Today the new SEND White Paper was published, and I found myself reading it in that familiar half-quiet way I learned as a teacher, scanning paragraphs while thinking not about policy but about faces.
A boy who used to hide under tables because the classroom lights hurt his eyes.
A girl who could recite whole books but could not cope with assembly noise.
A parent who once whispered to me in the corridor, “I just want one place where my child can be happy.”
When government language shifts, it is easy to speak about numbers, plans and structures. But for families living SEND every day, the question is always gentler and more frightening.
What will tomorrow feel like for my child.
As someone who spent years teaching children with additional needs, and now runs Goodysphere with my husband Caleb, I read the White Paper with hope and with worry sitting side by side.
The hope
The promise of earlier support in mainstream schools matters deeply to me.
In the classroom I saw how quickly a child could change when the environment changed. When a timetable became predictable, when noise was reduced, when an adult understood sensory overload, when expectations flexed instead of breaking a child’s confidence. Small adjustments opened doors that brute persistence never could.
If schools truly receive the training, therapists and resources needed to recognise needs early, children could be spared years of distress. Teachers could be supported instead of stretched to breaking point. Parents might not have to fight so hard just to be heard.
I want that to be real.
I think every SEND teacher does.
The worry
But I also know why so many parents feel afraid when they hear about fewer EHCPs.
I have sat in meetings where families brought folders of evidence thicker than novels. I have watched parents cry quietly because they knew their child’s needs were real but could not prove them quickly enough. I have seen how an EHCP, once secured, became not just paperwork but protection.
When something has taken years of advocacy to obtain, any suggestion it might be reduced feels like the ground shifting under your feet.
Families worry because they remember promises that did not become provision. They remember staff changes that erased support overnight. They remember how easily needs can be misunderstood when budgets are tight and understanding is thin.
Their fear is not resistance to change. It is memory.
What policy does not change
The White Paper may reshape systems, but there are parts of SEND life that no document can alter.
Noise still overwhelms.
Crowds still hurt.
Transitions still confuse.
Bright lights still sting.
Children still cover their ears at school discos. Teenagers still sit in cars while siblings enjoy festivals. Parents still leave birthday parties early with a quiet apology and a heavy heart.
I see this not as a statistic but as a daily reality on the Goodysphere bus.
What I see on the bus
A few weeks ago at a Rotherham Council event, a teenager climbed onto the bus and sat silently beside the bubble tube. He watched the slow drift of colour, the rhythm of light. He moved gently on the swing. He lay under the canopy lights and breathed.
His parents stood outside and cried because for the first time he did not have to leave.
Later he went back to the event with them.
It was not dramatic. There were no speeches. Just a family who stayed together a little longer than usual.
Those are the moments that never appear in policy documents, yet they are the truest measure of whether inclusion exists.
Beyond schools
The White Paper is about education, but SEND families live everywhere.
They go to weddings. They try to attend festivals. They want to celebrate birthdays and visit Christmas markets and community fairs like everyone else.
Or they try to.
If more children with additional needs are in mainstream schools, then mainstream life itself must become more understanding. Councils, venues, event planners and communities must recognise that accessibility is not a luxury and not an afterthought.
Inclusion cannot stop at the school gate.
Why Caleb and I built Goodysphere
Goodysphere began after we lost Caleb’s sister Anya. Her life showed us how deeply people need patience, gentleness and environments that meet them where they are.
Caleb’s autistic perspective shaped how the bus feels. My experience as a SEND teacher shaped how it works. Together we built a rainforest sensory space with a bubble tube, fibre-optic waterfall, soft seating that becomes dens, books, fidgets, mirrors and a swing that helps people regulate.
We take it across Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster and beyond because we have seen what happens when families are given a calm place in the middle of chaos.
Parents breathe.
Siblings laugh.
Teenagers smile.
Families stay.
After the headlines
In the months ahead there will be debates, consultations, amendments and arguments. Some changes will help. Others will need to be challenged. Families will keep advocating because they always have.
Whatever happens, I know this much.
Children with additional needs deserve environments that understand them. Families deserve communities that welcome them. Inclusion must exist not only in policy but in real places, in classrooms and playgrounds and festivals and weddings and ordinary afternoons.
Goodysphere will keep travelling across Yorkshire and beyond with a calm, welcoming sensory space, built with love, inspired by Anya, so that no family feels pushed out of everyday moments.
Because inclusion cannot wait for policy.
And every family deserves to stay, celebrate, and have a Goody Day 💜