The government is preparing to set out its proposals to reform the system which supports disabled children and those with special educational needs (SEND) in the upcoming Schools White Paper.
These reforms need to address major systemic challenges:
- Overstretched services unable to meet growing demand
- Lengthening delays that prevent too many children from accessing timely support
- Families struggling to navigate a confusing and fragmented network of services.
The reforms must set out a clear path to a system that better serves children, families, and professionals. Central to this transformation must be a more inclusive mainstream education system.
However, schools, early years settings and colleges cannot be expected to deliver this transformation alone and with their current resources. Delivering the right support is a system-wide challenge that requires partners to work together across traditional service boundaries.
To consider how this can be done, the Council for Disabled Children hosted three roundtable workshops in the summer, in partnership with:
- Association of Directors of Children’s Services
- National Association of Special Schools
- Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
- Alliance for Youth Justice
- The Michael Sieff Foundation.
Each roundtable brought partners together to focus on a different perspective of systems change relating to:
- Special schools
- The health system
- The youth justice system.
You can read a summary of discussions at the roundtables here
Mainstream schools and early years settings must become more inclusive for disabled children and those with special educational needs. Achieving this requires radical changes across policy frameworks, including inspections, teacher training, curriculum design, and assessments.
However, all participants agreed that this, by itself, would be insufficient. A collaborative, multi-agency approach is essential to ensure that schools themselves are supported in meeting children’s diverse needs, while ensuring specialist provision for those requiring additional support is available.
A new approach to multi-agency support - the ‘team around the school’ model
Experts at the roundtables unanimously agreed that mainstream schools and early years settings must become more inclusive for disabled children and those with special educational needs. Achieving this requires radical changes across policy frameworks, including inspections, teacher training, curriculum design, and assessments.
However, all participants agreed that this, by itself, would be insufficient. A collaborative, multi-agency approach is essential to ensure that schools themselves are supported in meeting children’s diverse needs, while ensuring specialist provision for those requiring additional support is available.
This idea of ‘wrapping multi-agency support around schools’ kept re-merging. At its core this involves education providers, local authorities, the NHS, youth justice services, and other partners working together to enhance mainstream schools' capacity to meet a wide range of needs.
This might be through transferring knowledge through training programmes, providing ongoing guidance and quality assurance to help schools apply inclusive practices effectively. For some children, it will mean new models of delivering specialist interventions directly to students or groups within school settings.
All roundtables reinforced how co-production with children, young people, and their families must be central to any reforms. Parents and carers must be equal partners in shaping the new system, fostering trust and confidence.
Addressing structural challenges
Participants emphasised the need to learn from the Children and Families Act to remedy the current system where responsibilities are split across various agencies, leading to a lack of coordination, fragmentation, and even conflict. There must be clarity about what is expected of both education providers and system partners, especially local authorities and the NHS. This will need clear statutory requirements for collaboration, ensuring all partners work together to deliver integrated support.
There were different opinions on how this can be done, including through the creation of a single national outcomes framework for children with SEND, and establishing new pooled funding mechanisms to drive system-wide change.
Co-production and addressing inequality
All roundtables reinforced how co-production with children, young people, and their families must be central to any reforms. Parents and carers must be equal partners in shaping the new system, fostering trust and confidence.
The importance of explicit attention to inequalities in voice and access is also vital, ensuring that the perspectives of disadvantaged families are valued and embedded in decision-making at both the individual and system levels.
Workforce and resources planning
Implementing this model requires a sufficient specialist workforce to support mainstream provision. While it is a more efficient approach that allows specialists to have an impact on a higher number of children, where there are major gaps in the workforce, it cannot be implemented effectively.
Insights from individual roundtables
Special schools
Special schools play a critical role in this model due to their concentration of specialist knowledge and expertise. They can provide direct support to children with complex needs and contribute to the broader system by sharing their expertise with mainstream schools. Clear expectations for special schools' contributions to inclusion partnerships are essential.
Find out more in our special schools briefing
Youth justice
Disabled children and those with SEN are disproportionately represented in the youth justice system. A ‘team around the school’ approach can help address this by fostering collaboration between youth justice services, the police, social care, and health professionals. Early identification of needs, contextual understanding of behaviours, and tailored interventions can prevent escalation into crisis responses led by the criminal justice system.
Find out more in our youth justice briefing
Health
Making specialist health knowledge accessible in universal settings, based on the principle of connecting care for children has the potential to help address long-standing gaps in early identification and intervention, and help address the dramatic escalation in waiting times for children’s community services.
The role of Integrated Care Boards and provider trusts is crucial to this joined-up approach working effectively.
Principles for Reform
The SEND system reform roundtables underscored the urgent need for change and the potential of a new approach centred on collaboration, early intervention, co-production, shared accountability, and coordinated funding.
While significant work remains to design and implement this model, the principles established during these discussions provide a strong foundation for creating a system that better serves children, families, and professionals.