With significant reforms to the SEND system under consultation, questions about what works and where the evidence gaps remain are more pressing than ever. Given the prospect of substantial change ahead, robust evidence will be essential to understand the impact of new approaches and support better outcomes for children and young people.
Against this backdrop, the Foundation’s SEND event offered an opportunity to reflect on new findings from Nuffield-funded research and explore, through a lively and well-informed audience discussion facilitated by our Director of Education, Josh Hillman, what key questions still need to be answered. The event brought together key stakeholders from education policy and practice along with academics, parent representatives and other interested parties. Several key themes emerged from the discussion, which was held under the Chatham House Rule.
Inclusion and parental choice
While few would argue against the desirability of making mainstream education more inclusive, opinions differ about the proper place of special schools and other forms of alternative provision within the system, and about the proportion of pupils with SEND whose needs could potentially be met even in a much more inclusive mainstream environment.
Research presented by Susana Castro-Kemp (University of Birmingham) and Loic Menzies (Centre for Education Systems) found that parent preferences for special education have stymied attempts in many jurisdictions to educate more children in mainstream schools. While this partly reflects the inadequacies of mainstream capacity and provision that the Government is trying to address, some parents feel strongly that their children can only plausibly belong, make friends and feel safe in a specialist or non-traditional environment. There is a risk that if the Government pushes too hard for mainstream inclusion, some parents will feel they have no choice but to withdraw their children from school.
Outcomes, accountability and incentives
Underlying this point is a deeper question about what we, as a society, really want the SEND system to do. In his presentation, Luke Sibieta from the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted the lack of available evidence on pupil outcomes beyond academic attainment, such as health, well-being and independence. Without a clearer articulation of what outcomes matter and serious attempts to measure them, it will be hard to know whether any reforms to the SEND system have worked.
This in turn connects to a critical question about accountability, highlighted by several contributors to the discussion. The Government wants to “build an education system where inclusion and high standards are two sides of the same coin”. However, at present school leaders are heavily incentivised to prioritise academic attainment above all else. Research from the National Foundation for Educational Research presented by Matt Walker found that some schools are wary of enrolling pupils with SEND due to potential negative impacts on their attainment statistics; recent research from the Sutton Trust reports similar findings. Broadening or building more context into the accountability framework for schools carries risks, not least of inappropriately lowered expectations for pupils with SEND. Nevertheless, the abiding feeling among attendees was that until something is done to address accountability, delivering genuinely inclusive practice across all mainstream settings is going to be extremely hard.
Implementation and the parent-school relationship
While acknowledging the ambition of the Government’s proposals, concerns were raised about a lack of strategic thinking around the best sequencing of changes to support the development of an inclusive whole-school culture, and in particular a rush to require schools to establish an inclusion base. Matt presented findings from a survey of senior school leaders and SENCOs indicating that such bases are far from a silver bullet for fixing SEND provision, and that it is quite possible for some pupils to be excluded within the same school building. More guidance is needed for schools on what effective inclusion bases look like, and the Government needs to be realistic about the specialist staffing and other resources it takes to deliver them.
Susana and Loic’s research highlighted the vital importance of a positive parent-school relationship for effective delivery of inclusive practice. Concerns were raised that the Government’s proposal to shift responsibilities for SEND assessment and provision planning from councils to schools could jeopardise the critical relationship, risking parental disengagement and potentially leading to increases in judicial review and disability discrimination claims against schools. It was suggested that, if the Government pursues plans to scale back the role of the SEND Tribunal, it should consider assigning responsibility to another independent third party, such as the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, to investigate complaints against schools. This was also recommended in a report recently published by the University of Manchester on another research project funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
The need for a holistic, intersectional approach
The lack of attention paid in the Government’s proposals to ethnic differences in experiences of the SEND system was noted in the discussion, as well as the lack of a plan to ensure effective working across education, health and social care. It has become a truism that policy thinking too often falls into silos. It is crucial to recognise both the interconnectedness of different systems and challenges, and the intersectional nature of people’s experience.
Finally, contributors emphasised the need to provide accessible and culturally competent support for parents to navigate the SEND system and advocate for their children, especially parents from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who have SEND themselves. A dysfunctional SEND system affects other family members as well as the children with SEND, often causing negative impacts on finances, mental health, relationships, and other aspects of their lives. This places even more pressure on public services and underlines the urgent need for meaningful SEND reform.
Future research
A plethora of ideas for future research emerged during the event, including around effective interventions, children out of school, developing the specialist workforce, supporting multi-agency working, inclusion bases, and hearing directly from SEND children and young people.
You can find out more about the event here.
Our next deadline for outline grant applications is in October 2026 – visit here for updates.
In the meantime, if you would like to discuss any of these issues further, please contact me at areeves@nuffieldfoundation.org. I manage the Foundation’s work on a range of key factors that affect children and young people’s progression and experience in education. These include SEND, mental health, sense of belonging and inclusion, wider life circumstances, and other factors that may influence their ability to learn and thrive.
