In 2025 we need a fundamental change in the underlying assumptions entrenched in policy about our children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It must start with a shift in the disposition that sees the label of complexity as a problem.
All children are complex and diverse: in development, learner identity and experiences. Diversity and difference are increasingly acknowledged in schools but too often oversimplified in education policy.
We have to plan for heterogeneous, not homogeneous, cohorts. The co-occurrence of social, emotional, cognitive and economic barriers experienced by our learners is the new normal.
So much so that I’d suggest the number one question for the Commons Education Select Committee is whether our education system removes barriers to learning or creates them.
SEND: the need for a new policy approach
Our current system triages children and then allocates a remedy for those with academic or social ailments. Instead, why can’t we have learning environments that design and plan to the variance of need and start points from the outset?
Designing for “normal” may save costs in the short term, but it stockpiles problems (and costs) over the longer term and undermines children’s potential. Ultimately, by assuming that diverse learners bring costly complexity, we risk excluding them.
The most obvious example of inequitable design is like maths and English.
Inequity is not caused by teachers. It is a structural failure in a system entrenched in the assumption that children with less common profiles need fixing. But it’s not the children who need fixing, it’s our system.
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There’s now more than enough evidence of the problems caused by the significant education barriers our learners encounter. Rising SEND numbers (now 40 per cent “ever SEND”); stubbornly high levels of persistent absence; increased exclusions and suspensions; parental decisions to home educate.
So let’s reframe our thinking about how to address the reality of learner complexity. It’s a provocation I have been thinking through with school leaders.
If the secretary of state is serious about , we need to connect policy threads together and leave behind debates about whether we need more excellence or equity in our schools. Equity is a prerequisite to excellence.
What does successful inclusion look like?
When I ask school leaders what successful inclusion looks like, their responses always include community and belonging. They do this because they see diversity (by which I mean here diversity of educational need) as a reality.
Equity, enshrined in the Equality Act and the Code of Practice, should be fundamental in policy planning and design. Inclusion, which I would argue is a process, shapes the actions through which we achieve our desired outcome: belonging.
If we clarify these in an evolved framework - diversity as fact, equity by design, inclusion is the action, belonging is the outcome - then we can see 2025 as the year for education policy (not just SEND-specific policy) to support leaders to plan equitably and systemise the process of inclusion for their schools.
Indeed, many schools already do this despite education policy, not because of it.
We must see diversity as a strength (as the industry increasingly has). Education is currently dependent on brave leadership in schools to represent the complex, cognitive, social and emotional diversity in our classrooms. It is now time for brave policymakers to step up and design for equitable outcomes.
Margaret Mulholland is the special educational needs and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders
