Government plan to transform SEND system and tackle the disadvantage gap

The UK Government has outlined the details of the new Schools White Paper, titled Every Child Achieving and Thriving

Published: 24/02/2026

Time to read: 5 minutes

The long-awaited Schools White Paper has been released, detailing the government’s strategy to create a more equitable school system. With a focus on tackling the SEND crisis and raising the attainment of disadvantaged young people, the ambitions of this bill are a welcome sign of hope.

The aims

The proposed law aims to address challenges across the education sector, with the two stated goals of the bill being:

To halve the disadvantage gap, with children from low-income backgrounds achieving around a whole grade higher in their GCSEs compared to today
All children are being stretched to achieve higher standards. This means, on average, children will leave secondary school with a grade 5 or higher across their GCSEs

Tutor Trust welcomes these aims and is pleased that the government recognises the pressing need to tackle the disadvantage gap which currently means children from lower family incomes are denied the opportunities granted to their peers. The focus on improving academic achievement is also promising, with higher academic attainment being the one of the most effective means to improving the life chances of disadvantaged young people.

Tutor Trust is well placed to help with these goals, with data last year finding we had successfully narrowed the attainment gap across all core subjects in both SATs and GCSEs, and we will continue our high-impact work to help close the attainment gap not only between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged young people but the growing gap between young people in the north of England and London.

SEND reform

In the announcement speech delivered in a Peterborough school, Education Secretary Bridget Philipson focused on improvements to SEND provision, committing to an inclusive education system which will ensure the needs of young people with SEND are addressed from early years to the workplace.

Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson is the Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South ©House of Commons - image ©House of Commons

Speaking about the White Paper - the Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson said:

"The disadvantage gap is still wide, children with SEND are sidelined and bright children from ordinary families are still not achieving all that they should.”

Read more about the Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson's career

The announcements, which total around £4 billion in spending commitments, include:

£1.6 billion over 3 years to deliver inclusive mainstream education through an Inclusive Mainstream Fund
Creating a new £1.8 billion service, Experts at Hand, of speech and language therapists, education psychologists and wider professionals to get children the support they need early
Funding to ensure family hubs can provide SEND support and to provide all teachers SEND training

These policies will provide much needed support to address the challenges of the SEND crisis and Tutor Trust is happy to see that government proposals are explicitly aimed at ensuring young people with SEND are given all the support they need to thrive in education. For this to be effective however, additional funding given to schools must be long-lasting and changes to EHCPs should not deny young people who need support provision which would help them.

Our model at Tutor Trust has been effective at supporting young people with SEND to achieve greater academic outcomes, with SEND pupils who received Tutor Trust tuition having higher academic attainment than SEND pupils who did not receive tuition. Tutor Trust will continue to provide tuition to SEND pupils to ensure they have the same chance to succeed as their non-SEND peers.

Final thoughts

Reflecting on the announcement, Ed Marsh, CEO of Tutor Trust, said:

"The government's announcement is a hugely welcome sign of the government getting to grips with the issues which are having the most detrimental impact on young people in the north of England.

With the attainment gap faced by disadvantaged pupils being at its widest in over 10 years at the end of 2023/24, the need for targeted action to address this could not be greater. This gap is more keenly felt across the north, with 16-year-olds in London being 10 months behind compared to 24 months for school-leavers in Manchester, Leeds or Liverpool.

As recent research from The Sutton Trust has found the amount of private tuition to be increasing, and the amount of targeted in-school tutoring to be declining, the support available to disadvantaged young people is becoming increasingly uneven.

What the government has announced is promising, but we cannot afford to get this wrong. Tutor Trust looks forward to contributing into the announced consultation to ensure the proposed reforms will benefit from our evidence base and provide the change needed for young people in this country.”

The goal to ensure all young people, no matter their circumstance, have access to the best education possible is key to Tutor Trust’s mission. We believe this paper is a promising start to achieving this goal and we will continue to play our part in any way we can. Tutor Trust will continue to read through the detail of the newly released paper and all the proposals within and will share more of our thoughts in the coming days.