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Schools white paper: how do we turn vision into action?

The white paper is right about what schools need to be. Now it must be serious about how to get there.

Blog
26/02/2026
bird's-eye vision of houses

Every Child Achieving and Thriving. This is not just the title of the government’s white paper; it is a vision statement in itself. The paper has a lot going for it in terms of diagnosis and genuine ambition. The theme of schools as community anchors is not a new concept, but the language captures something real about the relationships schools encounter every day. It reads as a reminder of a long-standing, historic responsibility; one that has felt under threat over the last two decades. Yet the impact of the pandemic has proved that communities need a sense of deeply ingrained partnership like never before. I like this thinking, I really do. But – and it is a fairly big but – I wonder if it makes it all sound a little too neat and easy.

The anchor and the chain

Consider an anchor being dropped from a ship, securing position against fierce waves. The anchor appears strong and powerful, but is it as powerful as the currents that seek to displace it? Bear with me, I'm getting there. An anchor alone does nothing. It depends entirely on the infrastructure connecting it to the vessel: a chain with the right length, robustness and material makeup. Too short, too weak, or too long and the anchor becomes redundant. NGA's members, the governance community, are that chain.

The white paper points to an ambitious destination where inclusion is inseparable from standards, disadvantage is better understood, and schools are connected, not isolated. It paints a picture of a sector that can focus on beneficiaries rather than structures and performance tables. Even if you don't read it in quite the same way, the white paper knows what it wants. But it is perhaps less clear about what makes it possible (although in fairness it doesn’t pretend to hold all the answers).

The quiet case for governance

The government’s vision requires schools to become more embedded within a social transformation that connects schools to communities in a new way. That much is clear. Every substantive ask in this white paper is, at its core, a local ask. One of my favourite elements is the overt focus on being responsive to the community on the doorstep, answerable to the families inside the gate, connected to the lived reality of the neighbourhood rather than to a framework applied from a distance. This is not primarily an Ofsted ask, and I would argue that while it relates to the wider discussion, it is not really a structural ask. It is quite simply a governance ask. The white paper is, whether it realises it or not, making the case for looking again at the individual vision behind each school gate — for who holds it, who shapes it, and who is accountable for it. And yet, whilst governance gets a worthy mention, is still too much of a footnote for our liking. It should sit at the very centre of the argument, in many ways reflecting the central theme of our recent Case for Governance report.

The good news is that England already has more than 230,000 governors and trustees doing exactly what the white paper wants schools to do. That strategic oversight, rooted in community knowledge, is alive and well. It is already looking beyond the school gates and seeking to, as Bridget Phillipson so eloquently put it, “realise the opportunities of childhood today”. Herein lies the idea of lifting our heads and thinking big. For me, this speaks directly to the amazing role that governors and trustees hold as vision setters, looking beyond the confines of regulation and inspection.

And why does all this matter so much? Because it means providing continuous, embedded answerability to parents, staff and the community. It means building confidence that their school is the best place in the world for their children and young people to be. And where I think the white paper has got this right is in recognising you cannot buy or mandate this into existence. Neither structural change nor blunt accountability metrics will achieve this.

  • “What will bring about real change is being proud, hopeful and excited by what our schools are, can be and stand for.”

    The SEND reality

    Nowhere does the white paper's ambition feel more urgent, more tested and more driven by local need than on SEND. And nowhere has the gap between vision and delivery been more painfully exposed. NGA's own work on this, published in December, laid bare what the governance community has experienced firsthand: the SEND system has absorbed significant increases in funding but hasn’t delivered the necessary outcomes. The government is therefore right to focus on the fact that today our education system still fails so many children with complex needs. Governing boards have watched this unfold in real time, mediating fractured relationships between parents and schools, and presiding over a cycle of EHCP demand that everyone agrees is unsustainable. The white paper's instinct that inclusion and standards are two sides of the same coin is exactly right. But the scale of that challenge demands more than instinct and grit to deliver change within existing resources and strategy. 

    Reform is local, and so is accountability

    The government's commitment to reforming SEND is perhaps the most significant goal and the governance community has already been instrumental in leading the calls for change. NGA was delighted to see so many of our recommendations reflected in the government’s proposals this week. But perhaps the instant negative reaction from many parents at the start of the week, and the government’s struggle to offer reassurance with much detail still to be finalised, is a strong indicator of the strength of feeling toward the challenge at hand. Indeed, Keir Starmer himself acknowledged that SEND is the issue that comes up the most in his own constituency.  

    But there is still an air of hope following this week’s announcements. NGA's recommendations on earlier intervention, mainstream investment, a rethink of how EHCPs are used, group-based delivery and a genuine focus on rebuilding the relationship between parents and schools are the right building blocks. The challenge now is delivery, which in this context is acutely local and it isn't quick. It requires knowing which child is struggling before crisis point, understanding what a family needs before they reach the tribunal stage, and making the call on resource allocation in a way that reflects lived community reality rather than a formula. That is not a DfE function. It is not an Ofsted function. It is again something that relies on deep contextual knowledge and local accountability: the work of governance in the school community. Therefore, if these reforms are to succeed and the welcome inclusion ambitions of the white paper are to be delivered, the government must do more to speak directly to the governance community as the people who hold both the vision and the accountability for what happens to every child behind that gate.

    Scale needs roots

    As the government moves towards a universal multi academy trust (MAT) system, we should take a moment to remind them that scale, without deliberate local infrastructure, produces drift. We made this point in our report The Mature MAT Model – scale is necessary to harness many of the benefits of deep collaboration between schools but it raises its own challenges too, such as the potential distance between decision-making and stakeholders. The government cannot, therefore, seriously simultaneously champion community-rootedness and treat the civic infrastructure which makes it possible at scale as optional. But again, the good news is, I think the governance community knows this, and deep down the department knows this.

    We are therefore pleased to see the commitment to consulting on requiring all MATs to have local governance structures. It is a significant step, one NGA has long called for, and something our members have consistently told us matters. Many in the sector have already cracked this, and stand ready to help others follow, as does NGA.

    But the requirement to have local governance and the conditions for it to flourish are not the same thing. A local tier that exists on paper but lacks meaningful delegation and the confidence to challenge is not accountability. It is the appearance of accountability, and if a trust-based system is to operate on, well on trust, then that matters hugely.  

    NGA’s response to this white paper is therefore both one of slightly cautious welcome and necessary challenge. We welcome the vision. We support the direction. But we are asking the government to follow its own logic to its conclusion. If you want schools to be community anchors, invest in the civic leaders who make that real. If you want trusts to be locally rooted, create the conditions for local governance to have genuine teeth. If you want local accountability for every child, recognise what you already have.

    Aspiration without infrastructure is just aspiration. This white paper has the vision. The question now is whether the government is prepared to build what it needs by understanding and utilising the system infrastructure it already has in the form of our remarkable, yet undersold, governance community.

    Sam Henson

    Sam Henson

    Deputy Chief Executive

    Sam has been NGA's Deputy Chief Executive since January 2024 and previously worked as NGA's Director of Policy and Communications. Sam oversees NGA's policy, research, advocacy, external affairs and advice and guidance work. Sam works closely with and deputises for NGA's Chief Executive, leading the organisation to achieve positive change and drive influence at a national level through our policy and influencing work.

    View Sam's full profile

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