highlight the need for change:

• The number of EHCPs has doubled since 2014
• High needs funding has increased by 87% over the past six years
• The outcomes for SEND pupils remain the lowest of all groups, and by a staggering margin
• The proportion of pupils in special schools is the highest it’s ever been for 50 year

The current SEND system isn’t functional, let alone effective, for pupils, families, schools or local authorities.

1. A new structure of SEND support

The old SEND structure

The existing SEND support model unintentionally runs on two tracks.

There’s SEN Support at school level, and then the statutory EHCP for children with more complex needs.

In practice, the gap between the two has become difficult to navigate, with families and schools often seeking EHCPs because SEN Support hasn’t been able to open the doors to access additional funding or resources on its own.

Schools commonly use the 3 waves of intervention model for structuring their SEND registers. Although this was introduced in the 2000s for the Primary National Strategy, it’s not mentioned in the current SEND Code of Practice, which champions the Graduated Approach (assess, plan, do, review), lots of schools still structure their SEND support as:

Wave 1: Quality First Teaching

Wave 2: Time-limited intervention programmes

Wave 3: Specialist intervention or external support

 

The new SEND structure 2026

The proposed model introduces four distinct layers of support. Here’s a brief breakdown of what each layer in the new SEND structure covers.

The Universal Offer

This is the baseline for every mainstream school, college and early years setting.

This covers adaptive teaching, inclusive environments, early identification of needs, and strong family relationships. Every setting is expected to meet this as a minimum baseline. It’s similar to the ‘old’ quality first teaching and will be underpinned by Ofsted’s inclusion framework.

 

Targeted Support

For children with ongoing, commonly occurring needs that go beyond everyday teaching.

Covering small group interventions, vocabulary pre-teaching or personalised learning materials, delivered within the mainstream classroom. No additional or formal SEND assessments or plans are needed to access this layer. It’s for children who need a boost to keep up or catch up with their age-related peers.

 

Targeted Plus Support

Circling back round to familiar terminology for those who remember ‘school action’ and ‘school action plus’.

The targeted plus support layer of support is designed for children who need more specialist input to thrive in mainstream.

This brings in professionals and experts from outside the school, such as speech and language therapists and educational psychologists, and may involve time in an Inclusion Base within the setting.

Linking to other proposed changes, this is where the government plans for groups of schools to work together to make this possible, combining resources and expertise to achieve it collectively, not as individual schools.

 

Specialist Support

The final layer of the new SEND structure is designed for children with the most complex needs. This SEND support will require an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) to access it.

In the proposed new SEND system, EHCPs will be tied to nationally defined Specialist Provision Packages (we dig into these further on).

2. Individual Support Plans (ISPs)

Every school will have a statutory duty to create a digital Individual Support Plan for any child with identified SEND. There’s no need for a formal SEND diagnosis for pupils to have an ISP.

Your school might use a format like a one-page profile to highlight barriers to learning and support strategies.

You also might use the following terminology for what an ISP is likely to replace:

• Individual Education Plan (IEP)
• Pupil passport
• SEN support plans
• SEND provision map (although these can often be costed provision maps and might have different information on them)

The ISP is aimed to be a consistent format for this information (although it won’t be one page long). It’ll be in a digital format, although we’re unsure how this will work as yet, aiming to make smoother transitions between all education phases possible.

 

An Individual Support Plan will include information on:

• Barriers to learning
• Day-to-day provision
• Reasonable adjustments
• Intended outcomes

The ISP will be:

• Co-produced with parents
• Reviewed at least annually (by the SENDCo and class teacher)
• With the child at transition points between settings and educational phases
• A standardised format across all education providers

For children with the most complex needs, the EHCP will continue to describe their statutory entitlements. The ISP describes what’s happening in school day-to-day.

 

3. Inclusion Bases

The government is replacing the current mix of SEN units, resourced provision and pupil support units with a single term: Inclusion Bases.

There are two types of inclusion bases:

Support Bases

Support bases are commissioned and funded by the school or MAT to deliver targeted support

Specialist Bases

Whereas specialist bases will be commissioned and funded by the local authority to deliver specialist provision

The important movement of these ‘alternative and additional provisions’ is that both inclusion base types will sit within mainstream settings.

4. Specialist Provision Packages

The proposed changes explain that an independent expert panel will develop nationally defined, evidence-based Specialist Provision Packages.

These will underpin future EHCPs and aim to ensure consistency in what children across England are entitled to, regardless of which local authority they live in.

Under the proposed new system, only children who need the full package of support outlined in one of these Packages would be entitled to an EHCP. The details of how Specialist Provision Packages will be defined are still to be worked out by the expert panel.

There are no planned changes to EHCPs until 2030.

 

5. Experts at Hand

Experts at Hand is a new national service that brings education and health professionals directly into mainstream settings, including educational psychologists, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists.

The government’s intention is for these professionals to work with children rather than being tied up in assessment processes. Therefore, reducing the amount of admin-heavy tasks they currently experience and giving them more face-to-face time with children (although how this will be implemented hasn’t yet been expanded on).

An example shared in the SEND reform consultation is for an average primary school. The government have predicted they will receive an estimated 40 days (roughly) of specialist time per academic year by the end of 2028/29.

This would equate to less than 1 day per week. This isn’t huge numbers when you factor in the paperwork attached to each visit and the volume of children who need their support.

 

6. Funding proposals

The proposed additional funding for SEND support to schools is something that can’t be brushed over.

Here’s an overview of the funding that is mentioned in the SEND reform consultation, although schools in areas of higher need and deprivation will be the priority for the funding.

The figures below support initiatives to improve the SEND system, not necessarily pots of money that schools can readily apply for or directly access.

 

We’ll share more on the proposed funding for SEND reform when more is released.

• £1.6bn Inclusive Mainstream Fund from 2026/27, paid directly to schools, colleges and early years settings
• £1.8bn for the Experts at Hand service over three years
• £200m+ for national SEND training for all staff, available from September 2026
• £3.7bn capital investment to 2030 for Inclusion Bases, accessible buildings and new special school places
• £7bn more in total SEND spending compared to 2025/26 across the parliament

Some funding flows directly to schools. Other parts are commissioned through local authorities and Integrated Care Boards before reaching school level.

7. Workforce and training

From September 2026, all staff in early years (including private nurseries), schools and colleges will have access to a new national SEND and inclusion training programme, backed by over £200m over three years. Training will be developed with sector experts and adapted to each phase.

This training programme is intended to increase the baseline of SEND knowledge and expertise across all educational phases. It’s important to remember, this training will not be contextual, meaning school leaders will still have the responsibility to ensure staff are supported to support the pupils and community of your school.

The SENCO role is expected to shift, becoming more strategic and less administrative. The intention is that responsibility for inclusive practice sits across the whole school, not solely with the SENCO. Where necessary, legislation will be revised to reflect the changing role.

 

8. National Inclusion Standards

By 2028, the government plans to publish National Inclusion Standards, a digital library of evidence-based identification tools, interventions and guidance covering the full 0 to 25 system.

UK Research and Innovation is leading a £4m research project to improve identification of SEND, with outcomes expected to feed into the Standards by 2028.

The aim is a nationally consistent reference point for what good inclusive practice looks like across all layers of support.

 

9. The SEND Code of Practice

The SEND Code of Practice will be updated to reflect all these reforms, as it was created in 2014, and we have seen huge changes to education, health and social care systems since then.

A separate public consultation on the proposed changes will follow the current consultation on the SEND reforms, so the planned shape of the updated Code of Practice isn’t yet available.

 

10. The new areas of SEND need

 

As you’ll know, we currently have four broad areas of SEND need:

• Communication and Interaction
• Cognition and Learning
• Social, Emotional and Mental Health
• Sensory and Physical

The latest SEND reform has replaced these areas of need with five new areas of development:

• Executive Function
• Motor and Physical
• Sensory
• Speech, Language and Communication
• Social and Emotional

The shift towards the five areas of development moves away from diagnosis-led categories and towards practical, classroom-level descriptions that educators can respond to directly.

It’s assumed that the new training programme for SEND support will reflect these new areas of need and hopefully highlight the nuances between each new area of development across the different educational phases.

 

 

11. Best Start Family Hubs and early years

This part of the reform isn’t limited to school-based early years provision. The proposals cover all early years providers, including private, voluntary and independent nurseries, childminders and maintained nursery schools, as well as school-based nurseries.

Every Best Start Family Hub will have a dedicated SEND offer, led by a named SEND practitioner. The hubs are intended as a single front door for families, providing support before school entry, before a formal diagnosis, and before needs escalate.

The consultation document explains that over £200m is being invested over three years to deliver this, on top of the £700m already committed to the wider Family Hubs programme. A fast-track route to specialist provision is also being developed for children under five with the most complex needs, in partnership with the NHS.

 

12. School and SEND groups

Within three years, all schools will be expected to join a local SEND group. These groups will be expected to pool some funding, share specialist resources and work together to expand the support available across an area.

This is particularly important for delivering Targeted Plus support, the kind that a single school often can’t sustain on its own. The details of how groups will be structured and governed are still being developed.

 

13. Accountability and oversight

This is an area of proposed change with many parts. As a brief overview, here are the key points for school leaders to be aware of for increasing accountability and oversight of SEND progress and provision in your setting:

• Schools will be required to publish an Inclusion Strategy showing how all inclusion funding is deployed
• Ofsted’s inspection framework will assess inclusion in all settings, this is already live
• The Children’s Commissioner will be given a new remit to independently monitor the progress of SEND reforms
• The Ofsted and CQC Area SEND inspection framework will be updated to reflect clarified roles for local authorities and ICBs
• Investment in mediation to reduce reliance on the Tribunal as a first resort

 

 

What this means for your school

This is a ten-year programme. It will run beyond this Parliament and may be shaped by more than one government before it’s complete. The consultation is open now, legislation takes time, and several of the frameworks described here are still being developed.

What’s clear is that inclusive practice is becoming the baseline expectation for every mainstream school in England. The Ofsted inspection framework already reflects this, training is fuelling knowledge for this, and funding is being focused on making inclusive schools an expectation for all.

IQM works with schools to recognise those that meet the Inclusive School Evaluation Framework standards. If you’re looking to secure an inclusive practice baseline across your school, get in touch with our team for your FREE school information pack.

 

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What school leaders need to know about the 2026 schools white paper

Inclusion and AI: Is this finally the end of ‘one-size-fits-all’ teaching?

The Children’s Commissioner Report 2025: What this means for mainstream inclusion