The REACh Consortium was the Department for Education’s (DfE) delivery partner for the SENDAP Change Programme. Led by PA Consulting, the team included the Council for Disabled Children, IMPOWER Consulting and Olive Academies.
As well as providing challenge and support to local areas with delivery of the changes, a key role for REACh was to capture ‘real-time’ learning and feed this back into policy development, as well as using the insights to develop implementation resources and illustrative examples for other local areas.
The Change Programme was a national initiative from DfE designed to test and refine reforms to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) support in local areas. It was initially established to take forward proposals in the SEND and AP Improvement Plan in 2023, and later reformulated and extended following the 2024 General Election to test further policy development around mainstream inclusion.
Insights and resources from the programme can be found on the What Works in SEND website.
You can also hear directly from those involved in delivering the SENDAP Change Programme as they reflect on their experiences, key learning and successes in the video below.
REACh have been excellent and it's possible the programme wouldn't have been as successful without them. They have shown dedication and commitment as well as prioritising relationships despite knowing they are only working with us temporarily.
Change Programme Local Area