Multi-billion plan for colleges unveiled as kids in Year 2 onwards to get new system

Children with special educational needs and disabilities will be better supported in mainstream schools under generational plans to boost inclusion in education

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Children with special educational needs and disabilities will be better supported in mainstream schools under generational plans to boost inclusion in education.

In what is billed as a decade-long reform programme, billions of pounds is being invested to make mainstream schools more inclusive. All mainstream teachers will be expected to be trained in SEND, while 60,000 new specialist places in mainstream settings will be created.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said kids with SEND have the “right to be included” in mainstream schools as she criticised the “soft bigotry of low expectations”.

In a major speech at Ormiston Bushfield Academy in Peterborough, the Cabinet minister said: “I reject the lie that high standards and inclusion can’t go together, that excellence is only possible for some children.

READ MORE: 13 bombshell changes to schools from new SEND support and classroom shake-up

“‘The soft bigotry of low expectations,’ as others have said. High standards and inclusion: It’s not one or the other. It is both – and standards aren’t high if some children are left to struggle alone.

“And inclusion means the right to be included in excellence, not mediocrity, but the status quo, ignores that truth and fails our children. I am for every child, and that means change.”

Under the most controversial aspect of the Schools White Paper, access to Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) will be reviewed and reserved for the children with the most complex needs.

Ms Phillipson vowed to “take away that fight that so many parents” often face in accessing an EHCP, which is a legal document setting out the support children with SEND are legally entitled to. But some parents fear their support will be weakened after fighting for so long to be granted an EHCP.

Children who are currently in Year 2 will be the first cohort to see their EHCPs reviewed when they go to secondary school in 2030, by which point a new inclusive mainstream system should’ve been built.

EHCPs will continue to rise until the reforms come in but are expected to start falling from 2030, with thousands fewer children expected to have one. Under a reformed system, all children will have access to new, digital Individual Support Plans (ISPs), which will have a legal element, with tiered ‘Targeted’ and ‘Targeted Plus’ support layers.

Schools will effectively be able to issue ISPs instantly as there is no need for a formal assessment or diagnosis. A separate higher tier, Specialist Provision Packages (SPP), will underpin EHCPs. By 2035, 4.7% of children are projected to have an EHCP, while an additional 15-20% of pupils will have an ISP.

An initial list suggests children with severe learning difficulties, autism or ADHD, who are deaf or have a visual impairment or those with a physical disability are among those who could be eligible for an SPP.

Ms Phillipson later told reporters the system will not be “diagnosis dependent” and an expert panel will work on the SPPs. “We’ll make sure that we’re addressing need, not addressing diagnosis or labels,” she said.

At a breakfast meeting with school leaders and charities in Downing Street on Monday, the Prime Minister referred to his own brother Nick, who died in 2024, who had struggled with learning difficulties and was “put to one side”.

Mr Starmer said “his life was very different from mine” because the system failed him. The PM said: “You can’t have high standards if you don’t have inclusion – they’re two sides of the same coin, and therefore we have to reform special educational needs.

“This is the issue that’s come up at Prime Minister’s Questions more than any other, from all political parties in all parts of the country. That is really unusual, and that tells you something about the fact that the system does not work as it is.”

The White Paper includes a raft of other reforms, including boosting maternity pay to help female teachers stay in the sector and cracking down on extortionate fees charged by independent special schools. National Inclusion Standards will also be introduced to ensure consistency across the system.

The DfE has promised to spend over £7billion more on SEND support. Some £4bn is going directly to reforms between 2026/27 to 2028/29. This includes £1.6bn to make mainstream schools more inclusive and £1.8bn towards an “experts at hand” service, made up of specialists such as speech and language therapists in every area.

A £3.7bn investment in capital funding – to fund 60,000 new specialist places in mainstream and specialist settings – has also been set out from 2025/26 to 2029/30. Assessments for the new system, which will be consulted on for 12 weeks, will start in September 2029 with no changes to current support before “at least September 2030”.

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, welcomed “the government’s ambition to reshape the SEND landscape to ensure it works for all children”.

But he said the announcement of the Inclusion Grant “is too small”, adding: “It only equates to a part-time teaching assistant for the average primary school and two teaching assistants for average secondary schools. This is not enough to make schools more inclusive.”

Matt Wrack, general secretary of NASUWT teachers’ union, said the new funding “is barely a drop in the bucket of the investment necessary to drive real improvement in schools”.

He added that there is “nothing in these proposals to indicate government plans to reduce class sizes, which teachers feel would substantially aid their efforts to improve inclusion”.

But Harry Quilter-Pinner, executive director at IPPR, said: “EHCPs were only ever intended for exceptional cases, but cuts, Covid and the cost-of-living crisis have driven up need while stripping back schools’ capacity to provide support.

“Reforming the SEND system to invest more in early support will ensure more children get help sooner — and that EHCPs are reserved for those with the most complex needs.”