Children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) face losing support via education, health and care plans (EHCPs) from 2030 under major reforms to the sector.
Ministers will boost SEND provision in mainstream schools from 2026, with plans to grow the workforce with extra funding for specialists such as speech and language therapists.
It is understood that existing support via EHCPs – which are legal documents that describe children’s additional needs and unlock extra funding – will be fully protected before 2030. The Government is set to use this time period to ensure additional needs can be met in mainstream schools and support families through the transition period.
But between 2030 and 2035, children will be expected to transition to the reformed SEND system, where EHCPs may be harder to retain and reserved for pupils with the greatest needs under new legislation.
The i Paper understands that significant numbers of children will not be moved off EHCPs from 2030, with sources insisting that only a small proportion of pupils will be transferred onto other statutory plans in the first instance.
No child will be asked to leave their school, and they will only be expected to move to the new system when they reach a key transition phase, such as moving from primary to secondary school at the age of 11, or leaving school at 16, it is understood.
During an online forum with parents, hosted by the Department for Education (DfE) as part of its “national conversation” on SEND reform, schools minister Georgia Gould reportedly said that “no child is going to be asked to leave the school that they’re in”.
The new four-tier system for SEND
The new four-tier system for pupils in mainstream schools, revealed by The i Paper last month, is expected to provide EHCP-level support, such as access to speech and language therapists, to some children without actually needing an EHCP.
Children will also allocated new “digital passports” that will track their needs through their education.
A source close to the reforms said: “If you’ve got an EHCP now, there’ll be no changes to the support received before 2030 and for some children [it] will be 2035.
“If you have an EHCP in 2029 and you just started primary school, you will have that until you change the phase of education.”
They added that plans could be “taken away” but that it will not happen “immediately”.
It is understood that only children who are in the highest tier of support will be able to access an EHCP, with the new legislation expected to be consulted upon.
Children with mild additional needs – and therefore in the lower tiers – are set to access support usually available in mainstream schools via classroom teachers and teaching assistants.
More experts in mainstream schools
But tiers for children with a higher level of need will allow a school to commission extra support via specialists, without needing an EHCP.
These professionals – to be known as “experts at hand” – are expected to be commissioned by councils to work “directly with mainstream settings,” a source close to the reforms said.
The DfE has already announced it will spend £200m to give all teachers training to support children with SEND.
Earlier this week, the Government unveiled its ambition for every secondary school to have an “inclusion base”, meaning a space specialising in educating children with additional needs, as part of a £3bn funding package.
The SEND reforms are designed to address the surge in demand for services which has put a huge financial burden on local authorities.
The Government will spend £5bn to wipe 90 per cent of council SEND deficits in a bid to ease that pressure.
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It comes as eight in 10 councils warn they will become insolvent over mounting SEND deficits by March 2028, according to a new survey by the Local Government Association.
The Office for Budget Responsibility predicted that high-needs deficits will hit £6bn by 2028/29.
Last year, the Chancellor announced that SEND deficits will be absorbed into central Government budgets from 2028/29 to remove the burden from local authorities, but it is not clear where this money will come from.
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