What the SEND reforms could mean for your family

The government has set out plans to change how children with special educational needs and disabilities are supported. The broad aims are: more children’s needs met well in ordinary mainstream schools, less difference between one area and the next, and help that arrives earlier instead of after a crisis.

That is the direction. The detail is still being worked through, and some of it is contested — families and charities have pushed back hard on any idea of scaling back legal rights.

What has not changed: if your child has an EHCP, or you are applying for one, your rights today are exactly the same as they were. Nothing in a proposal or a White Paper changes the law until Parliament passes it. If a school or the council tells you otherwise, get advice from IPSEA or your local SENDIASS.

We will keep summarising the changes here as they firm up, and we will feed families’ experiences back to the council.