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Mainstream schools will be expected to produce new statutory support plans for pupils with special educational needs, while new national inclusion standards are also set to be introduced in the government’s long-awaited reforms.

The government is retaining education, health and care plans (EHCPs), but these will be reserved for students who are deemed to need a specialist level of support that could be delivered in special schools or mainstream.

The Department for Education today published a on its plans for reform of special educational needs and disabilities support, alongside a new , which was delayed from last year.

Many of the proposed reforms will not come into effect until 2029 once the government has passed legislation.

Here is everything you need to know:

Individual support plans

The government is proposing new tiers of support for pupils with SEND who do not have an EHCP.

There will be a duty on schools to produce an individual support plan, which will contain two layers of support: “targeted” and “targeted plus”.

A targeted plan will outline the support pupils should receive from their school; a targeted-plus plan will set out the support pupils should get from their school and health professionals, which could involve the child receiving some of their education in a support base.

There will also be a layer of specialist support created. Pupils will receive this support through an EHCP and could be educated in mainstream or special schools.

����Vlog previously revealed that the DfE was looking at creating a “ladder of support” for pupils with SEND.

The individual support plans will start to be rolled out from 2029.

EHCP changes

The government will legislate so that only students who have been deemed to need a specialist provision package will get an EHCP.

It is planning to create “approximately” seven different packages of support. It says that some will be mapped on to familiar descriptions of complex SEND, while others will support a group of children with different or no diagnosis but who require similar support.

These specialist provision packages will be published by 2028. They will be overseen by a national panel of experts with an independent chair. Price bands will be set for each package.

There will be no changes to EHCPs before at least September 2030. No students will be asked to leave a special school and the children’s commissioner will oversee the transition and implementation.

However, as leaked reports suggested last week, pupils could then move off an EHCP when they reach the end of their current phase of education. Children currently above Year 2 will not be affected, but pupils in Year 2 and below will have their EHCP reviewed at the end of their primary school education.

The current system will remain in place until new legislation comes into force.

The DfE estimates that the percentage of pupils with an EHCP will continue to rise initially - from 5.3 per cent in 2024-25 to 7.7 per cent in 2029-30 - before dropping to 4.7 per cent by 2034-35.

Gould: ISPs will support transition into secondary

Georgia Gould, the schools minister, said that individual support plans would be delivered through a national digital system, meaning that the government would be taking some of the administrative burden of setting them up. Schools will be asked to develop the content of the plans with parents.

She added: “The plans will make it so much easier for teachers to pick up what children need and for secondary schools to really manage that transition, and to understand the interventions that have happened and what really makes a difference for that child.”

Ms Gould said the idea for individual support plans had stemmed from seeing schools use similar approaches: “In some of the schools where we have seen inclusion being done really well, they have a support plan in place.”

She added that this approach had helped to give parents and pupils confidence that they were being understood.

New needs-assessment process

Ms Gould told ����Vlog that the government had committed to a new process for assessing pupils’ needs, which would determine whether they should receive an EHCP.

She believes the DfE’s experts at hand programme will provide a “massive help” in supporting schools and parents to ensure pupils’ needs are identified, because it will increase access to specialists who can provide evidence.

She added: “Where we have seen such failure [in the current system] is where the school knows the child has a need and Sendcos tell me that they are putting on their boots to fight for the funding.”

Ms Gould said that, in the new system, support from external professionals should be much more readily available for Sendcos, for teachers and young people.

Mainstream inclusion fund

There will be a new Inclusive Mainstream Fund worth £1.6 billion over three years, to help the early years, schools and colleges to provide early support.

This funding will pay for interventions such as small-group language support and support staff who can identify commonly occurring needs and introduce adaptive teaching styles.

The DfE says that from this year it proposes holding schools to account on their use of SEND funding. This would initially be through the Inclusive Mainstream Fund and later through a school’s total inclusion funding, which will include a rebalanced National Funding Formula.

Pooled funding in schools for SEND

The DfE says that to improve inclusive practice, it will propose that all schools become part of a local SEND group.

It also says that in the long term, schools will pool funding from their inclusive mainstream funding to allow for a more collaborative and efficient system.

The DfE adds that it will start to rebalance funding, so that mainstream settings receive higher amounts in their core budgets.

This will “allow them to deliver more flexible, direct and timely support, and to further incentivise early intervention and inclusive practice”.

Training

The DfE previously announced a new expectation that all teachers should receive training on SEND and inclusion. It has said that £200 million will be spent on new training courses.

Its consultation document today states that there will be a new requirement in the SEND Code of Practice for all settings to ensure that staff receive training on SEND and inclusion.

The DfE is also planning to review the role of Sendcos to ensure that they can use their expertise more strategically.

And the government has committed to review the in 2027 with a focus on teaching children and young people with SEND.

Experts at hand

The DfE has announced that £1.8 billion will be invested in an “experts at hand” service. This will provide a bank of specialists in every local area, which schools can draw from on demand, regardless of whether children have EHCPs.

The DfE says this will include special and alternative provision (AP) schools providing training, direct interventions and short-term placements in these schools.

Councils will work with integrated care boards and health boards to commission local professionals, including educational psychologists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists, so that they are routinely available in every area.

����Vlog previously revealed that the DfE wanted schools to have “specialists at hand” to ensure “speech and language therapists and occupational therapists are available when the school needs them, not after some awful adversarial process”.

Special schools and AP

Special schools and AP schools will have a clearer focus on outreach in terms of��supporting mainstream schools.

The DfE says it expects that £800 million - out of the £1.8 billion to be spent on ensuring that schools have access to experts - will be used by councils to help specialist settings support the capacity of mainstream schools.

This will include expanding outreach from AP and special schools, to enable teachers with specialist expertise to provide advice and share effective approaches.

Mainstream schools will also have access to time-limited placements in AP and special schools for students who need additional expert support.

The government says it will work with experts to look at the curriculum in special schools, as well as further adaptations and flexibility for the mainstream curriculum.

Inclusion bases

The government previously announced that every secondary school will be expected to have an inclusion base. These will either be support bases commissioned and funded by schools and trusts, or specialist bases funded and commissioned by local councils.

The government also previously said that £3.7 billion will be spent funding new specialist places, both in mainstream and special schools.

Inclusion standards and strategy

The DfE aims by 2028 to have invested up to £15 million to build the evidence base for and provide national inclusion standards.

It will appoint an independent expert panel to oversee the development of national inclusion standards, covering both specialist provision packages and inclusive mainstream practices. These will set out the support that should be available in every mainstream school.

The DfE is also placing a duty on schools to produce an inclusion strategy, detailing what they will provide across the universal offer and the targeted and targeted-plus layers of support.

It says it will update school performance measures to promote high standards and to recognise inclusive mainstream schools that are supporting the progress of students who face the greatest barriers to learning.

SEND tribunals

The SEND tribunal will no longer name a school or placement for a child, under the government’s proposals.

Parents will also not be able to go to the SEND tribunal over the content or decisions around individual support plans, but will be able to do so for EHCPs.

Parents will be able to appeal to the SEND tribunal if they have a complaint about a local authority’s decision not to carry out a needs assessment. The tribunal will also hear appeals against local authority decisions about whether a child meets the new threshold for specialist provision.

However, tribunals will no longer name a school where a child must be educated.

Private school fees

The DfE had already announced that independent special schools will be subject to national price bands, in a government clampdown on “spiralling” fees.

It also said last week that private special schools would have to follow statutory SEND standards, to ensure they are providing “consistent” and “high-quality” support.

In a consultation document, the government sets out plans to update the law for independent special schools to ensure that children receive suitable high-quality placements and that local authorities pay fair and reasonable costs for them.

Assistive technology

The DfE says it wants to create a digital, data-driven system, and that assistive technology can support students with SEND to access learning.

The DfE will provide free national online training to help teachers and educators with this technology. It is piloting assistive technology in lending libraries with local authorities.

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