How Eden + Supporting Education Group Are Responding

On 23 February 2026, the UK Government published its long-anticipated schools White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, outlining a major reform agenda for education and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) support in England.

This policy represents one of the most significant shifts in SEND and inclusion thinking in years, and has been broadly welcomed by sector organisations for its ambition and emphasis on early intervention and inclusion.

At Supporting Education Group (SEG) and within Eden Training Solutions, we are proud to be part of a community of organisations engaging with this agenda. With a shared commitment to high-quality inclusivity from the earliest years, we believe these reforms have real potential — if implemented with clarity and resource.

A Policy That Sees the Whole Child — Including in the Early Years

The White Paper’s vision extends beyond core academics. It highlights:

• a broader and more engaging school experience for all children,
• a drive to halve the disadvantage gap,
• and renewed focus on inclusivity across education and SEND support systems.

Importantly for early years settings, the Government emphasises the value of getting support right before children even start school. This includes plans for partnerships between Best Start Family Hubs, early years settings and schools to improve transitions and early identification of need.

From an early years perspective, this focus matches longstanding evidence: the earlier children receive support, the better their learning, wellbeing and long-term outcomes.

Inclusion, Disadvantage and a Nuanced Understanding of Need

One of the standout shifts in the White Paper — and one that SEG endorses strongly — is its more complex and intersectional understanding of disadvantage. Rather than focusing only on SEND categories, the policy acknowledges that multiple factors, such as socioeconomic background, early development needs and overlapping challenges, shape children’s learning experiences.

“The proposals reflect a thoughtful understanding of the system as it currently stands — its pressures, its inconsistencies and its complexity — and signal a clear shift towards a model where inclusion is fundamental to educational standards.”
— SEG response, shaped by SEND Director Liz Murray

This is significant because it places children’s holistic context at the centre of future policy design, and aligns with Eden’s early years practice where development, wellbeing and inclusion are inseparable.

Inclusion and Standards: Two Sides of the Same Coin

The White Paper reframes inclusion as core to educational success, not peripheral to it. This aligns with what educators experience every day:

“Children who need additional support are found in every classroom and every setting, and the quality of provision for them shapes outcomes for all.”
— Liz Murray, SEG

From Eden’s early years work, this feels particularly relevant. Children’s earliest experiences of belonging, confidence, communication and regulation lay the foundations for lifelong learning — and inclusive practice within early years settings strengthens outcomes for everyone.

A System Built on Collaboration — Schools, Trusts, Early Years and Specialists

The White Paper places a strong emphasis on collaboration across educational settings, including mainstream schools, trusts and specialist providers, and this has been welcomed by SEG.

Collaborative practice offers routes to share expertise, create smoother transition pathways and scale effective, evidence-informed inclusion strategies. At the same time, SEG notes that:

“Capability across the specialist sector is varied. For collaboration to work well, there will need to be clear expectations, coherent frameworks and appropriate accountability.”

For Eden, this highlights the value of strong bridges between early years practitioners, primary schools, health and specialist services, so that developmental understanding and adaptive teaching strategies flow across phases.

Individual Support Plans and a Layered Model of Provision

One of the most transformational proposals in the White Paper is the introduction of national, digitised Individual Support Plans (ISPs), alongside a tiered model of support — universal, targeted, targeted-plus and specialist.

This has the potential to:

• reduce delays in accessing help,
• broaden early support without needing an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP),
• and help settings tailor provision for children’s unique strengths and challenges.

From an early years standpoint, this layered approach mirrors what many practitioners already strive to deliver: graduated, strengths-based support informed by ongoing observation and family insight.

Workforce Capacity: Enthusiasm Meets the Need for Detail

The Government has committed £200 million from 2026–27 for workforce development, a vital step given the scale of reform.

SEG welcomes this, especially given our work across Eden and the broader sector in training educators and leaders. However, we also recognise that:

• More detail is needed on the depth and structure of training,
• clarity is required around support roles,
• and progress must be made on long-term workforce shortages in key areas like Educational Psychology and speech and language support.

This speaks to one of the central challenges of reform: vision and ambition must be matched by investable, realistic delivery plans.

Reframing Categories of Need — Opportunities and Risks

The White Paper proposes a shift away from diagnostic SEND categories toward broader areas of development. SEG supports the intention to reduce unnecessary reliance on labels that delay support, but has emphasised the importance of ensuring that the framework remains comprehensive and precise enough to capture a full range of needs.

For early years providers, this aligns with observation-focused practice, but only if the new approach genuinely helps settings recognise and respond to needs across development domains.

Behaviour, Safety and Inclusion: Persistent Tensions

Like many in sectors spanning early years to secondary, SEG notes that the White Paper’s position on behaviour and safety reflects real practical tensions in everyday education.

The paper reaffirms that exclusion of a child with SEND is unlawful but also stresses that violence has no place in schools — a necessary but complex duality when supporting children whose behaviour may be rooted in neurodiversity, trauma or communication challenges.

Practical, resourced guidance will be essential if schools and early years settings are to manage behaviour, wellbeing and safety, foreshadowing high-quality inclusion.

Early Years and Eden: A Special Focus

The White Paper explicitly acknowledges the value of early years as part of the educational continuum, and at Eden, we know this is where long-term potential is unlocked.

Proposals for earlier partnerships between early years settings and schools, including shared training and transition planning, create productive ground for practice that spans from age 0–5 and beyond.

Whether through early identification of developmental delays, enriched adult–child interaction, or family-centred support, early years environments are the seedbed for inclusive learning that all reform ambitions depend on.

How Eden and SEG Are Supporting the Sector

SEG — with Eden’s early years expertise embedded — is positioned to help settings navigate and flourish under these reforms. Our support includes:

SEND Lens:
A trust-wide self-evaluation tool to assess readiness for reform.

SEND & Inclusion Hub:
A centralised resource hub for learning, diagnostics and specialist insight.

Training and Qualifications:
Expanded programmes to build capability at all levels, linked to apprenticeship funding where applicable.

SEND-Trained Practitioners:
Support for recruiting and retaining educators skilled in adaptive, inclusive practice.

Conclusion: A Reform Agenda with Real Potential — and Real Work Ahead

The Every Child Achieving and Thriving White Paper represents a substantial and ambitious reform package — one that places inclusion, early support and collaboration at the heart of educational strategy.

At Eden, and across the Supporting Education Group:

• we welcome the shift toward early intervention and inclusion,
• we are energised by the vision,
• and we are ready to support the sector in turning policy into practice.

But for this direction to truly deliver, clarity, detail, workforce capacity and sustainable resourcing must follow.

This is a moment of possibility, and with the right partnerships, it can be a meaningful reset for inclusion from the earliest years onward.

Further Reading

Access the full White Paper here:
Every child achieving and thriving (HTML version) – GOV.UK

Access the easy read version here: Our plan to help every child do well at school easy read version

Access the parents need to know blog here: Schools white paper: What parents need to know about changes to the SEND system  – The Education Hub