Last week, the Government published a raft of interim evaluation reports into programmes started as part of the previous Government’s SEND Change Programme. They add to the interim evaluation of the Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) programme, published in December.
We’re going to look at all of these today, so use the contents table above to skip to the ones you’re interested in if you need to.
The background
The DfE’s SEND and Alternative Provision (SENDAP) Change Programme is the previous government’s “road test” of its Improvement Plan, running across 32 local areas grouped into nine Change Programme Partnerships. You can read Matt’s most recent update here.
The Change Programme followed the consultation for the SEND Review. That was in response to the 2019 SEND Inquiry–the one before the one we’ve just had that’s overdue for a legally-required point-by-point response from the Department for Education. That this hasn’t yet appeared is hugely disrespectful to the cross-party Education Committee. I can’t help feeling that disregard for the law by the US government seems to be catching on this side of the pond (or perhaps the DfE is just taking a leaf out of the LA SEND playbook).
Anyhoooo…The last government came up with an ambitious and sometimes unpalatable set of ideas. The piloting of these was continued by the new government with groups of local authorities, chosen for their relative strengths and weaknesses. Not every LA tried every programme. The included new ways of planning, working across agencies, writing EHC plans, and strengthening inclusive mainstream practice—then decide what’s fit to roll out nationally. By the way, “Inclusive Mainstream Practice” or IMP if you will, is apparently the new name for Ordinarily Available Provision (OAP), aka The Equality Act, SEND Support, the Graduated Response, or whatever else you want to call it. It’s the stuff kids with SEND can have without an EHCP—and at the moment, that depends on where you live.
The SENDAP interim evaluation
These are just interim evaluations, so it’s not possible to draw definitive conclusions on each programme, but worth assessing to see the story so far. We’ll look across the piece first with the SEND and AP Plan interim evaluation
On the plus side, the standardised EHC plan template looks like the clearest “win” so far. By December 2024 it had been trialled in 30 of 32 areas, involving 5,700+ families, and families and caseworkers generally found it clearer and less overwhelming.
The evaluation found,
“Families generally welcomed the new national EHC Plan template, describing it as clearer, more manageable and less overwhelming. Caseworkers similarly valued the logical structure and online accessibility, which, in their view, supported better information capture and joint working. Many CPP areas have continued to use the template, often with small local adaptations, reporting greater plan quality and more consistent decision-making.”.
On the minus side (a pretty BIG minus)–as we reported last year– the current government ditched the template development, sparking concerns that EHCPs themselves were going to be targeted in the White Paper– something that’s almost certain.
As an aside–whether connected or not—recently, a view on the standardised template appeared in the form of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ACDS) response to the recent “SEND Conversation”. It says its members,
“broadly felt the focus on a common EHCP template is a distraction from the real challenges in the system. The format of an EHCP is described by members as immaterial; what matters is identifying need, understanding process, quality teaching, graduated responses, and consistency of mainstream provision. Meaningful change rather than administrative uniformity should be the focus.”
ADCS
This underlines just how out of touch with families the ADCS is. A common template is vital so that if families move areas, the EHCP layout isn’t confusing for the new local authority, and there is less chance of provision being removed. If things are done differently in another LA, a common template makes it easier to fit provision to need, as it should be. Additionally, a common template is vital for children with rare medical needs whose consultants are based in national or regional centres, supporting children from multiple LAs. This would give overworked medical specialists a better chance of writing in EHCP provision and outcomes in a timely, more efficient way, without having to navigate many different layouts. We’re pleased that some LAs have continued to use it, and we hope others may take note.
Better staff skills for inclusive practice
In other parts of the evaluation, staff capability on inclusive practice was reported to be improving:
“Evidence …indicates steady progress in embedding more inclusive practice within mainstream settings. Schools are increasingly taking collective responsibility for meeting SEND needs, supported by new tools, guidance, and local initiatives such as inclusion frameworks, resource bases, and the 3-tier AP model. Stakeholders reported early signs of impact following local implementation, including more pupils being retained in mainstream education, fewer exclusions, and stronger collaboration between schools, local authorities, and AP providers.”
It’s not clear what form this evidence takes– the methodology is mostly surveys and interviews with some “document and data review”. But the difficulty here is maintaining progress–all it takes is a change in school leadership or–perhaps–removal of EHCPs in mainstream–for inclusive practice to end up flushed down the loo.
This SENDAP evaluation also claimed the Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforce (APST) was showing positive early impact. However, the APST’s own evaluation report said that although perceptions were positive, there was no impact on reintegration of secondary pupils back to mainstream: “APST had no impact on year 7-10 children being reintegrated into mainstream school and had little to no low impact on year 11 children progressing to post-16 study”.
The lack of impact is “challenging to interpret” it continued, as reintegration is a “complex outcome—for some children, continued support in the AP setting may be the best outcome.” i.e., there’s no way back. xzzzx`xThere was a “moderate” impact on attendance, but this was interpreted as positive, given the low levels of attendance for children in AP
The Change Programme was “formally extended” last year, and will continue until August 2026, testing:
- Delivering prototype Local Inclusion Support Offers (LISO);
- Piloting Assistive Technology (AT) Lending Libraries;
- Collecting feedback from areas on SEN Units and Resourced Provision;
- Extending the 3-tier AP model, APST and ELSEC programmes; and
- Integrating Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) within local plans.
There’s more on PINS and ELSEC below.
All of this is good news in that solutions to improve support is moving ahead, but where SEN Units and RPs are concerned (the acronym for this is SURPS, by the way) is that they’re already drafting guidance–non-statutory guidance, that is–while the evidence base is still being collected.
Inclusion plans and dashboards
As part of the plans, “Local Area Inclusion Plans” (LAIPs) and “Inclusion Dashboards” are being trialled–an area-wide strategy on how they will work with families and support children and young people with additional needs to meet their needs and improve their outcomes within the community.
The evaluation found people generally liked the idea of having a local priority plan but found challenges getting engagement from schools, families and others, getting the needed data and “managing the overall complexity of the process.” The report says, somewhat drily, “This feedback was provided back to DfE to inform future thinking.”
The “Inclusion Dashboard” meanwhile, has had a restricted rollout, meaning only a small number of users could test it out.
Strengthening Mediation
One of the more controversial aspects of the original Improvement Plan was the idea of making mediation mandatory. So controversial in fact, that it was weakened to merely “strengthening mediation”. Mediation in SEND generally fails because LAs refuse to participate (even though it IS mandatory for them) or they don’t send decision-makers, so nothing can be finalised.
The interim evaluation found,
“a lack of trust in existing processes and practical challenges for local authorities, including capacity constraints and prioritisation of dispute prevention. Insights from local areas informed adjustments such as offering parents a choice of mediation providers, collaborating with external services, introducing pre-mediation support, and revising commissioning practices.”
Do you think Google Translate could create a “government-speak” translation service? If the Department’s wondering why people find “engagement” hard, it’s often because no one knows what the hell they’re going on about.
However, even though testing for this has been paused too, some areas have continued to focus on strengthening mediation practices with new pre-mediation liaisons and strengthened family engagement. “One area reported that of 40 mediation requests, 12 were resolved without escalation and only 2 progressed to appeal, demonstrating tangible impact in reducing disputes and building trust.”
Advisory Tailored Lists
Another controversial idea was “Advisory Tailored Lists”, having LAs choose a pre-selected list of schools from which families in the EHCP process could choose for their child’s placement. This was spun as making things “easier”. We did not think this would be so, and we were, of course, right.
“While most local areas chose not to implement Advisory Tailored Lists, they provided feedback to DfE on the reasons for this to inform their future planning. Where lists were implemented, stakeholders shared learning from their experience, suggesting ways to make them more user-friendly, including incorporating parent feedback, adding functionality for families to explore options, and building on existing local resources.”
In other words, it’s pretty unworkable and parents are quite good at finding their own schools, thanks. What would make it easier is to improve Local Offer websites so they contain useful information about specialist schools, so parents can draw up their own list. Mostly, parents in local SEND Facebook groups offer recommendations and views to other parents on the best schools.
All aspects threw up the inalienable truths that workforce capacity is a massive challenge, and all the testing in the world isn’t going to change that.
Evaluating the Universal SEND Services (USS) programme
Universal SEND Services is a government-funded programme run by the Whole School SEND consortium, led by the SEND training charity, nasen, with partners including Education and Training Foundation and the Autism Education Trust, now retyled as the Neuroinclusive Education Network (NEN)
USS is essentially a big national “skills and confidence” offer for the mainstream workforce: free CPD units, webinars, toolkits and networking, designed to help staff spot SEND earlier and respond better in everyday practice. Parents and anyone interested can also access the online training. We would strongly recommend that every teacher participate.
This evaluation is of particular interest, given both Sharon and I are on the USS Advisory group. We believe this is a really good programme and needs to continue beyond its scheduled end date of early 2027. The government made an announcement recently about £200 million for various training, although there is little detailed information. We wrote about that here. You can also see our article about USS here
On the programme’s own measures, the USS team has created scale and strong take-up: around 255,000 people have engaged since April 2022. Survey respondents largely rated it “good/excellent”, saying they were likely to return for more. Staff also report the kinds of shifts you’d hope for from CPD: higher confidence to identify needs and talk to parents/professionals, plus changes to practice. At the setting level, respondents describe policy and process changes (including SEND identification processes) and a more inclusive culture.
Outcome measurement was beyond scope, so the “impact on children” rests on staff perceptions (e.g., improved relationships/ belonging/ engagement; smaller reported shifts on attendance and attainment). The survey sample is tiny relative to total reach (1,660 responses—under 1% of those who engaged), with SENCos/leaders overrepresented. That matters: the people most motivated to do SEND CPD are not always the people who most need it.
That said, we think this has so far been a very successful programme and it would be foolish to scrap it when the Government is intent on pushing more children with SEND into mainstream. What the DfE must do is, instead of questionable social media posts, use its muscle to promote this more and, instead of dripping worrying leaks to the press about changes, get more coverage about programmes like this.
ELSEC interim evaluation
ELSEC: Early Language Support for Every Child is one of the Change Programme’s flagship “inclusive mainstream” interventions.
ELSEC is a programme to identify speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) earlier, supporting children in mainstream settings and intervening earlier to reduce pressure on specialist services. Something like this has been long overdue and has the potential of making real positive change. So, what’s the story so far?
The interim report says ELSEC pathfinders supported 17,000+ children through universal interventions and 4,600+ through targeted support, trained nearly 4,000 staff, and engaged 590 education settings. It describes measurable progress in children’s speech, language, and communication skills, and notes that universal screening is identifying large numbers of previously unidentified needs. This is really good news, but of course, detection without capacity is just another waiting list.
With more skilled and confident staff, fewer children will be missed, and more supported early enough to avoid the need for a specialist referral. costly input. In turn, this means less time waiting for those children who really do need specialist intervention. That’s exactly the kind of “safety valve” the SEND system needs to relieve pressure on the need for EHCPs, not a heavy-handed slashing of rights that only serves the worst of local authority impulses.
It’s not all plain sailing…
The interim report is frank about the hard parts. ELSEC’s “test and learn” approach is enabling innovation, but also shows the complexity of implementing new workforce models across local areas, correct data use, and issues when tools are adapted or developed locally.
“Although Pathfinder leads reported that the tools that they used were evidence-informed, the validity of screening tools was often unclear, especially for locally developed or adapted ones. The impact of bilingualism and interpreter use on scores was acknowledged but inconsistently recorded. It was also unclear whether all sites retained individual-level data to track progress over time. Timing of screenings also varied, shaped by differing definitions of ‘intervention’. “
It flags ongoing challenges in sustaining workforce development, and finding non-judgemental ways to work with parents, such as using the growing network of Family Hubs–Labour’s replacement for its previously successful Sure Start programme, that was mostly scrapped by successive conservative administrations.
“Involving parents and carers [is] a key part of the model, both to impart skills and provide reassurance. Information from parents and carers also offers contextual information to help understand children’s needs and tailor interventions. This requires sustained effort and multiple strategies to engage different groups, led by both settings and speech and language therapy services.”
So yes, this model can work, but only if you can staff it, keep settings engaged, and join up education and health data—three of the most difficult things in SEND.
But overall, ELSEC looks like one of the most promising elements of the broader programme because it starts early, is specific, and produces observable practice changes that need to be a guaranteed, resourced universal offer everywhere.
Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools interim evaluation
Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) aims to make mainstream primary schools work better for neurodivergent pupils.
The programme is being run across 102 local Parent Carer Forums, local authorities and 40 local NHS Integrated Care Boards (ICBs). They work to improve local provision by offering early interventions, improving school environments, providing school staff training in identification and support, and strengthening how schools work with families.
Children don’t need a diagnosis to be included. Given long waiting lists for autism and ADHD assessments, not to mention referral hurdles and an overwhelmed Right to Choose system, any early help has to be welcome.
“With £13m from the Shared Outcomes Fund, PINS aimed to bring together the education and health workforces to offer whole-school support to mainstream primary schools, helping them better identify and meet the needs of neurodivergent children and improve their outcomes. DfE and NHSE jointly led the programme with strategic input from the NNPCF…”
And now, the interim evaluation is out.
What is the programme supposed to do?
“PINS was designed to offer online and face-to-face support, including coaching and mentoring, tailored to schools’ needs identified through a self-assessment process. In addition, local PCFs were brought in to support greater parent carer engagement with participating schools”
Each school had to assess itself on areas such as leadership, culture and values; mental health; readiness to learn; teaching and learning; environment, and communication.
The programme is tailored to the school with interventions including written resources, coaching, in-person CPD, but no single method predicted a more positive outcome. However, there is some early evidence showing better results with schools that had lower self-assessement scores and less experienced teachers. In other words, schools that aren’t run by leaders and teachers who think they already know it all. At a rough guess, these are also probably the least inclusive schools–and the ones that need the training most.
What hasn’t shown a big improvement is a positive impact on pupils. The program says a year is too early, but that’s also a year in which children waiting for evidence-based support still haven’t had it.
Where has the positive change been?
However, some case studies did show an amount of positive change around pupil well-being, attendance, attainment and behaviour of some pupils which were attributed, at least in part, to PINS.
“PINS has supported increased knowledge of neurodiversity and collaborative approaches, which, in turn, have increased schools’ confidence in identifying and meeting the needs of neurodivergent pupils.”
Where PINS looks strongest is relationships—because relationships are often where SEND falls apart. The parent carer engagement strand is reported to improve communication and relationships with schools, though the evaluation warns that the parent voice needs to influence strategic decisions, not just sit in sessions.
Parent carer forums have separately identified other challenges, including difficulties engaging parents with the project, in getting time with SENCOs, the limited availability of trained staff to provide effective support, and a lack of school understanding of the high rate of autistic “masking”. Other weaknesses are the usual system ones: tight timescales driven by funding, limited NHS capacity to provide sufficient numbers of specialists, and the practical difficulty of cascading training to all staff.
Sustainability is also shaky: despite enthusiasm, few teams could describe concrete plans ot structures to sustain impact. The evaluation explicitly flags workforce pressures and SENCo attrition as risks, with commitment from senior school leaders as a key predictor of success.
“PCF representatives reflected that the level of commitment from school leaders and SENCOs influenced how effectively schools engaged with the parent carer engagement strand of PINS and the overall impact of the activities. Where senior leaders actively endorsed this work, encouraged parent carer attendance at sessions and implemented actions based on feedback received, engagement from parent carers improved.”
“Engagement with school senior leadership and whole-workforce participation in the programme maximise impact. However, the reliance on SENCO-led dissemination risks limiting the direct reach of PINS and the extent to which a whole-school approach can be embedded. Any future iterations of PINS should align activities with school planning cycles”
It’s still early days, though, and there is a lot of enthusiasm to expand and build on the groundwork laid. It’s never going to be as good as getting children identified and supported early enough to prevent embedded trauma, but it’s a start. It’s clear parent forums are working hard on this. What’s needed, as ever, is for health to get its act together and work alongside, but with upcoming changes to how local NHS integrated care boards are organised, this may be a long time coming.
PINS can be a plausible model for making mainstream less adversarial and more coherent for neurodivergent children—but it’s only as strong as the specialist capacity and long-term commissioning behind it. And if it doesn’t work, of course there’ll be an influx of mainstream units and resourced provisions to stick those children who are a bit trickier to help into.
Is the Change Programme working?
There’s no mystery why most of these interim evaluations have been dumped out (mostly) all together, given the stop-start-stop impending Schools White Paper.
Read together, they are impressive attempts to make a positive difference in making mainstream work better, but the results so far are patchy and eventual success is hard to predict. It can only be hoped that whatever is in the WP works with these programmes, especially with funding and capacity.
The bad news: none of these solve the core SEND problem that parents actually litigate—enforceable provision when the system has no places and no staff.
The programme is generating useful learning and some genuinely promising practice. But unless government turns the best of these pilots into a funded, enforceable national offer—while protecting rights—families will still be forced back into the same exhausting fight, just with nicer toolkits.
And if the Government throws everything into chaos by raising the long-standing–and perfectly fine–threshold for a statutory assessment, it’ll face even bigger problems in the shape of legal challenges.
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Also read:
- Beyond EHCPs: Why Inclusion Needs More Than a Document
- The Unacceptable Truth: 20 SEND legal rights at risk from the Government’s SEND reforms
- How health and family support systems are failing children starting school
- WEBINAR RECORDING! The implications for children’s legal rights to EHCPs and EOTAS of the Government’s SEND proposals
- When things go right: Shining a light on SEND Practitioners making a positive impact [Giveaway!]
- From suspicion to support: why the Government’s child protection reforms matter for disabled children
- Have your say on the future of transport for disabled children and young people
- Unison voices major concerns over SEND reform health plans for sick and disabled children out of school in the EOTAS consultation
- Top Tips for the EOTAS & EHCP consultation: Protect your child’s rights to statutory SEND support
- Navigating constraints: Why a former PCF chair thinks the current model is missing the mark for families
- Dear Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell: an Open Letter from Special Needs Jungle and SEND legal charity SOS!SEN
- Research: Disabled young people define inclusive education as “learning in the place that’s right for them”
Key Content
- The relentless march of SEND reform only hears views that fit the narrative
- Evaluating SEND change: Promising prototypes, patchy proof
- SEND changes will be “co-created”. Which means what, exactly? asks the Education Select Committee
- SEND Inquiry report 3: How does the Education Committee want to fix SEND funding?
- SEND Inquiry Report 2: Force the NHS to pay its fair share, plus fixing early years and post-16 education
- SEND Inquiry Report 1: Strengthen inclusion—but don’t dilute SEND legal entitlements the Education Committee tells the Government
- SEND Minister refuses to guarantee keeping SEND legal rights in Schools White Paper
- Plans for SEND delayed to Autumn, but Spending Review doesn’t include enough for widescale change
- SNJ’s 80 practical recommendations to solve the SEND Emergency
- What kind of government is “bold” enough to scrap statutory EHCPs from vulnerable children?
- SEND accountability: The law for disabled children’s education isn’t optional, IPSEA reminds the SEND Inquiry
- What do school and college workforce unions want for the future of SEND?
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She is a rare disease & chronic pain patient advocate with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.
- The Unacceptable Truth: 20 SEND legal rights at risk from the Government’s SEND reforms - September 9, 2026
- Dear Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell: an Open Letter from Special Needs Jungle and SEND legal charity SOS!SEN - August 4, 2026
- Research: Disabled young people define inclusive education as “learning in the place that’s right for them” - July 30, 2026
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