Response to the Schools White Paper & SEND reforms

The White Paper and SEND Reform consultation:
Are they the final pieces in Labour’s plan?

Managing Director of B Squared, Dale Pickles, explores in his document – Fixing a Broken System.
Read the full report here

It has taken me a few weeks to digest the White Paper and the SEND Reform consultation and what they mean in the context of the current system, the Curriculum and Assessment Review, and the new Ofsted Inspection Framework. Every reform document published in the last year has generated its own headlines, its own debates, its own wave of reaction. Almost nobody is reading them together, and that is the problem.

I have spent the last several months doing exactly that. Reading the new Ofsted Inspection Framework, the Curriculum and Assessment Review, the Schools White Paper, and the SEND Reform consultation. These are not separate initiatives — each one gave us a piece of the puzzle, but we needed all of them to see them as connected parts of a single programme. What I found surprised me, not because the picture is bleak, but because it is more coherent than most people realise. It also reflects a lot of the concerns parents, educators, and leaders have raised.

There is a lot of detail missing, and it is far too early to fully judge, but I believe the intent is right, and I want to explain why.

I write as someone with 25 years in the SEND landscape, as the host of The SENDcast, as the Managing Director of B Squared, and as the parent of two neurodivergent daughters who I have supported through a system that was not designed for them. I have tried to bring all of that to what follows.

The result is “Fixing a Broken System”, a document that covers how we got here, what the Government is actually trying to do, what is still missing, and what schools can do right now without waiting for implementation dates that are years away. It is honest about where the reforms fall short and cautiously hopeful about where they might succeed.

I warn you, it is a long read. I think it is worth your time.