Opinion: Solutions

How to build a new system on inclusive foundations

We need to re-draw the incentives that drive SEND provision, starting upstream of diagnosis and right down to how provision is commissioned

We need to re-draw the incentives that drive SEND provision, starting upstream of diagnosis and right down to how provision is commissioned

16 May 2025, 5:00

Last week, I argued that our current SEND system is held back by a poorly designed funding model that drives dysfunction. Until we address that, progress is blocked. Once addressed, we have the opportunity to build something better.

Here is a blueprint for what should come next: six moves that, together, would deliver a fairer, more effective system for pupils with additional needs.

Reclaiming childhood

Too many additional needs are downstream of what childhood has become: over-stimulated, under-supervised online and over-supervised in the real world. Putting this right is not just important for its own sake but a practical way to reduce the volume and severity of need that schools face. 

Jonathan Haidt is right: social media is doing real harm, and there’s no serious evidence that it’s safe for children. Ndidi Okezie is right too: we need a major expansion of passion- and character-building youth activities. 

Support for children must be matched by support for parents, including the return of SureStart and a national roll-out of the evidence-backed ’Triple P’ parenting programme.

An inclusive philosophy

Tom Rees and Ben Newmark make a powerful case for a philosophy of inclusion that recognises every person with additional needs as a complete human being, not a problem to be fixed. 

Breaking from the medicalised, deficit-driven funding model gives us the chance to break from the deficit mindset too – to stop defining pupils by what they lack, and instead embrace a broader vision of success: one that includes joy, contribution, connection and dignity alongside academic merit. 

This is not about lowering expectations. It’s about raising them in the right direction.

Muscular regulation of diagnostics

I’ve yet to meet a headteacher who doesn’t think our diagnostic system is a wild west. Definitions have broadened, screening tools are misused and private providers are everywhere. This is leading to over-diagnosis and poor resource allocation.

This isn’t just a policy problem, it’s a political one too. It’s just the right amount of ‘truthy’ for opportunists to make it a wedge issue. We must be honest about the problem and introduce tighter, more muscular regulation if we’re going to stop that from happening.

More expert teaching

In a paper being published next week, Jen Barker, Peps Mccrea and Josh Goodrich argue persuasively that, in order to improve provision for children with SEND, we must move away from some of the medicalised intervention models that EHCPs encourage.

Instead, we should focus on pupils’ cognitive similarity, evidence-based, high-impact core instruction that benefits everyone, designing accessible lessons by default, minimal, appropriate adaptations and empowering effective teacher assessment.

This shift demands serious investment in teacher development. As Loic Menzies argues in his paper, A System that Empowers, we should use the next stage of national professional development reform to build exactly this kind of capability.

Targeted mainstream provision

When it comes to supporting pupils in mainstream schools with more complex needs, school leaders are taking matters into their own hands.

Faced with a lack of alternative provision locally, they are setting up their own internal targeted provision, with (almost) the same curriculum, and porous boundaries allowing some pupils to move between the targeted and mainstream provision depending on their needs at any given time.

At Lee Waring’s school, for example, outcomes are improving, pupils are happier, and suspensions and exclusions have drastically reduced. We need more of this, grounded in evidence, evaluated as we roll it out to more schools.

Greater commissioning clout

When the state has become reliant on private equity companies for provision – whether it’s residential children’s homes, alternative provision or special schools – something has gone very wrong. 

We need bigger, smarter commissioning like that argued for in the MacAlister review, likely through mayors and combined authorities, to push down costs, push up quality and build out public provision. 

Single local authorities are outgunned. Acting together, they have a better fighting chance.

Reclaim childhood. Redefine inclusion. Regulate diagnostics. Rethink classrooms. Rebuild specialist provision. Reinforce the public sector. 

Six moves if we’re ready to lead the system, not just patch it.

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