Issue 30: Evidence-Based Screening is the Future for Effective Early Intervention | Georgie Cooney

The U.K SEN (Special Educational Needs) system is buzzing at the moment - I wonder what the vibe is in the rest of the world? The heavily anticipated White Paper finally came out last month. ‘SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First - Government Consultation’. This shines a light on the necessity for early evidence-based screeners for additional needs in schools.

Overall, this paper is positive, but I can’t help thinking I have seen most of this before. When I was working in mainstream schools between 2001 and 2014, we followed the SEN Code of Practice (2001). It looked very similar to what we’re seeing in the White Paper today, and it was equally keen to drive Inclusion forward. This, in my view, is a great incentive; however, there are those who argue that inclusion can lead to exclusion. In fact, this was such a strong argument for the government (led by David Cameron) that they changed SEN policies from 2010 to put ‘parents in the driving seat’ and give them more choice over how they could spend their child’s funding. This was motivated by parents and teachers who felt strongly that their children were in the wrong setting and not appropriately provided for. The only slight issue with this was that funding was also cut dramatically, and this frugal approach continued for the next decade or so.

Education Healthcare Plans (EHCPs) were introduced. Cohesion among the Education, Health, and Social departments was encouraged, and a team around a child was supposed to be established. Some teams work better than others, that is for certain. Sadly, it’s the child in the middle that ends up losing out. EHC plans are also only for those children who have identified needs and are assigned them only if these needs can be met solely with an EHC plan. Some children and young people with an EHC plan will have a diagnosis, and some won't. Then, of course, there are all the other children with additional needs who are supposed to be provided for by the home and then by the educational setting. Unfortunately, budgets are strapped, SEN knowledge is scarce, and needs are not being identified early enough. So, this White Paper is welcomed.

What is structurally different this time is the architecture. It reminds me of the old School Action, School Action Plus categories. So again, I’m not sure how different this looks. However, the White Paper introduces a four-layered model of support that replaces the binary ‘has an EHCP or doesn’t’ system. At the base sits a Universal Offer - a new national baseline requiring every mainstream school to deliver high-quality adaptive teaching, calm learning environments (this is going to take some work and some building extensions), and early help as standard. Above this are Targeted support (small-group interventions, pre-teaching, and curriculum adjustments documented through an ISP), Targeted Plus support (access to specialist professionals via the new ‘Experts at Hand’ service), and Specialist provision (multi-agency packages with an EHCP for the most complex needs). The critical shift here is that children can move fluidly between layers as their needs change, without restarting lengthy statutory processes. It’s graduated, not gatekept. Well, that’s what we hope.

The critical shift here is that children can move fluidly between layers as their needs change, without restarting lengthy statutory processes.

The government is pushing identification earlier than ever before.

This 2026 consultation states that children learning with peers provides clear academic and social benefits. Furthermore, it says that pupils with SEND in mainstream schools are twice as likely to gain employment and live independently compared to those in special classes. Interestingly, there is not much said about the high increase in numbers of SEN children who are not coping in mainstream environments and who are having to be home-schooled or find alternative provision. According to gov.uk, there are 126,000 children in elective home education (EHE) on the census date in autumn 2025. In the previous autumn term, there were 111,700 children electively home educated. This surely tells us something about the current SEN system in schools.

What is also striking is how strongly the government is now prioritising the earliest years - the period before children even enter school. Over £200 million is being invested so that every Best Start Family Hub has a dedicated SEND practitioner offering direct support to families. The consultation makes a compelling case: research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that children with access to Sure Start Children’s Centres (which were largely dismantled or replaced by "family hubs" after 2010 due to severe budget cuts, with over 1,000 centres closing) were more likely to have their needs recognised at age five and less likely to require SEND support between ages seven and sixteen. Developmental checks at age two - the EYFS progress check and Healthy Child Programme review - are being repositioned as critical identification points. For those of us who believe in early screening, this is significant. The government is pushing identification earlier than ever before, to a point where parents, health visitors and early years practitioners are the first line of recognition, not schools.

So, what’s different this time?

Here’s what I think: It is in the 2026 ‘SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First - Government Consultation’: ‘We are introducing new duties on settings to create Individual Support Plans and, for the first time, setting out a requirement to use evidence-based resources and interventions to identify and meet need’.

The tools we use to identify needs must align with these incoming developmental frameworks, not just legacy diagnostic categories.

Alongside ISPs, the consultation proposes replacing the current four broad areas of SEN need with five new ‘areas of development’: Executive Function, Motor and Physical, Sensory, Speech/Language/Communication, and Social and Emotional. This is a deliberate move away from diagnosis-led categories and towards practical, classroom-level descriptions that educators can respond to directly (if they have the training and understanding). The consultation is explicit about why: the current areas don’t easily bridge into evidence-based strategies for responding to classroom needs. For example, ADHD has been misframed as primarily a social, emotional and mental health need, when many of the child’s barriers relate more closely to executive function and cognition. For anyone involved in screening, this reframing matters. The tools we use to identify needs must align with these incoming developmental frameworks, not just legacy diagnostic categories.

It is worth noting that the consultation directly addresses the screening landscape. It states that the government is ‘aware of a proliferation of tools marketed to schools that claim to support the identification of needs or to screen for certain conditions’ and is clear that ‘where teachers and educators use additional tools, these must be robustly evaluated, evidence-based and lead to proven interventions.’ This is an important and necessary caution. Not all screeners are created equal. Good screeners should not be claiming to diagnose anything. They should identify strengths and needs so that support can follow. This distinction - between a tool that labels and one that illuminates - is exactly what the government is driving at, and it is a distinction that should guide every school’s purchasing decision.