Today, the government published its long-awaited schools white paper, “Every Child Achieving and Thriving”, and accompanying SEND consultation. Together, they present an ambitious vision for the future of the English education system. Many of today’s announcements will now be subject to consultation and refinement over the coming months.
Headline announcements include:
- Radical reforms to the SEND system with a move towards a more inclusive mainstream. The government hopes additional funding will deliver more specialist staff and learning spaces; targeted interventions; and improved SEND training for all staff. This is alongside an additional 60,000 specialist school places and adjustments to the EHCP system with the introduction of new Individual Support Plans (ISPs).
- The preference for all schools to be part of a quality multi-academy trust. This includes the possibility of LA-established trusts, and a consultation on requiring every trust to have local governance arrangements covering every school.
- A package of workforce reforms to boost recruitment and retention including improving maternity pay and a new scheme to incentivise headteachers to work in high-need areas.
- Headline ambition to halve the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils and boost attendance by 20 million school days per year. The government’s plan to achieve this includes adjusting funding formulas to better target children in the deepest and most persistent poverty, and new regional programmes in coastal areas and the North East.
- Minimum expectations on schools and trusts for parental engagement, new school profiles to give parents a more cohesive and balanced understanding of individual schools, and changes to the school complaints process.
NGA's Chief Executive, Emma Balchin said:“NGA welcomes the government’s vision for the future of our education system. We support the ambition to create a more inclusive system, and we have campaigned for that to be rooted within the needs of local communities while delivering for every single child. As the plans are refined in the coming months, the government will need to work with schools and trusts to ensure they have sufficient resources to realise these vital aspirations.”
On the proposed changes to SEND, she said:“The governance community has been clear that the SEND system is broken, so today’s announcement is long overdue. The current system is too adversarial, wasteful and has failed to deliver improved life chances or wellbeing for children with additional needs. Our members tell us too frequently how the system exacerbates existing disadvantage by favouring children with the most effective parental advocates. The case for change is clear.
We are pleased to see NGA’s recommendation for increased overall SEND investment reflected in today’s proposals. Our call for steps to build professional capacity in order for mainstream settings to be equipped to facilitate greater inclusion and proactive interventions have also been heeded, with plans for SEND training for all teachers and improved access to specialist staff. We’re pleased too that the proposals reflect our recommendations to prioritise engagement with parents and to adjust the scope of EHCPs. We recognise that for many parents whose children currently receive support through an EHCP, these proposals bring uncertainty and are therefore unsettling. That anxiety is entirely understandable and we call on the government to move quickly to provide clarity and reassurance, and engage meaningfully with those families as implementation begins. Taken together, the government’s plans represent an important step towards a more inclusive education system, and we now look forward to working with the government to refine the proposals during the consultation period to address any member concerns and issues raised.”
Regarding the move to a trust system, she said:“The government's ambition that all schools should join a high-quality trust provides welcome clarification of direction, but structures alone are not a silver bullet. NGA has long advocated for the potential of deep collaboration between schools, but it is complex and must be carefully nurtured. We therefore urge the government to proactively engage with the wider governance community, as the key decision-makers for structural change, in order to achieve this long-term goal. Our research shows that well-run trusts can only achieve the benefits offered by the grouping of schools through a commitment to building strong governance, which in turn leads to greater financial resilience, specialist and proportionate central teams and better opportunities for staff development. The decision to link structural change to the white paper’s welcome inclusion ambitions is therefore understandable, but the use of structural change on its own cannot be seen as a catch all to rectify the huge complexities that currently exist.
With the paper setting out this ambition alongside a commitment to the importance of schools being embedded in their communities, the government now needs to focus on how it brings more democratic legitimacy, place-based knowledge and community relationships within a universal trust sector. A fully academy trust-based system needs local roots if it is to retain the confidence of parents and communities and maintain its overt sense of mission to its beneficiaries: children and young people within the school community. For that reason, we’re pleased to see the commitment to focusing on community collaboration in the new trust standards and the government’s decision to consult on requiring all trusts to have local governance.”
On the government’s workforce announcements, NGA's Deputy Chief Executive, Sam Henson said:“The Schools White Paper arrives at a critical moment for the education workforce. This is a moment of both significant opportunity but also significant risk. The pilot of £15,000 retention payments for newly appointed headteachers and the extension of maternity pay are welcome, as is the recognition that flexible working must be embedded meaningfully across the profession. We’re also pleased to see recognition that more needs to be done to tackle excessive pay for a minority of trust chief executives.
But individual policies cannot be the extent of the strategy. NGA has called for a long-term people strategy for education, equivalent to the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan: one that spans electoral cycles and addresses recruitment, retention, pay, workload and career development in an integrated way, developed with the profession rather than simply for it. The publication of the government’s plan for recruiting 6,500 new teachers is welcome, but this target only focuses on the secondary sector and emphasises recruitment at time where falling pupil numbers are reshaping schools’ financial realities, especially in the primary sector. The need for a holistic, long term vision which spans the entire sector and all of the interlinked issues facing the education workforce remains clear.”
Regarding the announcements on disadvantage, he said:“The government's ambition to halve the disadvantage gap is welcome, and we are pleased to see the focus on integrating schools with other local services. We are hopeful that replacing free school meals eligibility with family income data as the trigger for pupil premium will finally reach more of the children who need support most. But any expansion must be accompanied by sufficient new funding to make it deliverable. Every year, more governors and trustees report that their organisations are financially unsustainable in the short to medium term. Simply reallocating funding will create losers as well as winners, and most schools and trusts simply cannot afford to lose out.
The current definition of disadvantage leaves too many children invisible. Our "Widening the Lens" research makes the case for a holistic rethink: disadvantage extends well beyond the pupil premium measure to include vulnerable children, those with SEND, certain ethnic minoritised groups, and pupils struggling with their mental health and wellbeing. The attainment gap matters, but so do exclusion rates, chronic absence and poor mental health — all equally symptomatic, all equally damaging. We therefore urge the government to take a holistic view of disadvantage and what success must look like.”
On the implications for governance, he said:“The white paper’s emphasis on schools not being islands but instead being embedded in their communities will be music to the ears of governors and trustees. At its heart, governance connects schools and trusts to the communities they serve, driving engagement with parents and the local area. The vision of education set out in the white paper is an argument for governance and especially the importance of the local tier within multi academy trusts.
We are therefore delighted that the government is consulting on requiring all trusts to have local governance structures, recognising its vital role. Nonetheless, the most important thing is not the presence of a local tier but that it is empowered and valued by the trust so it can meaningfully influence decision-making.”
On the role of AI in the white paper, he said:“Artificial intelligence is increasingly present in schools, and its potential to reduce teacher workload is real. NGA welcomes the government's attention to AI in education and supports an ambitious approach to harnessing its benefits. But governing boards are already being asked to navigate AI adoption within their workforce in the absence of clear frameworks for effective implementation. The promise of AI as a workload-reducer will only be realised if schools have the capacity to implement it thoughtfully, and if the human relationships that sit at the heart of effective education are protected, not hollowed out. Teaching is an inherently interpersonal profession. AI can support it; it cannot replace it.”
