Headteachers have warned that the government’s “academic attainment at all costs” approach to education risks sabotaging its own flagship reforms for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), creating a system in which schools are actively penalised for being inclusive.
The warning, issued by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) in its formal response to the government’s schools white paper, identifies a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the proposals. While early chapters of the white paper, published by the Department for Education on 23 February 2026, stress the goal of inclusion, the subsequent “ambition” section makes no mention of SEND and remains relentlessly focused on exam results and high-stakes testing.
“This critical inconsistency will be the basis upon which the reforms will succeed or fail,” the ASCL told ministers. “If we want an education for all then that principle of ‘for all’ must apply to all areas of education policy.”
The core of the problem, school leaders say, is that the government continues to prioritise academic attainment through measures such as a proposed Year 8 reading test. These “high-stakes” assessments, the ASCL argues, “all create perverse incentives for school and college leaders where they are penalised for any lower academic outcomes for some pupils with SEND”. The union stressed that this conflict “cannot be addressed with reform of SEND in isolation”.
In practical terms, the perverse incentives mean that schools that invest in supporting pupils with SEND – and whose results may therefore dip – risk being labelled as underperforming, while those that quietly discourage SEND pupils from applying can maintain high attainment rankings. The result, the ASCL warned, is that the very schools most committed to inclusion are punished, and the government’s own reforms to embed SEND support in mainstream settings are undermined before they begin.
‘Inclusion bases’ must not become exclusion units
The white paper, titled “Every Child Achieving and Thriving”, sets out a range of proposals intended to overhaul the SEND system: digital Individual Support Plans (ISPs) for every child with SEND, a tiered approach to support, national inclusion standards, and the expectation that every secondary school – and a comparable number of primaries – will establish dedicated “inclusion bases”. The government has committed an additional £7 billion for SEND support by 2028‑29 compared with 2025‑26, including a £1.6 billion Inclusive Mainstream Fund over three years.
Yet the ASCL said there was “little detail” on how these inclusion bases would actually operate. It cautioned that they “should not encompass rooms which host children excluded from classrooms on the basis of behaviour” and must not become “holding pens, standalone units or exclusion by another name”. Margaret Mulholland, the union’s SEND and inclusion specialist, said the reforms had “the potential to do a huge amount of good” but that schools needed clear guidance, adequate staffing, funding and time for preparation – including training. “Without this,” she added, “there is a serious risk that schools will be placed in an impossible position, relationships with parents will be damaged and children will be left without the support they need.”
Legal rights under threat, charities warn
Children’s charities grouped under the Coram umbrella have also raised alarm over proposals to narrow parents’ grounds for appeal to specialist SEND tribunals. In their consultation response, Coram argued that “school complaints processes are not an adequate replacement for legally enforceable rights”. They warned that the change “is likely to cause significant tensions between schools and parents‑carers, adding more stress on the school system and parents. It is also likely to result in more litigious action, such as judicial reviews of decisions.” Coram further noted that the reforms had “very little focus” on children in and on the edges of care, despite their disproportionately high SEND needs.
Meanwhile, research from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) has identified another obstacle: the increasingly high concentration of pupils with SEND within a small number of mainstream schools. The NFER found that the lowest fifth of mainstream schools averaged just 10% of pupils with SEND, while the highest fifth averaged 26% – a huge gap that creates unsustainable pressure on the most inclusive schools. This “structural steering”, the researchers said, meant families were attracted to schools with good reputations, while other schools actively discouraged SEND pupils from applying. One school leader was quoted as saying: “We’ve always tried not to have a reputation for being good at SEND so parents don’t tend to seek us out.” The NFER said ministers must be “explicit that mainstream schools, including inclusion bases, cannot meet every pupil’s needs, and plan sufficient specialist places accordingly”. It also called the government’s evaluation of inclusion bases “urgent” because of uneven integration.
The National Education Union (NEU) also responded to the consultation. Its general secretary, Daniel Kebede, said the NFER report “shows there is a clear case for a stronger role for local authority‑controlled admissions, with oversight to ensure that placement decisions are made fairly and transparently”. He argued that the legal framework was not the problem but rather “the lack of investment and capacity”, and warned that a market‑driven approach to schools leads to inequality and unsustainable pressure on inclusive schools. The NEU said it welcomed the long‑term direction of the reforms, including the 10‑year transition and early investment in mainstream provision, but maintained core concerns that without sufficient funding the reforms could worsen staffing pressures, recruitment and retention challenges, and SENCO workload. “The additional workload from proposed reforms – ISPs, inclusion bases and the rest – will fall on already overstretched staff,” the union warned. “Without protected, funded time, the proposals are unsustainable.”
The public consultation on the SEND proposals closed on 18 May 2026. The government plans to legislate through an Education for All Bill, with the reformed system not fully in place until September 2029. No changes to Education, Health and Care Plan support are expected before September 2030. A phased implementation is planned, with preparation work beginning in the 2026‑27 academic year.
