Following the publication of the Government’s new White Paper outlining reforms to the schools and SEND system, Michelle McManus, Professor in Safeguarding and Violence Prevention, Dr Seamus Byrne, Reader in Law, Lisa Russell, Professor in Education and Employment, and Anita Franklin, Professor of Childhood Studies, respond to its key strategies and outline what more must be done to support children with SEND. These leading academics are all members of Manchester Met’s Institute for Children’s Futures.
The publication of the Government’s White Paper Every Child Achieving and Thriving marks a significant moment in the future direction of support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It sets out an ambitious reform programme intended to reset how mainstream schools and specialist services work together, with substantial financial commitments and a clear emphasis on inclusion and early intervention.
At the Institute for Children’s Futures (ICF), we welcome the recognition that the current SEND system requires reform. Too many families are navigating adversarial processes, too many young people experience fractured educational journeys and confidence in the system has been eroded.
“The real test of this reform is whether it moves us from crisis response to early, preventive support that families can trust.” Professor Michelle McManus, Co-Director of the ICF.
However, as our ICF interdisciplinary team highlights, while the White Paper signals significant ambition, there is much still to unpack, legally, practically and systemically.
Clarity, thresholds and legal safeguards
A central reform is the introduction of nationally defined Specialist Provision Packages (SPPs) for children described as having the ‘most complex needs’. These packages will underpin future Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), while many other children will instead receive support through new Individual Support Plans (ISPs) within mainstream schools.
Yet the concept of ‘complex needs’ is not clearly defined in statute. As Dr Seamus Byrne notes, this terminology does not currently exist within the Children and Families Act 2014 framework. Without clear thresholds and procedural safeguards, there is a risk that uncertainty around eligibility could generate further inconsistency, disputes and litigation.
Current tribunal data shows high levels of successful appeals against local authority decisions, indicating systemic challenges already present. Any reform that recalibrates entitlement must therefore ensure transparency, accountability and meaningful access to redress. Otherwise, families may experience a redesigned system rather than a genuinely improved one.
Transitions and vulnerability
The proposal to reassess children’s needs at key transition points, including the end of primary school, raises further important questions.
Transition from primary to secondary school is not administratively neutral. It is a period of heightened vulnerability, marked by significant environmental, social and emotional change. For some children, particularly those with autism, social, emotional and mental health needs or communication differences, transition can intensify needs that were previously well-managed.
Reassessment at this stage must therefore be experienced as strengthening continuity of support, not introducing instability at a fragile point. Assessments must account for the unpredictability of transition itself and ensure that developmental volatility is not misinterpreted as diminished need.
Inclusion, belonging and broken trajectories
Research from Professor Lisa Russell’s Leverhulme Trust-funded MINE project provides important insight into how reforms may play out on the ground.
Many young people describe primary school positively, but report significant disengagement during secondary education. Experiences of bullying, mental health difficulties and undiagnosed SEND frequently contribute to fractured educational pathways. For some, exclusion, alternative provision or elective home education follow, often described not as active parental choice, but as a last resort when needs are perceived as unmet.
This raises a broader systemic question. If mainstream school environments were more relational, adaptable and inclusive, might fewer children escalate to statutory plans in the first place?
Reform should not simply redesign thresholds for statutory support. It must strengthen the inclusiveness of everyday schooling and promote genuine belonging. As the White Paper recognises, belonging matters, but belonging requires culture, capacity and relational practice, not only structural reform.
System capacity and accountability
The majority of children will sit within universal and targeted provision in mainstream schools. This is where implementation will determine whether reform succeeds.
If these earlier layers of support are under-resourced or inconsistently delivered, pressure does not disappear – it shifts. Schools and wider services, including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), are already stretched. Workforce shortages and growing complexity of need mean that ambition must be matched with infrastructure.
As Professor McManus noted: “Reform is necessary, but any system redesign creates risk as well as opportunity. The key question is whether the wider system is equipped to deliver on the ambition.”
A rights-based approach
While the White Paper refers to international disability frameworks, it engages less explicitly with children’s broader rights protections. In particular, there is limited clarity about how best interests, participation and equality protections will be embedded in decisions about eligibility, reassessment and support.
“The White Paper introduces new terminology with potentially far-reaching legal and practical consequences, without clarifying its relationship to existing statutory frameworks. Without careful legislative drafting and clear guidance, past implementation failures may simply be replicated under new language” Dr Seamus Byrne.
Children’s voices must be meaningfully heard in reassessment and decision-making processes. A system built around early intervention must also be grounded in enforceable rights and clear procedural safeguards, otherwise structural reform risks redesigning processes without strengthening protection.
A measured, evidence-informed response
As Professor Anita Franklin has emphasised, this is a consultation phase. There is considerable detail still to unpack and significant implications across law, education, youth policy and social inequality.
The ICF will therefore be developing a fuller, evidence-informed response in the coming months, drawing on emerging research, legal analysis and lived experience to contribute constructively to the national consultation.
The White Paper represents a pivotal moment. Its ambition is welcome. Its success, however, will depend not only on structural redesign, but on whether thresholds are clear, rights are protected, transitions are stabilised and inclusive practice is strengthened across the system.
If reform is to reduce crisis rather than redistribute it, the foundations must be robust.
