Every child achieving and thriving: The schools white paper explained

25 February 2026

Nick MacKenzie

The UK Government has published its long-awaited schools white paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, setting out an ambitious 10-year vision for education in England.

Written by Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, the paper, published on 23 February, marks a significant shift in education policy - one that goes well beyond the school gates.

Our specialist education lawyers have unpacked the key reforms and what schools, trusts and local authorities need to know, covering:

The core vision.
Vision for childhood.
Curriculum reform.
SEND reform.
Attendance and behaviour.
School system reform.
Workforce matters.
Managing complaints.
AI in the classroom.
Consistent and fair admissions.
Implementation timeline.

The core vision

The white paper is built around three central shifts:

Taking a narrow experience and making it broad.
Moving children from sidelined to included.
Supporting children and families from withdrawn to engaged.

The government's overarching ambition is that, when the current generation finishes secondary school, all children will be stretched to achieve higher standards - with the national average Attainment 8 score rising to 50 - and the disadvantage gap will be halved, meaning children from low-income backgrounds will achieve around a full grade higher in each of their GCSEs than is currently the case.

A broader conception of childhood

A defining feature of the white paper is its explicit rejection of the previous government's approach, which the Secretary of State argues "started and stopped at the school gates". Instead, the paper sets out a broad vision for childhood, from the day children are born to their transition into adulthood.

Central to this is the rebuilding of public services around schools, including new Best Start Family Hubs, the expansion of free breakfast clubs in every primary school, expanded mental health support teams, and investment in new youth clubs and community facilities.

The government's Child Poverty Strategy is also referenced, with a commitment to lift over half a million children out of poverty.

Curriculum reform

The white paper confirms the government's response to the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review led by Professor Becky Francis CBE, committing to a refreshed national curriculum for first teaching from 2028, with updated GCSEs from 2029. The new curriculum will be knowledge-rich, broad, inclusive and innovative, with strengthened oracy, financial literacy, digital literacy and media literacy embedded throughout.

A new enrichment entitlement for every child is a headline commitment, requiring schools to provide access to civic engagement, arts and culture, nature and outdoor activities, sport, and wider life skills. Investment of £22.5m over three years will support up to 400 schools in the most deprived areas to meet the new enrichment benchmarks.

The paper also proposes reforming Progress 8 to give greater weight to creative subjects, requiring pupils to study at least two subjects from languages, creative subjects and humanities, while retaining a strong academic core including English, maths and science.

Inclusion and SEND reform

SEND reform is one of the most significant and complex areas of the white paper. A consultation document - SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First - has been published alongside it.

The paper commits to a more inclusive mainstream school system, underpinned by £1.6bn over three years through a new Inclusive Mainstream Fund, and £1.8bn for a new "Experts at Hand" service providing speech and language therapists, educational psychologists and other professionals directly into mainstream schools and early years settings.

All schools will be required to create digital Individual Support Plans for any child with identified special educational needs, and new Specialist Provision Packages will form the basis of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) for children with the most complex needs. The government anticipates that EHCP numbers will continue to grow in the short term but stabilise and reduce by around 2035 as the new system embeds.

Capital investment of £3.7bn between 2025–26 and 2029–30 will create new specialist places, inclusion bases in mainstream schools, and adapt the existing school estate to be more accessible.

Attendance and behaviour

The government is setting a target to improve the overall school attendance rate by 1.3 percentage points – equivalent to children attending 20 million more school days per year by the 2028–29 academic year – which it describes as the fastest rate of improvement in over a decade.

A new pupil engagement framework will be published, and by 2029 every school will be expected to monitor pupils' sense of belonging and engagement. New School Profiles will bring together attendance, attainment, enrichment and Ofsted data in one accessible place for parents.

On behaviour, the paper introduces Reintegration Support Partnerships following suspensions, refreshed statutory guidance, and a network of Attendance and Behaviour Hubs to spread best practice. Schools will also be given greater flexibility to require pupils to complete a suspension on site in a supervised environment, rather than being sent home.

The school system: Trusts and collaboration

Perhaps the most structural element of the white paper is the commitment to move all schools into school trusts over time, including enabling new trusts to be established by local authorities and area partnerships. The government is clear that this will be done by prioritising quality over pace and with full engagement with the sector.

New Trust Standards will be introduced, and trust-level inspection by Ofsted is confirmed via the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Local authorities are given a strengthened and more clearly defined role in strategic planning, admissions, SEND sufficiency, and the oversight of attendance and behaviour across their areas.

Workforce investment

The white paper confirms the recruitment of 6,500 more expert teachers in secondary schools, special schools and further education colleges, alongside a new Teacher Training Entitlement to support career-long professional development. The leaver rate for teachers has already fallen to 9%, the lowest since reporting began in 2010 (other than during the pandemic).

A notable workforce commitment is the doubling of full-pay maternity leave for school teachers and leaders from 4 weeks to 8 weeks, funded from the 2027–28 academic year, with equivalent improvements sought for school support staff through the new School Support Staff Negotiating Body.

Managing complaints

The schools white paper signals a welcome shift in how government expects complaints to be handled – and how parents engage with schools.

Staff abuse is acknowledged at policy level. The scale of abuse directed at school staff is now recognised and for the first time in a government document, vexatious complaints are called out – including the growing challenge of AI-generated complaints.

Parental responsibility is reframed. The white paper sets clear expectations on families to engage "effectively and respectfully" – positioning the home-school relationship as a genuine two-way partnership.

Along with acknowledging the issues schools face, there is also a step towards providing a solution, with a digital complaints platform in development. The government has committed to a digital solution to stop complaints being pursued through multiple bodies at once – tackling a problem that's been draining school leaders' time for years.

AI in the classroom

The white paper sets out an ambitious vision for a technology-enabled, collaborative education system. But for school leaders, significant practical gaps remain.

Greater collaboration means more data sharing – yet the current landscape is complex and inconsistent. A national data sharing framework with standardised templates is needed.

On EdTech, the white paper rightly shifts quality control responsibility from schools to the DfE and industry – but this must translate into enforceable standards.

The commitment to AI tutoring tools for secondary pupils by 2027 raises urgent data protection questions, including the need for standardised DPIA templates for children's data. The proposed sector-wide "data spine" is the most far-reaching proposal and demands the same rigour as the NHS's digital programme.

Consistent and fair admissions

The DfE will consult on changes to the School Admissions Code (the Code) to:

Require schools to give more information about decisions on in-year admissions.
Improve how Fair Access Protocols are managed by local authorities.
Make the operation of ‘banding’ in admission arrangements clearer to require schools to include more detail as to how they work and tighten rules to ensure they achieve a representative intake across abilities.

Consultation on the Code will be required as a result of changes in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Separately, the DfE intends to develop new resources to support and encourage schools to adopt more inclusive admission arrangements (for example, by encouraging giving priority to children who are eligible for pupil premium).

Implementation

Implementation is planned in three overlapping phases: aligning to best practice from the 2025–26 academic year; preparing for SEND and curriculum reforms from 2026–27; and full implementation from 2028–29.

The government has committed to creating a single, easy-to-use digital home for all school guidance, with shorter and clearer documents – a recognition that the volume and complexity of existing guidance has created significant administrative burden for school leaders.

What this means for schools

The white paper represents the most wide-ranging statement of education policy in England for many years. For school leaders, trust executives and local authorities, the immediate priorities are likely to be understanding the proposed SEND reforms and their funding implications, preparing for curriculum changes from 2028, and considering whether current trust structures and collaborative arrangements meet the government's expectations.

Browne Jacobson's education team will be monitoring developments closely as the legislative and regulatory framework evolves. If you have questions about how these reforms may affect your organisation, please get in touch