The SEND White Paper: Opportunity, Challenge, and the Urgent Need to Be Seen

By Rachel Girling

Over the past decade, the landscape of education for children and young people with additional needs has been steadily shifting, but in recent years that shift has accelerated significantly. More families are reaching out for support, more children are struggling to remain in mainstream education, and more non-school settings, like members of ALIGN, are being asked to step in often at a point where needs have escalated and options feel limited.

The introduction of the SEND White Paper brings with it a renewed focus on early intervention, consistency, and accountability across the system, which is something ALIGN has advocated for a long time. We recognise that these are important and necessary goals. However, for those of us working directly with children outside of traditional school structures, the reality is more nuanced. This is a moment of both opportunity and risk.

A System Under Pressure

To understand the significance of this moment, we first need to acknowledge the scale of need. According to Department for Education data published in 2023, over 1.5 million pupils in England are identified as having special educational needs, representing around 17% of all pupils. At the same time, the number of children with Education, Health and Care Plans continues to rise year on year. Alongside this, persistent absence has increased significantly since the pandemic, with around one in five pupils recorded as persistently absent during the 2022–23 academic year. These figures are not just statistics; they represent children who are finding it increasingly difficult to access education in its current form.

A Space for Opportunity But Also a Warning

The SEND White Paper places strong emphasis on early intervention, and in principle this is something we fully support. Earlier identification of need creates the potential for earlier, more effective support. In some cases, this may involve short-term access to a non-school setting, allowing a child the time and space to regulate, rebuild confidence, and reintegrate successfully into mainstream education. We see the success of this approach regularly.

However, my experience working within mainstream schools highlights a growing concern about whether the system currently has the capacity and financial viability to deliver on this vision. In every school I have taught in, there was an attempt to have two different resource and support rooms (yes, only one room for up to 2500 children): a “Personalised/Flexible Learning Zone,” intended to be a nurturing, therapeutic space for children who needed additional support. Alongside this, were isolation or behaviour units operating in parallel. These were the terms used in the schools I worked in at the time, language I do not align with, but which reflects how thinking of behaviour, not as communication but as being disruptive, continues to be shaped across the system.

Post-Covid, pressures on more children needing intervention outside of the classroom increased. Even as SLT, we had to become supervisors in a room because the isolation room (ironic that it was this room that was at capacity and not the personalised learning zone) was full but there weren’t enough specialised staff available.

In another school, pressures on space increased and access to their Personalised Learning Zones and nurturing environments were frequently the first to be removed. Rooms were repurposed, specialist staffing was reduced, and the immediate need to accommodate increasing pupil numbers took priority over maintaining specialist provision. It’s also important to remember that, today, we are seeing the closure of independent schools and a stronger push for children to remain within mainstream settings rather than access non-school or alternative provision.

This raises a critical and, as yet, unanswered question: if more children are expected to remain in mainstream education, but the spaces designed to support them are diminishing and specialist staffing hasn’t increased, where will they go? The cycle will continue and more children will develop EBSNA and a barrier to accessing mainstream because it is inaccessible.

Many of the children who access settings like ours do so precisely because they need something that mainstream environments, through no fault of their own, are not always able to provide. They need smaller, calmer spaces, reduced sensory demand, consistent relational support, and therapeutic approaches, time to work with parents and carers, that are embedded into daily practice rather than added on when there’s time. For these children, these elements are not optional; they are essential.

I have also seen first-hand how isolation and behaviour units can become increasingly complex environments to manage. When children who are already dysregulated or in conflict are placed together in the same space, situations can escalate rather than de-escalate. Staff are then left making difficult decisions about where a child should go, often framed as a choice between a “nurture space” and a “behaviour unit” or outside an SLT or Head of Year’s office.

This leads to deeper concerns. When children clash, where can they go to be safely separated? Are we responding to unmet needs, or are we managing behaviour in a way that risks misunderstanding those needs? And perhaps most importantly, are children being supported, or are they being unintentionally punished for struggling? If a child is removed from a nurturing space because of behaviour, are we protecting others, or are we adding further trauma to a child who needs that space to feel safe?

The Risk of Being Seen as Temporary

Alongside these challenges, there is a growing narrative that non-school settings are becoming seen as short-term solutions rather than long-term provisions. In many cases, early intervention within a non-school environment can be incredibly effective, supporting children to return to mainstream education with renewed confidence and capacity. However, this is not the reality for every child and isn’t a financial model that is sustainable for the majority of non-schools unless there are guarantees.

There is a significant group of children and young people for whom a non-school setting is not a stepping stone, but the most appropriate long-term environment. These are children whose needs require highly individualised approaches, access to therapeutic support, and flexible structures that can adapt around them, often until they reach adulthood and employment. Replicating this level of provision within mainstream settings is not always practical, nor is it always financially viable. Recognising this is not about lowering expectations; it is about meeting children where they are and understanding why non-schools are needed.

Collaboration, Not Competition

One of the most promising opportunities within the current landscape is the potential for greater collaboration. Networks such as ALIGN are already bringing non-school providers together, creating a more unified and visible voice. This is essential. For too long, many non-school settings have operated independently, each doing valuable work but without a shared framework to communicate impact clearly to local authorities and trusts.

By working together with ALIGN, there is an opportunity to create greater transparency around what non-school provision offers. This includes sharing meaningful measures of progress, demonstrating outcomes beyond academic attainment, and building a clearer, more consistent picture of how alternative provision complements the wider education system. Visibility in this context is not about justification; it is about ensuring that the value of this work is understood.

Making Value Visible

If local authorities and trusts are to fully understand the role of non-school provision, we need to make our work visible in ways that align with system expectations and all of the new guidance, without losing what makes our approach effective. This includes evidencing progress beyond academic attainment, sharing lived experiences, and developing shared ways of communicating impact that reflect the reality of the children and young people we support.

Looking Ahead: Who Are We Designing For?

As we look ahead, the SEND White Paper represents both a chance to improve and a risk of oversimplifying what is, in reality, a highly complex system. While striving for consistency and structure, we must be careful not to lose the flexibility that many children depend on. We must ensure that those who require longer-term non-school provision are not overlooked or forced into environments that cannot meet their needs.

Ultimately, this is not about policy alone. It is about children. Children who need to feel safe before they can learn, who need to be understood before they can engage, and who sometimes need environments that are fundamentally different from traditional school settings.

For those children, non-school settings are not a last resort. They are a lifeline – and a lifeline for their family and community they live in. And now, more than ever, it is essential that they are seen, understood, and valued as a vital part of the educational and social landscape.