On February 22, 2026, the UK government announced a sweeping set of school reforms that promise to reshape the educational landscape for millions of children across England. At the heart of the proposals, unveiled by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, is an ambitious pledge to halve the disadvantage gap between poorer pupils and their more affluent peers by the time today's youngest students finish secondary school. Alongside this, the government is set to overhaul the system supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), a move that has already sparked intense debate among parents, educators, and advocacy groups.
Phillipson described the reforms as a “golden opportunity to cut the link between background and success,” according to Sky News. “Our schools have made great strides in recent decades. Yet for too long, many children in our country have been let down by a one-size-fits-all system, denied opportunity because they’re poor or because they have additional needs,” she said. The government’s Schools White Paper, a policy document outlining future legislation, is due to be published in full on February 23, 2026, and will set out a roadmap for the next decade of educational change.
One of the most significant shifts will be in how schools receive funding to support disadvantaged pupils. Traditionally, eligibility for free school meals has been the main criterion for allocating extra funds. Under the new proposals, funding would instead be based on a broader set of factors, including household income, the duration of disadvantage, and geographic location. According to Tes, this change is intended to reduce administrative burdens and ensure that support reaches pupils who need it most, including those whose families may not formally claim free school meals.
The government is also setting a target to recover 20 million lost school days per year by 2028/29 compared to 2023/24 levels. To help meet this goal, incentives worth up to £15,000 will be offered to encourage new headteachers to work in areas facing recruitment challenges. Two targeted initiatives, Mission North East and Mission Coastal, will focus on improving outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in those regions, drawing inspiration from the successful London Challenge programme of the early 2000s.
But it is the proposed changes to the SEND system that have generated the most heated discussion. Leaked details revealed that, from 2029, Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs)—the legal documents that specify the support children with additional needs are entitled to—will be reassessed at the end of primary school. In their place, a new, legally recognized framework known as Individual Support Plans (ISPs) will be introduced for all children with SEND. Every child identified as having special educational needs, even those who do not currently have an EHCP, will have an ISP drawn up by their school, and these plans will have a legal underpinning.
Phillipson sought to reassure parents, telling the BBC, “We are not going to be taking away effective support from children.” She emphasized that more children will receive support, and they will get it more quickly and when they need it, rather than having to “fight so hard to get support through an EHCP.” She added, “EHCPs will have an important role to play in the new system,” and described the reforms as a “decade-long, very careful transition” from the current system, which, she acknowledged, “everyone recognises isn’t working.”
Nonetheless, many parents remain deeply anxious about the impact of these changes. Tiya Currie, a mother from north London whose son Arun has delayed language disorder, said she was “extremely scared” for her child’s future. “EHCPs will be removed for my child when he will need it for his secondary school,” Currie told Sky News. “In that time there is no way they will have mainstreams [schools] skilled up to a level to accommodate severe language disorders like DLD. And without EHCP, his access to speech and language therapy will be removed.”
Disability charities and campaigners have echoed these concerns, warning that reassessing EHCPs at a critical transition point could increase instability for children and reduce access to therapies such as speech and language therapy and occupational therapy, which are often specified within legally binding plans. The charity Sense warned that the proposed reassessments could undermine the continuity of support for children and young people with complex needs.
Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott also voiced reservations, telling the BBC that the idea of reassessment “will be genuinely frightening” to many parents who have already battled to secure support for their children. She stressed, “We oppose any support being withdrawn.” For parents like Hannah Luxford, whose teenage son has anxiety and who spent 18 months securing an EHCP, the prospect of losing legal protections is daunting. “It’s an unhelpful, adversarial, complex system that is designed to make you give up,” Luxford said. Now that her son is thriving at a funded virtual school, she worries that the new reforms could jeopardize his progress. “If that’s taken away, it will take us back to where we were five years ago.”
The government’s plans also include a major structural change: all schools will be required to join academy trusts or establish their own, with local authorities and area partnerships gaining new powers to set up trusts. According to Tes, the government’s inclusion adviser, Tom Rees, has argued that the SEND crisis would be “much harder to fix” without all schools being in strong trusts. Phillipson wrote in The Sunday Times, “We will finish what the previous Labour government started, and ensure all schools join high-quality trusts. Within strong trusts, the brilliant practice happening in some schools does not stay locked behind their gates—it flows to every classroom, every child, every community.”
Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, welcomed the move, saying, “School trusts offer the only approach where everyone in the organisation is dedicated to one thing: making our schools better.” With more than half of children already attending trust schools, the government sees this as a way to consolidate progress and spread best practices nationwide.
Behind the reforms lies a stark reality: the disadvantage gap remains stubbornly wide. Department for Education figures show that only 44 percent of poorer children achieved a pass at grade 4 or above in maths and English GCSEs, compared with over 70 percent of children not eligible for free school meals. The disadvantage gap index for Year 11s stood at 3.92 in the latest GCSE results, having widened to its highest point in a decade—3.94 in 2022/23—after narrowing in the years before the pandemic.
Financial pressures also loom large. From 2028, the government will take on SEND costs currently covered by local councils, a move forecast to create a £6 billion pressure on the education budget. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that ministers face tough choices: increase overall education funding, introduce reforms to slow the growth of SEND spending, or make cuts elsewhere.
Other measures in the White Paper include piloting retention incentives for headteachers, developing minimum expectations for parental engagement, and creating new progress measures to better capture the achievements of children who start secondary school significantly behind their peers. There are also plans for school profiles to give parents more information on attendance, attainment, and enrichment, and for doubling the duration of full maternity pay for teachers to eight weeks.
As the government prepares to publish its full White Paper, the education sector is bracing for a decade of change. The stakes are high, and while ministers promise a blueprint for opportunity, many families and educators are watching closely—hopeful for progress, but wary of unintended consequences.