The Reaching Excellence and Ambition for all Children (REACh) consortium is the delivery partner to the Department for Education (DfE), working with DfE and local areas to test the proposed changes to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) system, as set out in the government's improvement plan.
The Change Programme Vision for SEND and Alternative Provision
The government’s vision, published in March 2023, is to create a more inclusive society through a new national SEND and AP system underpinned by the right support at the right time and driven by high aspirations for all children and young people.
The new system is intended to:
- Fulfil children’s potential: disabled children and young people, and children and young people with special educational needs (or attending alternative provision) enjoy their childhood, achieve good outcomes and are well prepared for adulthood and employment;
- Build parents’ trust: parents and carers experience a fairer, easily navigable system (across education, health and care) that restores their confidence that their children will get the right support, in the right place, at the right time;
- Provide financial sustainability: local leaders make the best use of investment in the high needs budget to meet children and young people’s needs and improve outcomes, while placing local authorities on a stable financial footing.
The SEND and AP system will be integrated across health, education and care, with these local SEND and AP partnerships working together to produce an inclusion plan that sets out how they will work together to commission and deliver identified need so that children and young people and their parent carers will have access to inclusive support through a mainstream offer or in specialist settings including alternative provision.
The Change Programme
To test the best routes to achieving this vision, the government has created a Change Programme. There will be nine partnerships, one in each region, that will test and refine longer term, systemic reforms including developing and testing National Standards, strategic partnerships and inclusion plans, the proposed alternative provision service, and advisory tailored lists. The Change Programme will help to build a strong evidence base to inform future funding and legislation.
About the REACh Consortium
The Reaching Excellence and Ambition for all Children (REACh) consortium is the delivery partner to the Department for Education (DfE), working with DfE and local areas to test the proposed changes to the SEND and AP System, as set out in the improvement plan. The REACh consortium will work together with lived experience groups and experts within the SEND and AP sector to ensure that children, young people and families’ voices are at the heart of the programme.
The members of the REACh consortium are:
