Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how SEND reforms will balance wellbeing and emotional safety with attendance and academic attainment.

The government’s Schools White Paper set out our vision for children to achieve and thrive. It makes clear that our ambition for children to achieve academically goes hand in hand with our work on inclusion, belonging, attendance and engagement.

The department is introducing a new universal offer that is inclusive by design to allow pupils to achieve and thrive throughout education in mainstream settings. To support the new universal offer, we will develop new evidence-based teaching resources to support effective curriculum adaptation for children and young people.

We have committed to publish a new Pupil Engagement Framework to enable all schools to measure the key factors that determine their children’s engagement in education, including their sense of belonging, and make improvements.

We are also rolling out specialist mental health professionals in every school and college by expanding Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs). As of March 2026, 60% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England are covered by an MHST, up from 52% in March 2025. By March 2027, we estimate 66% of pupils and learners will be covered.

Our statutory guidance, ‘Working together to improve school attendance’, is clear that schools should take a support first approach identifying barriers to attendance, including any special educational needs and disabilities needs, and working with families and other local services to get support in place which enables children to be in school.

Our recent consultation on key stage 4 performance measures included proposals for a possible new progress measure to recognise the progress of children who start secondary school significantly behind their peers. We are analysing responses from the consultation currently and will publish our response in summer 2026.