Monday 12 January 2026
12 January 2026
A round up of the most interesting articles and posts I've seen this last week about the SEND White Paper.
Jonny Holden
Bridget Phillipson MP, Secretary of State for Education
"We've tabled amendments to Labour's flagship Children's Wellbeing & Schools Bill to go further on our ambition to cut the cost of sending children to school, drive high and rising school standards, and stop vulnerable children from falling through the cracks."
bsky.app/profile/bphillipsonmp.bsky.social (opens in a new tab)
The SEND Reform National Conversation ends Wednesday 14 January 2026
"We want to have an open conversation on points and ideas organisations have raised to help inform how we shape the policy in the White Paper."
consult.education.gov.uk: SEND reform national conversation (opens in a new tab)
Trust inspections: the full details of the proposals
"...the new provisions will allow inspectors to access any trust offices and academies, as well as other premises where children are educated as part of the trust."
By Ellen Peirson-Hagger. tes.com (free) (opens in a new tab)
Transforming SEND: an alternative white paper
"Schools, nurseries and colleges should be inclusive overall, so every child with speech and language challenges can succeed."
Written and published by Speech and Language UK. Read the report (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
Georgia Gould, Minister for School Standards, on what surprised her most in the DfE listening sessions
"A group of young people with SEND told her they wanted someone with lived experience, whether that was a kind of mentor, a teacher, that they could talk to about having special educational needs and disabilities."
Report by Ruth Lucas. schoolsweek.co.uk (opens in a new tab)
The four letters at the heart of the huge fight over special needs education: E, H, C and P
"The way ministers seem to want to restore the system to stability and calm is not by enabling councils to meet their responsibilities or insisting that they do so, but by drastically reducing the number of parents they have to deal with."
By John Harris, Guardian writer and parent of a child with SEND. maybeimamazed.substack.com (opens in a new tab)
3 ways the White Paper could fix the EHCP system
1. Move to tiered, early statutory support. 2. Introduce a national EHCP template. 3. Embed multidisciplinary, clinically led assessment and joined-up systems.
By Dr Freya Spicer-White. Number 2 isn't happening (in spite, or because of, the Change Programme work?). Numbers 1 and 3 seem to be in the Code of Practice 2015.
Because oracy seems to be on our collective consciousness:
Oracy is the glue: how Talk for Learning can transform reading and writing about challenging texts at KS3
"Because students had been given the chance to organise their thinking, this discussion was frequently rewarding and challenging, often with clashes of ideas and opinions."
By Andrew Stones. englishandmedia.co.uk (opens in a new tab)
And finally, a poem from Georgina Durrant
"They've waited once, then twice, then more, each delay feels like another closing door. Timelines blur, the months extend, and still they ask, when will this end?"
We're pretty sure mainstream inclusion is going to be an important idea within the SEND White Paper. Find out more about our work with Calderdale and Leeds councils on mainstream inclusion and the SENCO whole school audit.
Cheers,
Jonny Holden