Frances Akinde is an experienced SEND educator, former special school headteacher, author, and neurodivergent parent of five sons. We are thrilled to officially welcome Frances to the SNJ team!
When I think of the term gatekeeper, I have two images that come to mind. A bodyguard at the entrance to a club, checking ID and deciding who is important enough to be let in. Or the concierge in the hotel lobby who looks at you and quietly decides what service you are going to receive. Whether your room will have a nice view. Whether you will get any complimentary upgrades.
In this way, a Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator (SENCO) is the gatekeeper who can ensure a child receives the services, referrals, reasonable adjustments, and support they need. Or they can be the person who stops things from happening. Sometimes this is because they do not feel the child’s needs are high enough or urgent enough. Sometimes, because they are completely overwhelmed and have to prioritise the parents who know the system and their child’s rights, or who are simply the ones who shout the loudest. And sometimes, because their own bias or assumptions influence who they’re most likely to support.
I’ve been a class teacher, head of subject, SENCO, assessment lead, specialist advisory teacher, head of inclusion, headteacher of a special school for autistic learners, and a local authority inspector and SEND advisor. I’ve looked at inclusion from every angle and across all phases. I have also fought for support for my own children. Out of all the roles, SENCO was the one I found hardest. I felt pulled in multiple directions and unable to make decisions without permission. SENCOs are stuck in the middle of a system we already know isn’t working.
Responsibility without real authority
We know the demands of the role. We know SENCOs experience stress and burnout. We know people who specialise in Special Educational Needs & Disability (SEND) are leaving the profession in worrying numbers. The SENCO workload review was meant to help. The report highlighted that many SENCOs have responsibility without real authority, are burdened with layers of operational tasks, and have limited time for strategic leadership. Then came the new SENCO qualification in 2024, replacing the NASENCo award. It was designed to strengthen expertise, raise standards and prepare SENCOs for the strategic demands of the role.
Now we have the 2026 Schools White Paper and the SEND consultation. Both arrived in February 2026 and are shaping what mainstream schools will be expected to do next. The statutory requirement for every maintained school to have a qualified SENCO remains unchanged. It doesn’t rewrite the SENCO job description, but it does set out new expectations that shift how the role will be carried out. It makes the SENCO even more central to inclusion, with expectations also centred on identification and the use of digital systems.
SENCOs to lead the new tiered system of support
The White Paper and SEND consultation introduces a four-tier model:
- Universal
- Targeted
- Targeted Plus
- Specialist
SENCOs will be expected to oversee how support is organised across these tiers and make sure needs are met earlier in mainstream settings. This makes the role even more important. SENCOs will be central to designing, coordinating and reviewing the universal and targeted layers, not just complex cases.
Under the reforms, SENCOs remain responsible for early identification and consistent graduated responses. But the White Paper reinforces expectations around early identification and evidence-based support at the lower tiers. SENCOs must ensure the graduated response is real, documented and timely.
SENCOs will also need to work within the new planned National Inclusion Standards that all schools must meet. These standards will guide identification, provision and review. This makes the SENCO the person who aligns the whole school’s practice with these expectations.
Expanded leadership demands
The White Paper expands the leadership demands on SENCOs. They will be responsible for inclusive classroom practice, staff development, consistent provision and quality assurance of the universal offer. This adds strategic weight but does not remove operational pressure. The challenge is how SENCOs can meet these expectations without burning out.
The new £1.6bn Inclusive Mainstream Fund and the £1.8bn Experts at Hand service to support greater inclusion sound positive. They offer earlier access to education psychologists (EPs), speech and language therapists (SALT), occupational therapists (OT) and other specialists, without needing an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). But this means SENCOs will be responsible for coordinating this involvement earlier, to reduce delays and reduce the fight for assessment and support.
Two systems at once
The new system is not planned to begin in legal terms until 2029, and EHCP changes will not start until 2030. This means SENCOs must hold two systems in parallel: the current legal framework and the new expectations around tiered support, ISPs, and earlier intervention. That creates dual-system pressure. Schools will be operating in two systems at once. SENCOs will have to navigate both and support staff and families through uncertainty.
Why the idea of gatekeeping still matters
The SEND Code of Practice expects early identification, strong universal teaching and a clear graduated response involving the family. In practice, SENCOs hold everything together. When the system works, SENCOs open doors by:
- identifying needs early
- making relationships stronger because support is timely
- keeping education, health and social care connected
But gatekeeping can close doors when decisions are shaped by pressure, inconsistency or bias.
The tiered system moves gatekeeping closer to the classroom. Teachers and SENCOs will make more decisions earlier, often without external professionals. Without the right training, capacity and oversight, this creates both risk and opportunity.
Digital Individual Support Plans (ISPs)
The proposals also bring back the pre-2014 mandatory individual learning plans in the form of digital Individual Support Plans (ISPs). ISPs will become the central document for SEND. SENCOs must make sure every child with identified SEND has an ISP that:
- records special educational needs
- sets out adjustments and provisions
- is reviewed regularly
- includes family voice.
ISPs are nothing new. They are basically the old Individual Educational Plan (IEP) with a different name. We moved away from IEPs under the SEND Code of Practice, but many schools and local authorities continue using them under different labels. IEPs, ISPs, Support Plans, Strength-Based Plans, Pupil Profiles. The names may have changed, but the practice didn’t disappear.
There is value in having something that brings practice together and makes it more consistent than at present. A well-designed ISP could help if it actually pulls learning, well-being and inclusion into one place, makes the graduated response clearer, shows what support is happening day to day, reduces repetition for staff and families, and keeps the focus on a strengths-based, child-centred approach.
A good ISP:
- records decisions
- shows what has been tried
- includes family and child voice
- keeps support consistent across staff.
A good ISP can reduce inconsistent decision-making. But only if staff have time and support to use it properly. The investment in the Inclusive Mainstream Fund and the Experts at Hand service both aim to stop support arriving too late. However, whether this happens will depend on the availability of specialists, school capacity and how consistently areas use the funding.
Subjective judgement and bias
The Timpson Review showed how uneven exclusion practice is and how vulnerable groups are affected most. SENCOs remain central to prevention. For Global Majority children, the intersection of race and SEND remains one of the clearest tests of equity. This is where gatekeeping has to be reflective and intentional.
Equality Act duties and reasonable adjustments shape daily decisions about access and participation. When early help is weak, exclusion follows. SENCO authority and consistency prevent escalation. Ethnic disproportionality in identification and exclusion shows how bias can influence decisions. Cultural competence is essential.
This is not about blaming SENCOs. It is about understanding how policy, pressure and lived experience meet at the school gate.
Seven ways to strengthen gatekeeping
If we want gatekeeping to work in the way the reforms intend, we need clear and consistent actions that strengthen decision-making in schools.
- Give SENCOs time, support, authority and parity.
- Keep practice grounded in law and the SEND Code of Practice.
- Use ISPs as working documents.
- Standardise processes to reduce inconsistency.
- Build cultural competence.
- Triangulate evidence across multiple sources.
- Track patterns for equity and accountability.
The system is redefining the gate, not removing it
The power of SENCOs as gatekeepers is real. And with power comes even greater responsibility. The 2026 reforms aim to build a system that offers support earlier, more consistently, and more equitably, with less of a fight for it. But a system change in a system that has not worked for far too long has to happen through people. These reforms don’t remove the pressures SENCOs face every day; they simply shift where those pressures show up.
Gatekeeping will still exist. Even with more funding, workloads remain high. Rationing happens under pressure. The question is how we will ensure that SENCOs are empowered to open doors, not close them. Our collective responsibility is to build the conditions in which SENCOs can keep the gate open fairly, consistently, and always with the child at the centre.
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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”
- What schools and practitioners are missing about Tamil and South Asian families trying to navigate the SEND system.
- Where will all the teaching assistants come from? The research exposing the reality gap in the government SEND plans
- The SENCO as gatekeeper: The White Paper proposals bring a responsibility of opening doors, not closing them
- “We are living on a knife-edge” SENDCo research sounds the alarm about the high cost of mainstream inclusion
- Be An Ally, Not a Bystander: A Call to Action for Educators: Book Giveaway!
- It’s time to end the “double impact” of poor experiences at the intersectionality between Race and SEND: A Call to Action!
- SNJ in Conversation with Carrie Grant: Supporting children at the intersection of SEND, Race and Gender Identity
- How will the Government’s new NPQ SENCO qualification improve SEND provision?
- New SENCO research questions the SEND Review’s “irresponsible” plans to downgrade the NASENCO award
- #SENDReview: Downgrading SENCO training is a mistake but protected time must be mandatory
- How much impact will Early Years SENCOs in disadvantaged areas make to boosting early identification of SEND?
- SNJ Report: The casual bias and daily discrimination faced by disabled children and their families from ethnic and marginalised communities
What kind of government is “bold” enough to scrap statutory EHCPs from vulnerable children?May 16, 2025
The SEND reforms in the Schools White Paper reveal rights given, and rights stripped awayFebruary 24, 2026
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Last year, after discovering that she was neurodivergent and had a hearing impairment, Frances left headship and now uses her lived experiences to offer training and support to ensure that our schools and workplaces are truly inclusive.
In January 2023, Frances co-launched the BAMEed SEND hub as part of the BAMEed Network, a diverse network for Educators which aims to ensure diversity and address racial inequities in Education.
As a neurodivergent educator, Frances uses her experiences to support and mentor people who may be struggling in the workplace and in education. She is also an assistive technology trainer and anti-racist schools award coach.
- The SENCO as gatekeeper: The White Paper proposals bring a responsibility of opening doors, not closing them - March 18, 2026
- Be An Ally, Not a Bystander: A Call to Action for Educators: Book Giveaway! - May 6, 2025
- It’s time to end the “double impact” of poor experiences at the intersectionality between Race and SEND: A Call to Action! - September 4, 2023
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