The Schools White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, was published last week after months of speculation. The Education Secretary, sets out a bold, long-term plan to raise standards in schools and make the system more inclusive, especially for disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND. It is being hailed as a ‘generational overhaul’ (the Guardian). There is certainly a lot to digest for those of us on the front line and for me, the proposals are cautiously welcomed.  

One of the principle proposals in the White Paper is the lofty ambition to halve the ‘disadvantage gap’ including the aspiration to recover 20 million ‘lost’ attendance days each year.  However sensitive we might feel about the term ‘disadvantaged’, national data consistently shows that pupils who are eligible for free school meals achieve less well than their peers, and that the gap tends to widen with age. And, in spite of schools’ best efforts, the academic performance gap between the most and least advantaged students stubbornly refuses to close. By the end of primary school there is a 22-percentage point gap in SATs performance, placing disadvantaged pupils around 11 months behind their peers. By GCSE, this widens to a 27-percentage point gap, roughly 19 months of learning. Pupils from poorer backgrounds are also 3.5 times more likely to miss more than 50% of a school year due to low attendance. The Education Secretary firmly believes that good attendance is the cornerstone of achievement and aims to introduce clearer expectations on schools to identify and improve absence and work more intensively with families on this issue

It is the proposals for stronger inclusion and SEND support in mainstream schools that have hit the headlines in the last week. Rather than relying solely on formal Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), the White Paper introduces a layered, graduated approach to support, where pupils access adaptive teaching and early interventions within their everyday classrooms. Schools will be expected to make necessary adjustments for children with additional needs or potentially face legal challenge.

Many parents of children with additional needs will feel anxious about what this means for their child’s future. Parents often speak of the ‘fight’ to secure an EHCP for their child. My hope is that the bill forces a culture change, from fighting for diagnoses and paperwork, to schools and families working together swiftly to provide meaningful support. If realised well, this could be a very successful and long-overdue piece of legislation to address a broken system and culture.

The idea that an EHCP is the ‘golden chalice’ for all but the most complex cases is misguided, as there is no link between EHCPs and success. In fact, research shows that pupils who receive the most teaching assistant support often make less progress than comparable peers. Support can unintentionally increase a child’s dependence and reduce challenge. Of course, the aim of education is not to smooth every path, but to reduce dependency, yet many studies also suggest that EHCPs can limit access to the teacher and prioritise task completion over genuine learning and the development of independence.

Under the proposals, schools will now be expected to embed inclusive practice at the first sign of need. Initiatives such as the Inclusive Mainstream Fund and the ‘Experts at Hand’ programme aim to ensure specialists, eg: therapists, educational psychologists and others, are more accessible to mainstream settings. A core reform will introduce a legal requirement for schools to create Individual Support Plans for all children with SEND, clearly setting out needs and day-to-day provision, although EHCPs would remain for the most complex cases, where a child cannot manage without consistent additional adult support. Under the plans, mainstream schools will also be given commissioning budgets to spend directly on therapists and additional support, rather than relying on highly-indebted local authorities.  

The current SEND system is in upheaval, so I am relieved that something is being done. But this will be a huge ask for mainstream schools. There are also several additional measures covering curriculum, enrichment, complaints and suspensions. While I strongly welcome the proposals, it is undeniably a huge number of reforms and new requirements that will fall upon schools over the next few years, while copious expectations introduced over the past two decades have not been reduced or removed. School leaders are understandably worried about workload and the mental health impact on an already fragile workforce.

Measures will be phased in over the next three years which, in reality, is a very short period of time. Schools will need to expand provision, train staff, and ensure they have the capacity to release staff from class in order to enact the SEND reforms properly. Significant funding has been promised, but rough calculations suggest that the proportion a school like ours might receive could be negligible and unlikely to meet the true cost. We keenly await more detail over the coming months.

There are already hundreds, if not thousands, of statutory duties and expectations that overload schools and staff, so I guess what I need to know as a headteacher is will there be enough funding and capacity to deliver what the government is setting out and to suddenly meet all these new expectations for our children?

At this stage, it is still a White Paper and the government must take it through Parliament successfully before it becomes legislation. But the ambition for our young people is clear and welcomed and could be life changing for many families, as long as schools are given the time, funding and capacity to make that ambition a reality.

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