These headlines should always read “New secondary moderns set to return”, since that’s where most kids will go under that system.

Please take time to have a read of Nicole's reflections on the SEND reforms. She's taken a deep dive into the evidence, and it casts a lot of doubt on the DfE's central inclusion bases concept.

1. The fundamental problem with the SEND white paper is it's working off the assumption there's lots of expertise and great practice available and the issue is it's too hard to get. The underpinning belief is if this support got to children faster and without a fight things will get better fast.

💜 International Women’s Day at Armley Hub & Library, 7 March 11am–2pm We’re proud to be part of a community celebration recognising the creativity, resilience & wellbeing of women across Armley & West Leeds. 📩 For more info: [email protected] #IWD2026

My reaction to the government's proposed SEND reforms, from Thursday. I can't see them working for my family. At a minimum, there needs to be stronger parental involvement and accountability, especially given the risks of the inclusion base approach: open.substack.com/pub/jimlaude...

At swimming. I like the swimming teachers. They have high expectations. Quite literally chuck him in at the deep end.

Everyone ready for #rEDBrum tomorrow? Come and see me talking about how a synthesis of evidence is at the heart of our teaching and learning principles 🔬

Session 1 @researchedbrum.bsky.social I am speaking on why leaders need a leadership framework for their development in their context and how we might go about doing this. The impact of leaders’ work on staff wellbeing, culture and results for students is too important to be left to chance.

Good morning everyone. I'm at @researchedbrum.bsky.social today and looking forward to catching up with lots of people. If you make it to the end of the day I'll be talking about the benefits and trade offs of diagnoses to children.

The British Indian restaurant vindaloo, done well, is a thing of great beauty at the end of a hard week.

I think we should do the inclusion standards stuff first. Clean up the evidence base etc. Then big changes after that. Everything all at once feels very very very risky.

Thread, as they say

Best thing I've read on the SEND reforms: personal, really lucid, great on the policy context jimlauder.substack.com/p/the-white-...

My reflections on the SEND elements of the white paper, and the political path that led us here. TL;DR - the govt's missing economic strategy & fiscal rules is the backdrop. That's led to the approach the govt has chosen, but also makes it vulnerable. open.substack.com/pub/jimlaude...

My husband wrote about the SEND white paper - it's more personal than we'd normally share but the current system is crushing us and our kids and better reform is needed.

"There is every chance he will end up colouring in for five years of secondary school, because of the soft bigotry of low expectations that pervades in the absence of enforceable legal accountability." A valuable if sometimes uncomfortable reality check on where our SEND system could be heading.

I wrote about the SEND proposals in the White Paper, and my view of how we got here politically. V personal - no one's views but mine. open.substack.com/pub/jimlaude...

Education — building knowledge — prepares us for the novelty of our existence. It is unique to humans in its breadth and depth. Training is acquiring a skill to accomplish a *defined task*. It’s preparation for the known, not the unknown. Animals and AI can be trained. They cannot be educated.

Good take and good direction of travel - IMO govt should double down on this, and complimentary ways of running schools, and chuck the inclusion bases.

And here it is: the SEND reform plan, and why - for all its good intentions - it threatens a terrifying loss of rights, just when the worst imaginable govt might be newly in power www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Need to digest but the WP balances a lot of bold, necessary ideas to move the system forward that I've long called for (eg on place based collaboration)... ... With gutting rights for my child, imposing an inclusion model I fundamentally disagree with, and what looks like very weak accountability.

Agreed. “Support” too elastic to be useful. Coherent whole-school inclusion theory needs tight operating model: predictable universal routines, defined adaptive teaching moves, small menu of time-limited targeted offers with entry-exit criteria & specialist time that builds classroom capacity.

"Ministers need to prove to the sector that they believe these proposals are the right ones, and not just the proposals they were forced to make" The White Paper and Send reform plans finally arrive today. Here's my view from this morning's Tes email. email.tes.com/t/cr/AQiOjhA...

Followers will recall my ongoing travails with the LA re eldest's EHCP. Return from being away for half term today to a delightful letter from the LA castigating me for eldest's school attendance. Well, lads...

What’s it like during Ramadan for a teenager in Britain today? Listen to three glorious young Muslims share their experiences. #islam #ramadan #muslim #fasting podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Knowledge that is extensive and exact, thinking that is scrupulous and critical: these are the scholastic tools with which we equip our young people to face the world. Schools can do more than this - e.g. keeping children safe and giving them confidence - but teaching kids things is surely key.

Those (now) obviously fake insta videos of weird animals and stuff are irritating now but it's going to be terrifying when we get to the generation of kids who've grown up with them. Teaching kids knowledge in schools has never been more important than it is now.

I have to say I find this alliance of well-meaning progressivism and AI pretty terrifying. Beyond how weakly formulated it all is - what is critical thinking? What is grappling? - it doesn’t seem to want to meaningfully engage with the issue of knowledge at all, apart from reheating Blooms taxonomy

@catus14.bsky.social made me shoulder of lamb with a nice Bordeaux, and I am a very happy man

There's something in this, I think. We've all seen lessons prioritising correctness over productive struggle. Critical thinking is an ill-defined bucket concept though, and there's a lot of harking back to a golden pre-Gove age that never existed. Or only existed for a few.

Interesting thread. I work across four cities in three combined authorities, and the differences in Manchester are really palpable. Let's get some more agglomeration everywhere.

And lo, the annual charade is once again complete. Diligent conversation with eldest's school for his EHCP annual review, where we suggest changes to make it better and bring it up to date. Following sacred, time honoured tradition, the LA has refused to make any changes.

Strong on inclusion bases from @tanialt.bsky.social. TL;DR = we need to see evidence, argument, accountability and safeguards for this policy direction. All of which have been conspicuously absent so far. www.specialneedsjungle.com/inclusion-ba...

Late to this after a long day. Long time followers will know I think this is a risky direction of travel. It feels motivated by the fiscal rules as it can be classed as borrowing to invest. I'm looking forward to seeing this contextualised further in the White Paper. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Hong Kong migration to the UK has been a fantastic success and brilliant for places like West Leeds.

Tonight's effort: pork chop, roast garlic mash, chickpea stew

School funding needs to be more fairly distributed. Changes made to the National Funding Formula in 2018 benefited schools in less deprived areas. These changes should be reversed, in order to rebalance funding back towards schools serving the most disadvantaged communities.

#FridayFive is poorly. 1. Almost Cut My Hair. Crosby, Stills and Nash. 2. Wires. Athlete. 3. The Drugs Don't Work. The Verve. 4. Comfortably Numb. Pink Floyd. 5. Keep Yourself Warm. Frightened Rabbit.

I love this. And I believe the manuscript of this passage is the only example we have of Shakespeare's handwriting.

‘Oracy’ or the ability to be articulate is surely just another emergent property of knowing lots about the thing you’re discussing? Better to focus on mismatch between the language of the home & community and that of academic disciplines, and explicitly giving pupils more control over the latter.

I spent some time last year working with a few others in trying to design a reliable oracy assessment framework; it was basically impossible to create one which didn't have some element of racism or classism baked in.

But that's just it - it's becoming an 'agenda'. That in itself is a concern because it places a huge emphasis on 'being seen to be doing something' rather than grounding what is done in evidence-based practice (which doesn't really exist for oracy, as far as I can tell).

My fears with oracy were always: - promotes deficit narratives, especially around race and class - is really about debunked approaches like enforced group work and 21st century skills This seems to enthusiastically double down on both, plus makes some wild claims about the attainment gap, and AI.

On this point, I very much hope the SEND reforms will deal with the pretty awful structural mess the NHS has got itself into with all this.

Look, the EHCP is a faff, hassle and full of nonsense. So at one level I'm fine if they just gave the money to my kid's school and got rid of it. But then I'm at the mercy of someone in future deciding to dump him in a beanbag room or changing his provision to some other nonsense.

Beautiful blue dress

Sunday morning daal

Steak night