The 2026 SEND reforms
The government has kicked off the biggest change to the SEND system in a generation. Here's what it means to you and how Spiro can help.
Digital Individual Support Plans become a legal requirement for every child with identified SEND — recording barriers to learning, day-to-day provision, reasonable adjustments and intended outcomes. Plans must be interactive, accessible, developed with parents, reviewed at least annually, and open to Ofsted.
Support is organised in layers. Children get Targeted support from their setting, outlined in an ISP. Targeted Plus support additionally receives input from education, health and care professionals where they're needed. Specialist support is for children with the most complex needs, delivered through new Specialist Provision Packages, and used to determine eligibility for an EHCP.
£1.6 billion Inclusive Mainstream Fund over three years from 2026–27, to make sure needs are identified early and met consistently in mainstream schools, for example through implementing targeted, evidence-based support.
You'll publish an Inclusion Strategy. Schools will be required to publish an Inclusion Strategy setting out how resources are deployed to benefit children with SEND. The consultation proposes making this an annual statutory duty that replaces the SEN Information Report maintained schools publish today.
£1.8 billion Experts at Hand service bringing speech and language therapists, educational psychologists and other specialists into schools — available to pupils on Targeted and Targeted Plus support — and amounting to around 40 days a year for a typical primary by 2028–29.
Every school joins a local SEND group, working together on provision, with a longer-term proposal to pool a minimum level of funding across the group.
National Inclusion Standards — a £15 million digital library of identification tools and evidence-based provision, to be published by 2028 and used as the reference for what good provision looks like.
EHCPs transition to the new system. The EHCP continues to set out a child's statutory entitlement to support; the Individual Support Plan describes the day-to-day provision the school delivers. The first cohort is assessed from September 2029.
Belonging and engagement are monitored for pupils with SEND from 2029, alongside a sharper focus on SEND attendance.
The biggest near-term opportunity for schools is access to the Inclusive Mainstream Fund from 2026, with £500M being made available each year. However, to receive the IMF schools must publish an inclusion strategy by 31 December 2026.
Further statutory changes legislating ISPs, EHCP changes, and National Inclusion Standards are not expected until 2029.
2026
First-year implementation
2026–2028
Phase one · Investment and building new system
2028–2029
Phase two · Improved support
2029/30 onwards
Phase three · Future system
From 2026, you will be required to publish an Inclusion Strategy if receiving the IMF. Spiro enables you to generate your Inclusion Strategy from live plan data and helps you monitor and update this strategy as needed.
Spiro's ISP is built to align with the proposals — barriers, provision, adjustments and outcomes, parent-facing, versioned and audit-ready. As more details become clear, Spiro will ensure your plans are aligned with the incoming statutory requirements.
The reforms require pupils with an EHCP to also have an ISP governing the day to day support provided to the child. Spiro integrates EHCP outcomes and provision into the ISP process, ensuring that ISPs are always aligned with the EHCP.
The SEND reforms aim to make the SENCO role more strategic and less administrative. Spiro shares this goal and helps you achieve it with streamlined admin and AI-enabled workflows that eliminate hours of paperwork.
The detail of the reforms will become clearer over the coming years. Spiro dynamically aligns as requirements evolve, so by 2030 you can be confident it covers everything your school needs for the changes.
See Spiro in action
Book a 30-minute demo and we'll show you how to align with the upcoming changes.