Response to Schools White Paper and SEND Consultation

The Schools White Paper and SEND consultation signal significant change for children, families and education providers.

We share the ambition for a system where every child achieves, thrives, and belongs, and where inclusion is meaningful, not rhetorical.

But inclusion must not mean dilution. For children with complex, co-occurring and often rare needs, personalised and legally protected support is essential.

Our children present unique profiles of strength and need; they cannot be neatly categorised by diagnosis, funding band, or threshold criteria. They deserve provision shaped around the whole child, not a system that forces them into reductive labels.

It is vital that funding reform and proposed changes to EHCPs must not weaken the precision, integration, and specialist expertise these children rely on.

Our maintained, non-maintained and independent special schools are not on the margins of inclusion, they are central to it. A strong system depends on a genuine continuum of provision, with specialist and mainstream settings working in partnership, supported by sustained investment.

Our special schools have always worked alongside mainstream colleagues and local partners, not for remuneration, but because we believe in shared responsibility and better outcomes for all children, wherever they are educated and cared for.

The cost of specialist provision is often viewed narrowly. In reality, specialist schools deliver far more than education alone: integrated health and therapy services, multidisciplinary expertise, and sustained support for families.

When understood in full, this represents long-term value - reducing crisis intervention, strengthening family stability, and improving life chances.

The social return on investment is significant, reflected in greater independence, participation, and meaningful contribution to society over time.

Reform will only succeed if it is shaped by lived experience and professional expertise.

The task is clear: build a system that adapts to children and lets them flourish - all children - not one that expects children to adapt to the system.