This matters more than it did: inclusion became a standalone graded Ofsted evaluation area in November 2025, and the Schools White Paper published 23 February 2026 proposes a legal duty for schools to produce a digital Individual Support Plan for every pupil with identified special educational needs.
Two changes arriving together
UK schools are managing a SEND system under acute pressure while two separate reforms land on it.
The first is inspection. Inclusion is now a standalone graded evaluation area rather than a strand within a broader judgement, which means identification, provision and impact for pupils with SEND have to be evidenced in their own right.
The second is structural. The Schools White Paper Every Child Achieving and Thriving, published 23 February 2026, sets out proposals to reshape SEND support in England.
Nothing has changed in law yet. The White Paper contains proposals. The accompanying consultation, SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First, closed on 18 May 2026. Existing SEND duties, EHC needs assessments and EHCPs continue exactly as they do now. If anyone tells a family their support has changed because of the White Paper, that is incorrect.
What the White Paper proposes
- A tiered support model. Most pupils supported through universal whole-class teaching, school-led targeted support, and specialist-led targeted support, with EHCPs becoming the highest tier underpinned by Specialist Provision Packages.
- Individual Support Plans. A proposed legal duty on schools, nurseries and colleges to produce a digital ISP for every child with identified special educational needs — without requiring a diagnosis. See Individual Support Plans.
- National Inclusion Standards, with full introduction indicated for 2028.
- An updated SEND Code of Practice.
- Funding. An Inclusive Mainstream Fund and an “Experts at Hand” service placing speech and language therapists, educational psychologists and other professionals into mainstream settings, alongside capital investment in specialist places and inclusion bases.
The proposed timeline
| Point | What is indicated |
|---|---|
| Now to 2028 | Preparation: staff training, early rollout of National Inclusion Standards |
| 2028 | National Inclusion Standards in place |
| September 2029 | Individual Support Plans become a statutory requirement; assessments under a new system begin |
| September 2030 | Earliest point at which changes to EHCP support would take effect |
| To 2035 | Wider EHCP reform completing |
The government confirmed in the King’s Speech on 13 May 2026 that the changes would be carried in an Education for All Bill. Children who hold an EHCP before September 2029 would retain it through their existing phase of education. Timelines and detail may change as legislation progresses — confirm the current position with GOV.UK.
What schools should do now
The temptation is to wait, since nothing is statutory until 2029. That is a reasonable position on the law and a poor one on readiness, for three reasons.
- Inclusion is graded now. Whatever happens to the White Paper, an inspector visiting this term will grade inclusion on its own line.
- The direction is clear even if the detail is not. Structured, digital, per-pupil plans with recorded provision and measured impact is where the system is heading. Schools already working that way lose nothing if the timetable slips.
- The hard part is not the plan template. It is knowing what provision was actually delivered against what was specified. Schools that start recording that now will have years of data when it is required; schools that start in 2029 will have a template and no history.
What Edves provides
- SEND register with need categories, plan status and review dates.
- Provision mapping — specified provision, delivered provision, and the gap between them.
- Concern-to-provision timeline, so identification speed is measurable rather than asserted.
- Small-step progress against a pupil’s own baseline and targets, alongside cohort reporting.
- Structured support plan records aligned to the direction of the proposed ISP model.
- Disaggregation everywhere — attendance, behaviour, participation and attainment split by SEND status and need type, because that is where the uncomfortable findings are.
- Adaptation in lesson planning drawn from what a pupil’s plan specifies — see Pedagogy with AI.
- Role-scoped access, so SEND and pastoral information is visible to those who need it and not to everyone.
An honest note on capacity
A digital plan for every pupil with identified SEND is a substantial administrative undertaking, and SENCOs are among the most overloaded roles in UK schools. Any vendor presenting the ISP duty purely as an opportunity is not being straight with you.
The realistic case for a system is that it reduces the marginal cost of each plan — drawing on assessment, attendance and provision data already held rather than requiring re-entry — and makes review cycles manageable. It does not make the duty small. Schools should be planning SENCO capacity for this alongside any software decision.