Labour’s scepticism over SEND schools threatens loss of specialist places, says John Harris

Springfields Academy, an autism specialist school in the Wiltshire milltown of Calne, has achieved an extraordinary milestone: for the past six years, not a single one of its leavers has begun post-school life as a Neet — not in education, employment or training. The school, which educates around 250 children and young people aged four to 19, operates with classes no larger than 12 pupils, each child having their own dedicated table. Headteacher Nicola Whitcombe describes the range of seating options — “wobble stools, wobble cushions, ball chairs, standing desks and booths” — and dedicated “pods” for one-to-one teaching. Every lesson follows the same basic structure. “From an autistic perspective, that’s really important: ‘I know I’m going into the same thing, so therefore I feel safe,’” she says.

Many of Springfields’ pupils arrive from primary school unable to cope with mainstream secondary education. “If you’ve got five different lessons in a day, in five different classrooms with five different teachers, and this before we’ve talked about the corridors, and the smells, and where you have lunch – it’s overwhelming,” Whitcombe explains. “So at our school, we have to get our environment right.” The results speak for themselves, yet the school’s success story comes against a backdrop of a special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system widely described as being in crisis. The local government ombudsman has said the system is in “utter disarray”, with the number of children in the system having nearly doubled over the past decade and local Send deficits totalling £3.2 billion, a figure projected to reach £5 billion by 2026. Some reports indicate that secondary special schools are already operating above capacity by around 8,000 pupils.

A policy reversal on inclusion

It is this context that has driven the Labour government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer to embark on a radical overhaul of Send provision. In February 2026, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson published the Schools White Paper, “Every Child Achieving and Thriving”, followed by a 12-week consultation that closed in May. The centrepiece is the forthcoming “Education for All” bill, which will enshrine a fundamental shift: a reversal of the direction set by David Cameron in 2010, when he pledged to end the bias towards inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream settings. Labour is now turning 180 degrees, aiming to make ordinary local schools the first option for most Send children.

Phillipson’s argument rests on several pillars. Financially, the current system is unsustainable, with councils paying eye-watering fees to special schools run by profit-making interests. Philosophically, she has painted a vision of children “educated at a great local mainstream school, with their friends, close to their family, part of their local community”. In a speech in Peterborough launching the white paper, she declared: “That’s what’s best for them.” The government is pledging substantial investment: an Inclusive Mainstream Fund of £1.6 billion over three years, a £3.7 billion programme to create tens of thousands of places in “inclusion bases” within mainstream settings by 2030, and over £200 million for national Send training for all staff in early years, schools and post-16 settings. A new “Experts at Hand” service, costing approximately £1.8 billion over three years, will provide speech and language therapists, educational psychologists and other professionals for early multi-agency support.

The most significant structural change is the replacement of existing Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) for the majority of children with Individual Support Plans (ISPs). These digital “passports” will have multiple tiers of support and will place a legal duty on schools to create and monitor the plans, but crucially do not appear to impose a legally enforceable duty for schools to actually deliver the support outlined. EHCPs will remain only for children with the most complex needs, alongside “Specialist Provision Packages” designed to standardise thresholds for support. The new system is expected to be implemented from 2029, with no changes to current EHCP support before September 2030, and the government has promised a “triple lock” to ensure no child loses effective support during the transition.

The specialist school view

However, the direction of travel has caused palpable trepidation among England’s approximately 1,100 specialist schools, which educate around 180,000 children and young people. Despite Phillipson’s tribute to “wonderful special schools for children with the most complex needs” that will be “right at the heart of our plans”, the policy signals something more ambiguous. In March, Schools Week revealed that as part of the government’s sign-off on local Send reform plans, councils must show “strong evidence” that they have “little to no plans to increase special school or AP [alternative provision] capacity”. Planned new special schools have already been cancelled.

Phillipson’s own rhetoric has stung. In a speech to school leaders, she painted a pitiful portrait of an imaginary boy who attends a specialist school, lives two doors down from a girl at the local comprehensive, and “has to get in a taxi every morning, off to a school far away to have his needs met”. He does not know the other children in his neighbourhood, has no local friends, and “achieves far below what we all know he’s capable of”. That picture, for thousands of families with experience of specialist settings, does not match the close communities that form around these schools. Studies show that Send children achieve higher self-esteem in specialist settings — a finding that should not surprise anyone familiar with the sensory overload of large, chaotic mainstream schools with crowded corridors, unpredictable smells and lunchtime pressures.

Whitcombe let out a laugh when asked whether she thought enough people in government understood the importance of schools like hers. “Our doors are open for anyone to come and see the work we do because we’re really proud of it,” she said. “Just having a conversation with our young people tells you so much about their lived experience and what they need.” The author of this piece — a parent of an autistic child — recalls the experience of shopping around for a school for his son at age 14. They visited a mainstream school renowned for its inclusive autism provision, with a dedicated hub housed in a sad-looking outbuilding with little inside. They quickly concluded his life there would be lonely beyond words. His special school, by contrast, was tailor-made for autistic people and full of life and human warmth.