A White Paper is expected early in 2026, and a government public engagement programme on planned SEND reforms has highlighted the key themes ahead of it’s publication. Schools minister, Georgia Gould, is declining to rule out changes to education, health and care plans (EHCPs) but has stressed there will “always be a legal basis for additional support in education”.
To find out what Teacher Tappers think of the current system, we have been asking questions about EHCPs, funding, and what schools are currently struggling to provide for students. Here is what we found out:
Most SENCOs report that not all of their students are receiving the full support as set out in their EHCP
Less than a third of secondary SENCOs report that “all or almost all” of students with EHCPs receive the full support set out in their plan. The picture is slightly better in primary, but only 42% of primary SENCOs say all or almost all of their students with EHCPs are getting their full support.
What types of support are schools struggling to provide?
At the risk of being flippant… All of it 😔We asked SENCOs, heads and senior leaders which areas they were finding hardest to support, and each response option in our list was ticked by at least a third of respondents.
- 1️⃣ One-to-one support is the most common type of support for SENCOs to report they struggle to provide (80% primary vs 78% secondary).
- 2️⃣ For primary SENCOs, the second most common type of support schools struggle to provide is specialist support (68%), whereas for secondary SENCOs it’s consistent support staff (56%).
- 3️⃣ Finding staff with appropriate SEND training (61%) was the third most common type of support primary SENCOs reported they struggled to provide, whereas secondary SENCOs said it was specialist support (53%).
Teachers still want EHCPs
Despite the struggle to deliver what is included in the EHCPs, retaining them is important to the majority of teachers, with 79% of primary and 74% of secondary teachers agreeing they are important and shouldn’t be removed.
Among those working most closely with EHCPs, that strength of feeling increases, with 40% of SENCOs ‘strongly agreeing’ EHCPs should be retained, compared to 23% non-SENCOs.
But that doesn’t mean we should keep the same system…
Whilst teachers acknowledge that EHCPs are an important part of the system (only 4% would remove them altogether), only 9% think that we should keep the current system – including EHCPs – as is.
In the absence of more funding, the most popular reform is to reduce EHCPs and shift funding to both early intervention and classroom-based support (39%).
It’s worth noting that in answer to this question, a massive 23% told us they “don’t know”. And this speaks to the difficult and convoluted mess that SEND support has become. Everyone agrees it needs reform – but what that reform should look like is unclear.
