Experts at Hand: SEND reform in England explained

If you have looked at SEND policy lately and felt lost, start with the date. On 5 June 2026, the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care announced that every local area in England should begin rolling out Experts at Hand, a new service meant to bring specialist SEND support closer to mainstream nurseries, schools and colleges, backed by £1.8 billion over three years. The rollout is due to begin from September 2026. (gov.uk) The useful reality check is this: some changes are confirmed, while others are still proposals. The guidance for Experts at Hand has been published, but the wider SEND reform package - including National Inclusion Standards, Specialist Provision Packages, changes to EHCPs and new Individual Support Plans - sits inside a closed consultation. The official consultation hub says ministers are still reviewing feedback before setting out their response and next steps, and the planned legal route is the Education for All Bill announced in the King’s Speech on 13 May 2026. (gov.uk)

So what is Experts at Hand, in plain English? Government guidance says it is a new service where speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, educational psychologists and specialist teachers work directly with mainstream settings. The key shift is that support is supposed to be based on need rather than on a child first securing a diagnosis. (gov.uk) That does not mean existing rights vanish. The guidance for school and college leaders says Experts at Hand does not replace current statutory duties under the SEND Code of Practice or the EHCP process; it is meant to strengthen what settings already do and help staff identify needs earlier. For families who have spent years being told to wait, that distinction matters. (gov.uk)

What you are most likely to notice in year one is not a therapist taking over your child’s timetable. The parents’ guidance says first-year support will mainly focus on groups and whole-class approaches so more children can benefit, with one-to-one help used occasionally where it is most needed. Support can include observations in the learning environment, small-group work, classroom strategies, and advice shared with parents. (gov.uk) **What this means:** if the reform works as intended, help should start earlier and inside ordinary classrooms, not only after a long referral trail. If you are a teacher, it should feel like coaching and shared problem-solving. If you are a parent or carer, it should mean clearer conversations about what staff are trying now, rather than being left to wait for a threshold to be crossed. (gov.uk)

Local areas still have a lot of work to do. From September 2026, local authorities and integrated care boards are expected to build the offer together, with local parent-carer forums helping shape it. Delivery will be phased, and national guidance says support should reach smaller settings, early years providers and further education as well as the most vocal schools. Local areas must publish a clear menu of support, including training, routes into bespoke advice and practical audits of communication or sensory environments. (gov.uk) That may sound like admin language, but it affects daily life. In year one, the focus includes language development, attention and understanding, emotional regulation, sensory processing and fine motor skills such as handwriting readiness. In other words, a lot of this reform is about changing the setting around the child, not asking the child to somehow fit a system that has already failed them. (gov.uk)

Another phrase you will hear is National Inclusion Standards. In the consultation, the Department for Education says these would set out, for the first time, what support should be available in every mainstream setting in England. The plan is for them to give staff a shared evidence base for spotting barriers to learning and responding across areas such as speech, language and communication, sensory needs, motor and physical development, social and emotional development, and executive function. (gov.uk) **What this means for schools and colleges:** support should depend less on postcode, confidence or whether a family knows how to fight the system. The consultation also says the Standards would be reviewed regularly, with the evidence for universal and targeted support reviewed every two years so they do not stand still while practice changes. (gov.uk)

The biggest question many families will ask is about EHCPs. The government’s proposal is not to scrap them outright. Instead, EHCPs would sit alongside new Specialist Provision Packages - nationally defined, evidence-based packages covering the support, therapies, resources and adaptations needed by children and young people with the most complex needs. Those packages would underpin the legal entitlements in an EHCP. (gov.uk) **What this means:** the government wants EHCPs to become the route for specialist support, while more children get help earlier in mainstream through the universal, targeted and targeted plus layers. That is a major change, but it remains a proposal inside the wider SEND reform consultation rather than a legal change taking effect in September 2026. (gov.uk)

You may also hear about Individual Support Plans, or ISPs. In the consultation glossary, an ISP is described as a record of a child or young person’s barriers to learning and the provision in place to overcome them. The proposal is that every child receiving targeted or specialist support would have a digital ISP, developed with parents and reviewed as needs change. (gov.uk) The timetable here is slower than some headlines suggest. The consultation says the current system stays in place until new legislation comes into force. The first cohort expected to transition would be pupils at the end of primary, secondary and post-16 in the 2029/30 cycle, assessed from September 2029 and moving in September 2030. Children with a special school place in September 2029 would be able to stay there until the end of their education if they want to, and young people moving from an EHCP to an ISP would keep the right to request a mainstream place. (gov.uk)

To steer the next phase, the government says it has appointed a national expert panel co-chaired by Tom Rees and Dr Anne Gordon. According to the 5 June press release, the panel brings together figures from mainstream and specialist education, health, academia and parental engagement to work on the National Inclusion Standards and Specialist Provision Packages, and a parental engagement group is being set up alongside it. (gov.uk) That matters because one of the biggest arguments around SEND reform is trust. Families want to know who decides what good support looks like, how evidence is chosen, and whether lived experience is heard before new rules are fixed in place. The consultation says the panel’s role and independent oversight are intended to be set out in law, with published reviews and explanations if ministers reject recommendations. (gov.uk)

None of this works unless mainstream settings have the staff time and confidence to act on expert advice. That is why the wider reform package also promises a £200 million training programme from September 2026 for staff across early years, schools and colleges, alongside investment in training more than 200 new educational psychologists a year in 2026 and 2027. The government’s own documents link Experts at Hand to coaching, modelling and better day-to-day practice inside settings. (gov.uk) For now, the practical things to watch are simpler than the jargon. Does your local area explain what Experts at Hand will actually look like from September 2026? Do schools and colleges tell families clearly how support is changing? And when the government publishes its full response to the closed consultation, does the final SEND reform package make access to help easier, faster and fairer in real life, not just in policy papers? (gov.uk)