SEND Reform Risks Missing the Point — Unless we Change School Culture

The SEND Reform presents a rare opportunity: a chance to reshape a system that too often fails the very children it is designed to support...

...Yet it feels eerily quiet. It is as if the door to change has finally opened—but those standing in front of it are too exhausted to walk through.

That exhaustion matters. What is being proposed is not taking place in a vacuum. It is landing in a system already under strain—where staff are overwhelmed, children are dysregulated, and outcomes are increasingly misaligned with wellbeing.

The SEND Reform is focusing on structures, pathways and provision, it risks missing the most important variable: Culture - the container within which everything else happens. If the culture remains the same, the outcomes will too.

Fig. 1: “Culture, the Great Divide” – a reflective piece by Rachel Oxborough, created while supporting educational leaders navigating contradictory Ofsted demands.

When distress is misread as underachievement

My understanding of the system did not begin in policy, it began as a parent. My children were bright, curious and capable; yet in school, they were labelled as underachieving. Not because they lacked ability, but because they could not conform to a narrow definition of what “good learning” looks like: sitting still, writing neatly, and complying on demand. What was being seen as underachievement was distress.

I recall one teacher saying to my child, “You write with your feet.” On another occasion, their work was torn up in front of their peers—used publicly as an example of what was “not acceptable”. This was not feedback, it was humiliation. Over time, the impact accumulated. After leaving the school environment, it took six months before my child could hold a pencil again. The association with learning had become so overwhelming that even the sight of a worksheet triggered distress. This is not an isolated story. I hear this in my clinical practice too. This was one of the reasons I chose to home educate, develop ColourMeIn Art School (now ColourMeIn Wellbeing CIC), and train as an art psychotherapist.

Outside of the system, something began to shift. Through play, creativity and connection, the pressure lifted. Without constant judgement or measurement, learning re-emerged—not as compliance, but as curiosity. We rebuilt trust first. Only then did engagement follow. This taught me something the system still struggles to hold, a child in distress.

Psychological Trauma and SEND: a critical overlap — what are we seeing, and how are we responding?

Current diagnostic criteria for psychological trauma include difficulties with attention, emotional regulation, arousal, sleep and engagement. In children, these rarely present through words, they present through behaviour; and that behaviour can look remarkably similar to ADHD, autism or anxiety. This is where the debate becomes important, because the overlap is real - but so is the distinction.

Neurodevelopmental differences tend to be early, consistent and enduring. Trauma responses are relational, shaped by experience, and often fluctuate depending on how safe a child feels. In practice, however, those differences are not always carefully explored. I have worked with children treated for ADHD who were, in reality, living with abuse. One eight-year-old could only communicate what was happening through drawings in therapy. Without that space, their experience would likely have remained hidden—labelled, possibly medicated—while the abuse continued in the background. This is the risk when we focus on behaviour without understanding context. It is also why trauma-informed practice matters. It shifts the question from, “what is wrong with this child?” to “what has happened to this child, and what do they need to feel safe?”

Trauma-informed care is not a list of strategies. It is a cultural shift.

A reform caught between two agendas

The SEND Reform rightly emphasises inclusion, early support and belonging. However, it also continues to prioritise attendance, attainment and narrow academic benchmarks. These priorities are in tension as learning does not happen in isolation from the nervous system. When a child is overwhelmed or dysregulated, their capacity to think, reason and reflect is reduced. In that state, asking for performance is not aspirational—it is unrealistic. Asking a dysregulated child to metacognitively “think their way out” of distress places responsibility in entirely the wrong place. We cannot think our way out of a stress response, but we can create our way out of it.

Where is the child’s voice?

The Reform has a significant focus on data, assessment and systems. But far less on:

• what the child experiences

• what helps them feel safe

• how they make sense of their learning

Behaviour is communication - without listening, we risk responding to symptoms rather than causes, repeating the very cycles we are trying to disrupt.

Intervention is only as good as the practitioner

Schools are increasingly expected to deliver interventions, but with little clarity about who is delivering them, their level of training, or their capacity to work with complexity. Trauma and neurodiversity are not surface-level issues. They require depth, supervision and clinical understanding. Creative psychotherapists (Art, Music, Drama) are HCPC-registered, Masters-level clinicians, trained to work relationally and safely with distress and complexity. And that matters. Because the nervous system does not respond to checklists. It responds to:

• Connection;

• Safety;

• Relationship; and

• Creativity.

At present, too much of what is being offered is quick, surface-level, inconsistent, and (in some cases) unsafe.

Are we creating the very needs we are trying to address?

The Department for Education defines neglect as a failure to meet a child’s psychological needs. So we must ask, "what happens when a system consistently struggles to meet those needs—and creates conditions that activate a stress response?" Environments that are overstimulating,

performance-driven, or lacking relational support can contribute to anxiety, disengagement and distress.

Language such as “working below standard” can deepen shame in children who already feel they are failing.

So, the question is not just, "are needs increasing?", but also, "what is the system contributing to?". This is uncomfortable—but necessary. The stress response is not just individual; it becomes systemic. Control can trigger shame. Shame activates fight or flight. We see the impact of this through:

• Staff burnout;

• High turnover;

• School refusal;

• Increasing emotional distress.

Not all SEND is trauma-related, but the overlap is significant enough that it requires much more careful, relational understanding than we currently have capacity for.

If we want innovation, we must allow failure

We say we want creativity, innovation and problem-solving. But these do not emerge from environments built on pressure and error avoidance. They come from:

• Play;

• Experimentation; and the

• Freedom to fail

As Sir Ken Robinson argued, “Creativity is as important as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.” Yet creativity is often marginalised. A heavy focus on English and Maths, particularly at younger ages, risks narrowing learning and limiting thinking. If we are preparing children for a future shaped by uncertainty and AI, then creativity, flexibility and problem-solving are not optional. They are essential. Only emerging in environments where it feels safe to try—and to get things wrong.

What needs to change?

If the SEND Reform is to succeed, it must go beyond structures and systems, it must address culture.

1. Culture first - Culture is the container within which everything else happens. It determines whether children feel safe or shamed, whether staff feel supported or overwhelmed, and whether learning is even possible. Psychological safety is not an initiative. It is an outcome of culture. A trauma-informed approach requires a shift from control to curiosity, from compliance to connection. Without that shift, trauma-informed practice becomes just another layer placed on top of a system that is already struggling.

 Fig. 2: “The Upside-Down Container” – 15-year-old, SEMH setting, exploring fragmentation within a dysregulated system.

2. Support the workforce - Teachers do not need more directives, they need:

• Smaller class sizes;

• Reflective space; and

• Access to specialist support.

Staff wellbeing is not separate from pupil outcomes—it shapes them. When staff have no space to process emotional demand, it enters the system. It becomes culture. Creative, relational approaches such as art therapy offer a way to process, regulate and reconnect for the whole organisation. Regulation is contagious—but so is dysregulation.

Fig. 3: “When the System Crushes Us” –

an exploration of systemic pressure and emotional load.

3. Integrate clinical expertise - Embedding regulated creative psychotherapists strengthens safeguarding, depth of understanding and early intervention.

4. Redefine success - Attainment should be an outcome, not the starting point. If the conditions are right, learning follows.

A culture schools can belong to

A 15-year-old “school refuser” once told me, “They say be yourself—but when you are, you get judged.” This is not just an individual experience, it reflects culture. SEND Reform offers us a chance to shift that culture from: Judgement → Shame → Crisis to: Connection → Creation → Achievement

Ultimately, it is not children who need to change, it is the container we are asking them—and the adults around them—to exist within.

 Fig 4. “The Safety Mask”, Aisling, 15yr old, diagnosed ADHD, School refuser. Exploring how neurodiversity masking creates high personal cost, emotionally educationally and physically.

References:

American Psychiatric Association (2022) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM‑5‑TR. 5th edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.

Department for Education (2025) Keeping Children Safe in Education. London: Department for Education.

Education Endowment Foundation (2021) Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning: Guidance Report. London: EEF.

Levine, P.A. and Kline, M. (2005) Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes: Awakening the Ordinary Miracle of Healing. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.

Robinson, K. (2011) Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative. Chichester: Capstone.

Siegel, D.J. (2012) The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. 2nd edn. New York: Guilford Press.

Tjasink, M., Carr, C.E., Bassett, P., Soosaipillai, G., Ougrin, D. and Priebe, S. (2025) ‘Art therapy to reduce burnout and mental distress in healthcare professionals in acute hospitals: a randomised controlled trial’, BMJ Public Health, 3(2), e002251.

van der Kolk, B.A. (2014) The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Penguin.