More Than Half a Million.

What this morning’s SEND data means for SENCOs - and where the real work is heading.

The Department for Education published its annual SEND data this morning, and one figure will dominate the headlines: 538,547 pupils now have an EHCP - the first time the number has passed half a million. That’s an 11.6% rise in a single year, the second year running at that rate, and it means 6% of the entire school population now holds a statutory plan.

If you’re a SENCO, none of this will surprise you. You’ve watched it happen from your office, one request at a time. But there are two numbers underneath the headline that matter more for the year ahead — and neither of them is about EHCPs.

The numbers underneath the headline

First: more than 1.3 million children are on SEN Support - up again this year. That’s a cohort nearly three times the size of the EHCP group, with no statutory protection, whose day-to-day provision rests almost entirely on the quality of the support plan their class teacher writes. Around 1.8 million pupils in England now have an identified SEN. The plan on the teacher’s desk - not the plan in the tribunal bundle - is the document doing most of the work in our system.

Nearly three times as many children rely on SEN Support as hold an EHCP - and their provision depends on teacher-written plans. Source: DfE, June 2026.

Second: 57.8% of pupils with an EHCP are now in mainstream state schools, up from 56.2% last year and rising steadily. The shift towards mainstream inclusion isn’t something the reforms will introduce. It’s already happening.

And the reforms are coming

The Schools White Paper set the direction in February, and the SEND consultation closed in May. We don’t yet know the final shape of the new system - but we know its centre of gravity. More children supported in mainstream settings. Support plans for every child with SEND, not just those with statutory protection. Less reliance on the EHCP as the gateway to help.

You can already see the system bracing for it. Councils are reporting a sharp surge in EHCP assessment requests as families try to secure a plan before the rules change. Parents are reading the same direction of travel we are - and they’re anxious. Many are handling those conversations right now.

Put it together and the conclusion is hard to avoid: the teacher-written support plan is about to become the single most important document in SEND provision - and the SENCO’s job is to make sure those plans are worth the paper they’re written on.

What we can actually do about it

Here’s the honest bit. You cannot write every plan yourself - and you shouldn’t. Teachers write the plans; a Senco’s job is to make sure they’re good. With numbers like today’s, that quality-assurance role is only going to grow. Three things make it manageable:

• Audit a sample, not the lot. Pull ten plans and ask one question of each target: does it name a specific behaviour, a measure, and a timescale? ‘Improve behaviour’ fails all three. You’ll know within an hour where your school stands.

  
  

• Show teachers what good looks like. Most class teachers were never taught to write a target – not when in training, and not since. A policy document won’t fix that. A worked example will.

  
  

• Make the good version the easy version. If writing a strong target takes an evening and writing a vague one takes a minute, the vague one wins every time. Cut the time and effort it takes to do it well, and quality follows.

That's why I built SENDT - a searchable bank of 500+ editable IEP targets, organised around the four areas of the Code of Practice and written for teachers, not specialists. If a teacher asked me where to start, that's where I'd send them - so the conversation can move from 'how do I write this?' to 'is this right for this child?', which is where a SENCO's time actually belongs.

Today’s figures will be reported as a crisis of numbers. For those doing the job, they’re really a question of quality - because the children behind those numbers don’t need more paperwork. They need better plans.

Try SENDT free at sendt.org.uk

The SENDT SENCO is a qualified SENCO and SEND practitioner with over 15 years of experience supporting children with SEND in mainstream schools.