Open Letter: Supporting SEND Reform through Digital Provision
Following the publication of the government’s proposed SEND reforms, Academy21 has issued an Open Letter outlining how we can collectively build a more consistent, inclusive, and effective support system for young people. From our experience supporting thousands of students and hundreds of schools across England and Wales, we believe online learning is key to operationalising the ambitions of the proposed SEND requirements and making inclusive learning the standard for all students. Please see our full Open Letter below.
A shared statement from organisations across the online and digital education sector
We welcome the publication of proposed reforms to the SEND system and the clear ambition to strengthen early intervention, improve consistency, and ensure that support is more effectively aligned to the needs of children and young people as set out in ‘SEND Reform: putting children and young people first.’
As organisations either operate across the online and digital education sector, we share the Government’s ambition and are committed to contributing constructively to the development of a more responsive, equitable and sustainable SEND system.
Core Principles
In considering the direction of reform, we collectively recognise a set of core principles that we believe are fundamental to effective implementation and are set out in the White Paper.
- Early intervention, to prevent escalation, sustain engagement in education
- Needs-led approaches, where provision is designed around the functional complexity of need, rather than diagnostic category alone
- Inclusion, understood as access to meaningful and appropriate education, not solely physical placement
- Consistency, so that learners experience equitable standards of support regardless of location
- Quality, underpinned by clear, externally validated standards of education, teaching, safeguarding and accountability
These principles are reflected in practice across a range of provision models, including digitally enabled approaches, which can offer scalable and flexible mechanisms for their delivery.
The Role of Online and Digital Provision
We note that, at present, the role of online and digital provision is not explicitly articulated within the consultation materials. We believe there is a valuable opportunity to recognise the contribution that digitally enabled approaches can make in supporting the delivery of these shared principles.
Digital provision can also support schools and local areas to deliver inclusive mainstream education, particularly within graduated approaches to need, including universal, targeted, targeted plus and specialist layers of support.
Digital provision can contribute in the following ways:
1. Enabling timely and flexible access to education
Digital provision can enable rapid access to education, particularly where learners face barriers to attending traditional settings.
This is particularly relevant for Learners experiencing emotionally based school non-attendance (EBSNA) or acute anxiety; those with medical needs or fluctuating health conditions and those at risk of placement breakdown or exclusion.
In practice, digitally enabled models can:
- Provide continuity of education during periods of disruption as part of Targeted Support
- Offer flexible timetabling, including part-time or phased engagement
- Support early re-engagement, preventing gaps in learning from becoming entrenched, particularly where provision can be implemented quickly
- Provide short-term or interim capacity as part of Local Authority Reform Plans, including where local systems are responding to increased demand or changing need.
2. Supporting needs-led approaches through responsive teaching and insight
Digital provision can support needs-led approaches by enabling teaching that is responsive to individual learners and informed by real-time insight.
This includes the use of skilled subject-specialist teachers who can adapt instruction and content in response to learner understanding and the ability to capture live indicators of participation, such as attendance, interaction, task completion and communication. In practice, this allows:
- More dynamic matching of provision to complexity of need to help more learners can remain in mainstream.
- Greater visibility of how learners are responding to support over time to strengthen Universal Provision.
3. Providing accessible and adaptable learning environments
Digital provision can offer environments that reduce barriers to participation for vulnerable learners. This is particularly beneficial for learners with sensory sensitivities; those who experience social anxiety or communication difficulties and pupils who find traditional classroom environments overwhelming or inaccessible.
Digitally enabled environments increase confidence, engagement and reestablish positive behaviour via:
- Reduced environmental pressures (e.g. noise, crowding, transitions) to make the wider mainstream setting more manageable.
- Enable graduated exposure to learning and interaction, for example as part of an Inclusion Support Plan.
- Allow learners to engage in ways that feel safe, manageable and structured.
4. Extending access to specialist expertise and provision
Digital provision can extend access to specialist teaching and support beyond geographical constraints. This is particularly relevant in areas with limited local specialist provision and situations where demand exceeds available workforce capacity or capacity is not distributed evenly. In practice, digital models can:
- Build real capacity in the Experts at Hand service through digital delivery of therapeutic services.
- Connect learners with specialist teachers and subject expertise regardless of location, an important enabling of Local Authority SEN Reform Plans.
- Support multi-agency collaboration, including input from therapists, support staff and educators.
- Provide access to curriculum pathways that may not be locally available.
- Support integration with school-based provision, including part-time, on-site or blended models, enabling flexible responses to need without requiring full-time specialist placements.
5. Supporting consistency in delivery, monitoring and quality assurance
Digital provision can support greater consistency in how education is delivered, monitored and quality assured across settings. This includes shared approaches for lesson delivery, assessment and reporting and structured quality assurance and safeguarding approaches, supported by digital oversight and review processes.
Where aligned to recognised frameworks, such as the Online Education Accreditation Scheme (OEAS) or the Non-school alternative provision national standards, digital provision can demonstrate alignment with established expectations across key domains, including:
- Quality of education (curriculum and teaching)
- Learner development and outcomes
- Safeguarding, welfare, health and safety
- Staff suitability, expertise and deployment
- Leadership, accountability and quality assurance
- Admissions, support and communication
Through alignment with these domains, digital provision can contribute to:
- Greater transparency and accountability across different forms of provision, in line with the aims of the reforms.
- Improved comparability of quality and outcomes across regions.
- Stronger alignment with emerging national standards for SEND and alternative provision.
We offer this perspective in a spirit of collaboration and support. As providers of online education or users of digital education, our intention is to contribute constructively to the ongoing development of the reforms and to ensure that the full range of available approaches is considered in delivering a system that meets diverse and evolving needs.
We welcome the consideration of the points above, our asks and remain open to dialogue and engagement as the reforms develop.
