Introduction

Every Child Achieving and Thriving is a Government White Paper published today, 23^rd February 2026, by the Department for Education, presented to Parliament by the Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson MP, Secretary of State for Education. It constitutes the most significant statement of education policy direction since the Schools White Paper of 2022 and sets out the Government’s vision for education from early childhood through to the transition to post-16 education and beyond. Its relevance to all school and Trust leaders is self-evident.

The paper is structured in two substantive parts. Part One (Chapters 1–4) articulates the aspirations and intended reforms for children’s education and wellbeing. Part Two (Chapters 5–7) sets out the systemic and structural foundations required to deliver these ambitions, including workforce development, collaboration, accountability and innovation. I conclude by posing some unanswered questions.

2. Summary of main points

2.1 The three structural shifts

The White Paper is organised around three overarching shifts that define the Government’s ambition for the system as a whole:

• Narrow to Broad: replacing a preoccupation with narrow academic metrics with a broad, enriching, knowledge-rich curriculum experience for every child, from the earliest years through to post-16 transitions.
• Sidelined to Included: ensuring that children who have been historically marginalised — particularly those with SEND, white working-class children, and children in entrenched poverty — are genuinely included in high-quality, ambitious mainstream education.
• Withdrawn to Engaging: rebuilding trust and engagement between schools, families and communities, so that children attend, participate and believe that education is their route to a better life.

2.2 Measurable aspirations

The document is unusually specific in its long-term aspirations. By the time the current generation of school-age children completes their secondary education, the Government aims to:

• Raise the system average GCSE outcome to grade 5 or above across the board.
• Halve the disadvantage attainment gap, equivalent to roughly a full grade improvement per GCSE subject for children from low-income backgrounds.
• Achieve 75% of five-year-olds reaching a good level of development by 2028 at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage.
• Achieve 90% of children meeting the expected standard in the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check.
• Raise school attendance by 1.3 percentage points to over 94%, equivalent to 20 million more school days per year.
• Ensure all schools monitor pupil belonging and engagement by 2029.

2.3 Curriculum and assessment reform

Drawing on the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review led by Professor Becky Francis CBE, the paper commits to refreshing the National Curriculum for first teaching from 2028 and updating GCSEs for first teaching from 2029. Guiding principles include knowledge-rich content, subject mastery, coherence, specificity and depth. Key curriculum commitments include:

• Strengthening oracy, reading fluency, and writing as foundational pillars of learning at every phase.
• Making citizenship compulsory in primary schools and embedding financial, digital and media literacy throughout the curriculum.
• Introducing a new statutory reading assessment in Year 8 and strengthening Year 8 writing assessment.
• Revising Progress 8 to require a broader academic profile: retaining English, maths and science as core requirements, whilst mandating greater breadth across languages, creative subjects and humanities.
• Creating a fully digital, navigable version of the National Curriculum.
• Embedding oracy as a recognised educational foundation alongside literacy and numeracy.

2.4 SEND reform

A companion consultation — SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First — is published alongside this White Paper. The Government proposes:

• A statutory duty on all nurseries, schools and colleges to record and monitor SEND in Individual Support Plans (ISPs).
• Three tiers of support: a Universal Offer for all children; Targeted (and Targeted Plus) support within mainstream settings; and Specialist support via EHCPs underpinned by new nationally defined Specialist Provision Packages.
• A new Experts at Hand service (£1.8 billion) providing access to speech and language therapists, educational psychologists and other professionals, working directly in mainstream schools.
• An Inclusive Mainstream Fund of £1.6 billion over three years to build capacity in mainstream schools.
• £3.7 billion to improve building accessibility, create new specialist school places and inclusion bases within mainstream settings.
• A dedicated SEND practitioner in every Best Start Family Hub.
• Reforming the EHCP process, with EHCPs retained for those with the most complex needs, underpinned by new evidence-based Specialist Provision Packages to end the postcode lottery.

2.5 Disadvantage and equity

White working-class children are identified as one of the single most underserved groups in the system, with explicitly low attainment, poor attendance, negative school experience and disproportionate SEND identification. The paper commits to:

• An Independent Inquiry into White Working-Class Educational Outcomes, commissioned by Star Academies.
• Two place-focused missions: Mission North East (focused on white working-class outcomes) and Mission Coastal (focused on geographically isolated, disadvantaged communities).
• Development of a new model for targeting disadvantage funding, replacing the binary Free School Meal indicator with a more nuanced, income-graduated approach to pupil premium and National Funding Formula allocations.
• A consultation on the School Admissions Code to promote fairer access for disadvantaged families and children with SEND.

2.6 Enrichment entitlement

Enrichment is repositioned as a universal entitlement rather than a privilege of the advantaged. The Government will publish an Enrichment Framework, setting benchmarks and tools for schools. The core enrichment offer will encompass civic engagement; arts and culture; nature, outdoor and adventure activities; sport and physical activity; and wider life skills. Targeted investment of £22.5 million over three years will support up to 400 schools in the most deprived areas to meet these benchmarks.

2.7 Attendance and engagement

The paper establishes a new Pupil Engagement Framework, developed with children, parents and schools. Minimum expectations for home-to-school partnerships will be introduced, with communication standards, tools for home learning, and a clearer complaints process. Schools will receive strengthened tools and guidance for improving behaviour, including attendance and behaviour hubs. New School Profiles will give parents transparent, rounded information about their child’s school.

2.8 Workforce and leadership

The paper commits to 6,500 additional expert teachers across secondary schools, special schools and FE colleges. A new Teacher Training Entitlement will ensure all teachers and leaders can access high-quality professional development. Maternity pay for teachers and leaders will improve, with full pay doubled to 8 weeks. A new headteacher mentoring and coaching offer, plus a Headteacher Retention Incentive piloted in high-need areas, will address leadership pipeline challenges.

2.9 System architecture: Trusts and collaboration

All schools will move to being part of school trusts — including new trusts established by Local Authorities or Area Partnerships — rooted in their communities. Local authorities will have clarified roles and responsibilities in relation to all local schools and other partners. Proportionate, independent inspection of trust quality is promised. A new RISE (Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence) programme will provide universal and targeted support across all schools.

3. Implications by phase

3.1 Nursery and Early Years

This White Paper gives exceptional prominence to the early years, recognising that attainment gaps emerge before school entry and that the foundations of literacy, oracy, social development and self-regulation are laid in the first years of life. The implications for nurseries, childminders and early years settings are substantial.

The establishment of Best Start Family Hubs, each with a dedicated SEND practitioner, will create a new architecture of early identification and multi-agency support. Early years providers will need to engage actively with these hubs, sharing information and working collaboratively with health visitors, speech and language therapists and family support workers. The Inclusive Early Years Fund will provide additional resource to settings identifying emerging additional needs, but this will require robust assessment practices and confident professional judgement from practitioners.

The Childcare and Early Education Review will examine how to simplify the system for families and create a coherent local offer. Settings should anticipate changes to funding, sufficiency planning and quality assurance frameworks. The Government’s ambition for 75% of five-year-olds to reach a good level of development by 2028 will increase expectations on early years providers to achieve stronger outcomes, particularly for children with SEND and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The commitment to fund partnerships between early years settings and schools — to improve transition, share pedagogy and support early SEND identification — represents a significant structural shift. Nurseries and pre-schools will be expected to contribute meaningfully to primary school readiness, maintaining transition records and engaging in joint professional learning. The development of shared resources and systems for early identification will require investment in CPD and time for inter-phase collaboration.

3.2 Primary schools

Primary schools sit at the heart of this White Paper. A large proportion of the measurable ambitions — the 90% phonics target, the KS2 attainment aspirations, the good level of development benchmark — are anchored in the primary phase. The implications are broad and deep.

The refreshed National Curriculum (first teaching 2028) will require primary schools to revisit their curriculum planning and CPD strategies. The commitment to a knowledge-rich, coherent curriculum — with stronger oracy, reading fluency and writing frameworks — will challenge schools to integrate these more explicitly across all subjects, not merely within English lessons. The writing framework published in 2025 will need to be embedded, and the new oracy framework developed in partnership with the sector will shape classroom practice from Reception upwards.

Making citizenship compulsory in primary will require curriculum time and teacher confidence in a subject area that has typically sat at the margins of primary provision. Schools will need to develop schemes of work that introduce children to concepts of law, rights and civic responsibility in age-appropriate ways.

The increase in targeted enrichment expectations — with the Enrichment Framework setting benchmarks across arts, sport, nature and civic engagement — will challenge primary schools, particularly those in areas of deprivation, to broaden their extra-curricular and curriculum-embedded offer. Schools serving the most disadvantaged communities will need to draw on targeted funding to meet these benchmarks.

SEND implications for primary schools are significant. The introduction of Individual Support Plans as a statutory requirement will add administrative demand, but the new Experts at Hand service should provide access to specialist professional support within or alongside schools, potentially reducing the reliance on expensive and time-consuming EHCP processes for children with more common and predictable needs. Primary SENCOs will need to understand and operationalise the new three-tier model: Universal, Targeted and Specialist.

The development of Reception Networks through RISE, alongside enhanced partnerships between English Hubs, Maths Hubs and RISE teams, will create new infrastructure for school improvement in the primary phase. Primary leaders should anticipate closer engagement with RISE support and an expectation of collaborative, evidence-informed practice.

3.3 Secondary schools

Secondary schools face the most immediate structural and pedagogical demands from this White Paper, given the focus on KS3 transition, GCSE accountability reform and post-16 pathways.

The paper is explicit that Key Stage 3 has been undervalued and that too many children experience a difficult transition from primary, with engagement declining and disadvantaged children falling further behind. The new RISE KS3 Alliance will support schools in strengthening this phase, improving curriculum coherence and ensuring children access three full years of KS3. Secondary schools will need to review their Year 7–9 curriculum offer, ensuring it is genuinely broad, subject-specific in depth, and not merely a preparation for GCSEs.

The proposed changes to Progress 8 — requiring at least two subjects from the group of languages, creative subjects and humanities, alongside retained requirements for English, maths and science — will require secondary schools to review their option structures and timetabling. Schools that have allowed the EBacc to narrow their curriculum significantly will need to plan carefully for the introduction of these requirements from 2029.

The introduction of a new statutory Year 8 reading assessment and a new progress measure for children with the lowest prior attainment represent significant changes to the assessment landscape. Secondary school data management and tracking systems will need to incorporate these new measures, and pastoral and academic teams will need to respond to what the evidence shows about children arriving below age-related expectations.

The paper’s commitment to expanding Mental Health Support Teams to every school and college by the end of this Parliament is significant for secondary schools, which have seen the sharpest rises in anxiety, disengagement and non-attendance, particularly post-pandemic. This provision, working alongside the new Pupil Engagement Framework, will require secondary schools to develop stronger whole-school approaches to wellbeing and belonging.

The move to universal school trust membership will have structural implications for standalone schools and federated arrangements. Secondary leaders should engage with local trust landscape planning, particularly with regard to Local Authority-led or Area Partnership models.

3.4 Post-16, Further Education and beyond

The White Paper explicitly links to the companion Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, and its implications for the transition from secondary to further and higher education are considerable.

The introduction of V Levels as a new vocational option alongside A Levels and T Levels at Level 3, and the creation of two clearer Level 2 pathways (an Occupational Pathway and a Further Study Pathway), represent a significant simplification of the post-16 landscape. Schools and colleges will need to ensure that careers guidance and Year 11 transition planning accurately reflects these new options, and that young people — particularly those with SEND and those at risk of NEET — are steered towards appropriate destinations with full knowledge of available pathways.

The ambition for every young person to receive two weeks of work experience during secondary education will require schools and colleges to develop robust employer partnerships and industry links. Career Hubs, Strategic Authorities and local authorities will play a coordinating role, and secondary schools will need to plan for this within an already pressured timetable.

New Level 1 ‘preparation for GCSE’ qualifications in English and maths for 16-to-19-year-olds without a grade 4 will place demand on FE colleges and school sixth forms to deliver structured, evidence-based literacy and numeracy programmes. The revision to English and maths resit provision, with increased hours (100 hours per subject) and revised progress measures for providers, will require FE institutions to review their curriculum models significantly.

The paper’s aspiration for two thirds of young people to participate in higher level learning by the age of 25 is ambitious and will require a coherent system of guidance, aspiration-raising and access from primary school onwards, not merely at the point of GCSE or A Level.

4. Further questions to be asked

Whilst the White Paper is commendably ambitious and unusually specific in its measurable goals, a careful reading reveals a number of significant questions that remain without clear or comprehensive answers.

4.1 Funding questions

• How will the new model for targeting disadvantage funding — moving beyond binary FSM eligibility — be operationalised in practice, and on what timeline? The consultation is not promised until Summer 2026, leaving schools with considerable uncertainty about future funding allocations.
• How will the Inclusive Mainstream Fund of £1.6 billion over three years be distributed? Will it flow through Local Authorities, directly to schools, or via trusts? What conditions will be attached?
• How will the costs of Individual Support Plans — in terms of staff time, training and data management — be met by schools? The paper does not quantify this administrative burden.
• What happens to schools in areas with high SEND need and low overall funding levels? The paper does not address the cumulative pressure on high-need areas specifically.

4.2 Workforce and capacity questions

• The target of 6,500 additional expert teachers by the end of this Parliament is significant, but the detail of ‘targeted where need is greatest’ remains undefined. How will the geographical distribution be managed, and what levers will the Government use to ensure teachers move to or remain in high-need schools and areas?
• The Experts at Hand service — providing speech and language therapists and educational psychologists — is welcome, but the existing workforce shortfalls in both professions are severe. How will the Government address the supply pipeline for these professionals? Training places are constrained and cannot be expanded overnight.
• The Teacher Training Entitlement is welcomed in principle, but the paper does not specify how schools — particularly small primaries and schools with thin staffing — will manage cover and release time to enable staff to access this entitlement.

4.3 Implementation and sequencing questions

• The paper describes three overlapping phases of implementation (aligning to best practice 2025/26; preparing for SEND and curriculum reforms 2026/27; full implementation from 2028/29), but the sequencing of specific reforms is not always clear. Schools and trusts will need a much more detailed implementation roadmap to plan effectively.
• What happens to schools that are not yet in a trust when the expectation moves to all schools being part of trusts? The paper signals new Local Authority and Area Partnership trust models, but the transition timeline and governance expectations remain unclear.
• How will the SEND transition — from the current EHCP framework to the new Individual Support Plan and Specialist Provision Package model — be managed without creating a period of profound uncertainty for children and families already in the system?

4.4 Curriculum and accountability questions

• The paper commits to consulting on revised Progress 8, but the detailed design of the new measure — particularly how breadth will be incentivised without creating gaming behaviour from schools — remains to be worked out. How will creative subjects, for example, be graded and compared across schools?
• The introduction of a new progress measure for low prior attaining children is welcome, but its relationship to Progress 8, Attainment 8 and Ofsted inspection judgements is not yet clarified.
• Citizenship is to be made compulsory in primary schools, but no detail is provided on time allocation, teacher training, or how this will be assessed. How will subject leadership for citizenship in primary be resourced and supported?
• The oracy framework is promised, but its relationship to formal assessment, teacher workload and existing EYFS and KS1 expectations remains vague at this stage.

4.5 Questions about evidence and equity

• The paper references the importance of evidence-based teaching and the role of the Education Endowment Foundation, but how will the new systems for distributing SEND support (Experts at Hand, Specialist Provision Packages) be evaluated for effectiveness and equity of access across different regions?
• The paper acknowledges that the UK is last among 27 European countries in how happy 15-year-olds report being. The Pupil Engagement Framework and belonging measures are proposed responses, but there is no clear evidence base cited for how these specific levers will move the dial on young people’s wellbeing at systemic scale.
• The two place-focused missions — Mission North East and Mission Coastal — are to be developed collaboratively. However, the paper does not explain what happens to other areas of equally entrenched disadvantage not covered by these two geographies. Will there be further missions, and if so, when?
• The paper is largely silent on faith schools and the specific considerations that arise for schools with a religious character in implementing the proposed enrichment, SEND and curriculum reforms. Given that faith schools constitute a significant proportion of the national estate — and a particularly high proportion of Catholic and Church of England maintained schools — this omission is notable.

4.6 Questions about partnership and culture

• The paper sets out a vision of schools as community anchors and articulates a model of collective accountability for children’s outcomes. But accountability without resourcing often becomes blame. How will the new local partnership model avoid placing disproportionate burden on schools when other agencies — particularly health — are themselves under significant strain?
• The paper calls on parents to engage more actively with schools and with their children’s learning. Minimum expectations for home-to-school partnerships are promised, but what happens when the barriers to parental engagement are structural (poverty, domestic violence, language barriers, disability) rather than motivational? The paper does not address this sufficiently.
• The reliance on school trusts as the primary vehicle for professional collaboration and school improvement assumes that trust quality is consistently high. But trust quality varies enormously. How will the new proportionate inspection of trust quality work in practice, and what interventions are available when a trust is underperforming?

5. Conclusion

Every Child Achieving and Thriving is an ambitious, thematically coherent and in many respects genuinely radical document. Its commitment to early years investment, SEND reform, curriculum breadth, enrichment entitlement and the reduction of the disadvantage gap represents a significant departure from the narrowly academic focus of the preceding decade.

For school and trust leaders, the primary challenge is not disagreement with the direction — much of which reflects good professional consensus — but rather the management of complexity, the pace of change, and the as-yet-unanswered questions about resourcing, workforce, implementation sequencing and accountability. The aspiration to deliver three major structural shifts simultaneously, within a single Parliament and across more than 22,000 schools, is audacious.

What is clear is that the White Paper sets a high-level direction that will shape statutory guidance, Ofsted inspection frameworks, funding allocations, curriculum content and workforce development for the remainder of this decade. Leaders at all phases of education would be wise to engage with it closely, to begin planning their institutional responses to the reforms that will be legislated, and to submit carefully considered responses to the consultations that accompany it.

Simon Uttley