Alongside the Schools White Paper in February 2026, the government published a 120-page consultation: SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First. It covers the entire 0-25 SEND system, including nurseries.
We covered the White Paper’s early years implications in our Schools White Paper summary.
This blog focuses on the SEND consultation itself, what it proposes, what’s new, and what it means specifically for nursery managers and early years SENCOs.
Who do the new SEND reform changes apply to?
The document includes a glossary definition of ‘early years settings’ as: childminders, maintained nursery schools, school-based nurseries, and private, voluntary and independent (PVI) nurseries.
Maintained nursery schools and school-based nurseries are explicitly grouped with early years settings throughout the document, rather than with schools.
So, when the SEND reform document refers to duties or funding for ‘early years settings’, it should cover all providers.
When the reform changes are confirmed, and SEND legislation is passed through parliament (The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill), then we’ll know for certain what PVI settings will have access to.
Why is the current SEND system being reformed?
The last major overhaul was in 2014. It introduced EHCPs, promised a more joined-up approach between education, health and care, and aimed to make the system easier for families to navigate.
Over a decade on, the consultation sets out the current picture for SEND:
- The number of children with EHCPs has doubled, including a 30% rise in children under five since 2023
- Local authority high-needs spending has risen by 87% over six years, but outcomes haven’t improved at the same rate
- Families are still struggling to access support for their children
- Nursery and school staff report spending more time on paperwork than with the children
- The number of children in special schools is higher than at any point in the last 50 years
The consultation’s position is that EHCPs have become the only route families feel able to access support. Pushing the system toward lengthy individual assessments rather than earlier, more flexible help in mainstream settings from the start.
The five reform principles for SEND
These run through every proposal in the SEND reform document and will shape how implementation of the changes works in practice.
They’re worth knowing because they’ll be reflected in the revised SEND Code of Practice, when that’s published.
Principle one: Early
Children and families get support as soon as a need is identified, without waiting for a diagnosis or a formal plan
Principle two: Local
Children learn near their home and alongside their peers
Principle three: Fair
Every setting (early years through to post-16) is resourced to meet common needs, without families having to fight for it
Principle four: Effective
Evidence-based and led support is used to ensure children and families are effectively supported to reach outcomes
Principle five: Shared
Education, health, care, family hubs and families working together, with children’s voices at the centre.
The new structure of SEND support
The proposals replace the current two-tier SEN Support and EHCP structure with four layers. This applies across the 0-25 system, including early years settings.
Here’s the new way children will access support for additional needs.
Universal
(Applies to all early years settings, including PVI nurseries and childminders)
The baseline that every setting must provide to all children. In early years specifically, the document describes this as high-quality provision focused on communication and language, with timely identification of needs.
The current SEN Support graduated approach (Assess, Plan, Do, Review) sits within this Universal offer and continues to do so.
Targeted
(Applies to all early years settings, including PVI nurseries and childminders)
For children whose needs go beyond what the Universal offer can meet, they’ll access targeted support delivered by practitioners in the setting.
No SEND assessment or diagnosis is needed for this level of support. Children who access additional interventions and support will have this provision recorded in a new digital Individual Support Plan (ISP), co-designed with parents.
Targeted Plus
(Applies to all early years settings, but access via Experts at Hand is unclear for PVI settings)
For children needing input beyond what the setting can provide alone. This is where external professionals like speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, and occupational therapists come in through the new Experts at Hand service mentioned in the Schools Whitepaper.
The SEND reform document says early years settings are in scope. Still, as it’s commissioned through local authorities and Integrated Care Boards, it’s unclear so far whether this truly means all settings.
Specialist
(Applies to all settings, with a new fast-track specifically for under-fives)
For children with the most complex needs. Based on nationally defined Specialist Provision Packages (when they’re created). This is the layer that leads to an EHCP in the reformed system.
The SEND reform proposes a dedicated fast-track route to Specialist Provision Package and EHCP for children under five, developed with the NHS. If you’ve been supporting families through long waits for statutory assessment for very young children, the fast-track is specifically designed for the early years.
Children move between layers as their needs change. It’s important for your early years SENCo to know that no statutory plan is needed to access Targeted or Targeted Plus support.
What are Specialist Provision Packages?
This is one of the new concepts in the SEND reform consultation. Specialist Provision Packages will be nationally defined, evidence-based descriptions of what support children with the most complex needs should receive.
They’ll be developed by an independent expert panel. It’s expected that each package will set out the full range of support required, including curriculum adaptations, therapies, resources, and services. As well as giving guidance on what will be included in an EHCP.
In the reformed system, only children who need the overall package of support detailed in a Specialist Provision Package will be entitled to an EHCP. The intention is to end the current postcode lottery where what a child receives depends heavily on which local authority area they live in.
For early years settings supporting children with complex needs, clearer and more consistent national expectations should mean less variation in what families can access. The packages themselves haven’t been developed yet.
What happens to EHCPs?
EHCPs won’t disappear, but the reformed SEND system aims to change how they are accessed and who accesses them. EHCPs will become the plan for children whose needs require a Specialist Provision Package (the most complex cases).
For children currently on EHCPs whose needs could be met through Targeted or Targeted Plus support in the new system, the transition will happen gradually at natural phase change points (like the end of primary and secondary school).
The protections are clearly stated in the consultation:
- No changes to any existing EHCP before September 2030
- New system assessments don’t start until September 2029 at the earliest
- Transition to the new EHCP assessment system will only happen at the end of a phase of education
- No child will be asked to leave a special school
If parents are asking questions about their child’s current EHCP, the answer is straightforward: nothing changes until at least 2030, and only if and when legislation passes.
What this means for the early years SENCo role
A few proposals in the SEND consultation have direct implications for the SENCO role.
Our summary of the Schools White Paper covers:
- Individual Support Plans
- Inclusive Mainstream Fund
- Inclusive Early Years Fund
- Best Start Family Hubs
- Childcare and Early Education Review
- And a projected timeline of changes
National Inclusion Standards
Up to £15m will be invested by 2028 to develop and publish these for the first time.
They’ll set out what support should be available in every mainstream setting, including early years.
These will sit alongside the revised SEND Code of Practice and updated guidance on reasonable adjustments. For nursery SENCos, this should mean clearer benchmarks for what true inclusion looks like, they’ll be used by Ofsted during inspections, too.
National SEND training
The SEND reform document shared a new national SEND training programme backed by over £200 million over three years, which will be available from September 2026.
Designed to cover the whole 0-25 system, we predict it will be accessible through a portal using online training formats. It’s likely guidance on how settings are expected to use SEND training effectively will be included in the new SEND Code of Practice when that’s released.
Inclusion Strategy
Schools will have a legal duty to publish an annual Inclusion Strategy. For early years, the document says the government will work with the sector on ‘appropriate and proportionate approaches’.
Children’s Commissioner oversight
The Children’s Commissioner is being given a new independent remit to monitor SEND reform progress, with a specific focus on the most vulnerable groups. This is a new layer of external scrutiny of how well local areas and settings are delivering, and it supports the goals outlined in the Children’s Commissioner’s Report published in 2025.
Funding: What’s confirmed and what isn’t
We covered the Inclusive Early Years Fund, Experts at Hand and Best Start Family Hubs SEND practitioners in our summary of the Schools White Paper.
On the Inclusive Mainstream Fund, the consultation states early years settings will receive funding, with ‘more upfront funding’ than schools.
Whether this flows directly to PVI settings or via local authorities isn’t confirmed. Further detail is expected through the Childcare and Early Education Review in summer 2026.
Stay in the loop with early years policy changes
The final SEND reform, the Childcare and Early Education Review, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and the new SEND Code of Practice are still among the many documents due to be published. Each one impacts how you support your children and run your nursery.
At Ovivio, we’re known for supporting nursery managers, not just through excellent software but also via our helpful Ovivio blog.
We cover the important documents that matter for nursery managers, owners and practitioners. Summarising lengthy documents through an easy-to-read early years lens.
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