Dear colleagues,
Every day, you give children more than an education. You give them belief in themselves, a sense of belonging, and the knowledge and skills for the lives they’ll go on to lead.
The children in our classrooms today will shape the society of tomorrow. They are growing up in a rapidly changing world with new opportunities and challenges – and our education system must equip them to step out confidently into their futures.
A vision for change
Today, I’m publishing our schools white paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, alongside a consultation on SEND reform, Putting Children and Young People First. This is our shared plan and the next chapter for our education system – shaped by children, professionals, parents, your expertise, and our common purpose.
These plans build on the progress that has been made over the last three decades, led by your dedication and hard work, and driven by a shared determination to go further to deliver for the children that our system is still not serving.
We know that the factors affecting children’s lives and learning do not start and stop at the school gate. As services have been stripped away, we also know that education staff are the people parents turn to for help. You have stepped up time and again for children and families, but we want to relieve this pressure on you. We will tackle child poverty, rebuild children’s social care and early family support, and revitalise the best of Sure Start with our new Best Start Family Hubs. We will explore collective accountability for children’s outcomes across local areas, recognising that this is a joint responsibility not one to be shouldered by education alone.
Through three key shifts, we will make sure every child has access to a better education.
- We will take children’s experience of education from narrow to broad, delivering a knowledge-rich and broad curriculum, improving transitions between phases of education, providing an enrichment entitlement for every child and enabling breadth through accountability.
- We will ensure children who have been sidelined by the system for too long are included. We will provide stretch and challenge for all no matter their starting point, deprivation funding will be targeted to boost outcomes for the most disadvantaged children, and we are launching two place-focused missions to provide a blueprint for national change. Our ambitious SEND reforms will introduce a new SEND support model, set out in further detail below.
- We will move from children and communities withdrawing from schools to engaging with them. We will introduce a new pupil engagement framework, support schools to improve behaviour, attendance and parental engagement, and give parents a clearer view of their child’s education.
Transforming support for children with SEND
The current SEND system isn’t working. Too many families fight exhausting battles for support. Too many children wait too long for the help they need, and don’t achieve the outcomes they could. Too many schools are trying their best for children but need wider, coordinated support.
So, we will work together to change things. Children who can thrive in mainstream education should have every opportunity to do so. Those who need specialist provision should receive it without delay.
All children will benefit from a strengthened universal offer of high-quality, inclusive teaching in every mainstream setting, with early identification of needs and evidence-based support as standard. We are introducing National Inclusion Standards and updating the SEND Code of Practice to clarify best practice for every mainstream nursery, school and college. This strengthening of mainstream practice will be backed by £1.6 billion in a new Inclusive Mainstream Fund over three years.
We’re introducing a new layered model – Targeted, Targeted Plus and Specialist – so children get help including from health and care services earlier. Children can move straight to the level of support that matches their needs, including Targeted Plus or Specialist, without delay.
Targeted and Targeted Plus support will enable schools to deliver interventions such as small group teaching and to draw on a new service called Experts at Hand. This new service will be developed in every local authority area between the local authority, school and ICBs to make access to education and health professionals, such as speech and language therapists or educational psychologists, readily available to schools. This service will also enable new partnerships between special schools and alternative provision and mainstream settings to fund short-term placements or enable specialist teachers to work with and upskill staff in mainstream settings. This will be backed by £1.8 billion over three years.
For children with complex needs we will end the postcode lottery for support by introducing evidence-based Specialist Provision Packages, which will underpin Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). These packages will be established in legislation and designed by an independent expert panel of education, health and care experts. They will ensure new national standards in EHCPs.
We are investing £7.3 billion to strengthen inclusion across the system. This includes:
- £1.6 billion for an Inclusive Mainstream Fund;
- Over £200 million for national workforce training;
- £1.8 billion for Experts at Hand to bring expert education and health support into mainstream settings; and
- £3.7 billion through to 2030 to create tens of thousands of new specialist places, including inclusion bases.
We will hold local partnerships, including local authorities and health services, to account – because this funding must deliver for children.
These changes will be carefully phased to make sure we get it right. Over the next three years we will build the system with this new investment and support coming online, and new legislation not commencing until September 2029. Until legislation commences, the current system will stay in place.
From birth to working life
We’re investing an additional £200 million in Best Start Family Hubs so families can access support right from the start.
We know that young people with SEND are less likely to go on to post-16 than their peers. We are strengthening the focus on supporting children and young people with SEND to prepare for adult life, helping them go on to achieve the best outcomes in employment and independent living.
Raising standards and strengthening engagement
We’re reforming the curriculum, building the knowledge and skills children need for life. We will be consulting on new programmes of study later this year.
We’ll publish a Pupil Engagement Framework to help schools measure whether children feel they belong, feel safe, and are engaging at school – as over 60% of schools do today. Children who are engaged are children who achieve. We’re also equipping you with the tools and guidance you need to improve behaviour and expanding our attendance and behaviour hubs. And we’re reforming performance measures, including to recognise progress of pupils with low prior attainment and expanding targeted support for schools with the lowest overall attainment levels.
Thanks to your hard work and support, we’ve seen the biggest improvement in attendance in over a decade, with children in school for 5 million more days last year. But we want to go further. We’re building on attendance with AI-powered insights, expanded mentoring, and better coordination with health and family services.
Investing in you
We’re delivering 6,500 more expert teachers across secondary and special schools and colleges, funding schools to improve maternity pay, and giving every teacher access to high-quality professional development. For headteachers, we’re introducing new mentoring and piloting retention incentives where they’re needed most.
We’re moving over time towards all schools joining or forming school trusts, which will collaborate across communities to raise standards, with clear roles for local authorities alongside them. Local authorities and area-based partnerships will be able to establish trusts.
Through our RISE programme, we’re supporting every school to learn from best practice. We’re launching “test, learn and grow” challenges, inviting you to come forward with innovations. We will harness the capacity of AI, building on existing developments from attendance reports to lesson planning tools. We’re building the data infrastructure, so insights flow seamlessly to teachers, leaders, and parents.
What I’m asking of you
We can’t do this without you. We’ll keep listening, keep working together, and roll out these reforms in a phased and manageable way.
Join me for a live online event on Wednesday 25 February at 16:00-17:00 to hear more about the white paper and ask your questions. Sign up for updates on our planned events for those working in education, focused on the proposed SEND reform for each phase of the 0 to 25 journey.
What happens in our schools today shapes our society tomorrow. The children in your classrooms will become the inventors, artists, engineers, and parents of the future. They can shape a stronger, fairer world if we give them the opportunities to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to thrive throughout life.
We want to hear your thoughts on our SEND consultation and white paper.
We will share more with you over the coming months, unpacking what areas of reform mean for you in more detail.
Thank you.
Further information:
Have your say and more information
Visit gov.uk/dfe/send-reform
• Every Child Achieving and Thriving Schools White Paper
• SEND Consultation
• Further information and fact sheets
