No New SEND Code Before 2029, Whatever The Staffroom Says

So I was at a cluster meeting last week. Oh, yeah. How was that? Well, you know, 12 of us around a table, usual biscuits and everything. And somebody just said completely confidently, I might add, that the new send code of practice consultation is landing, quote unquote, any day now. Oh, wow. And let me guess, literally nobody in the room challenged it. Nobody. Like, including me. Really? Yeah. We just sort of sat there and accepted it. I actually watched two people write it down in their notebooks as if it were, you know, a scheduled diary event.

But driving back, it really got me thinking like, is that actually true? Well, I mean, it is a very common thing to hear in education circles right now, but it is also not what is published anywhere I have checked. Wait, if that isn't what is published, what exactly is published? This is the education commute. Both voices on this show are synthesized. The judgment isn't. So I am sitting in the Sanco's chair. Today and that means my perspective comes entirely from reading the actual primary documents Rather than you know relying on the cluster meeting versions of them Yeah And I am firmly in the governor's chair for this one because I have to admit I heard that same any day now version of the story and I have been repeating it since oh you have yeah, I said it to staff in passing.

I said it in a governor's meeting Like twice actually I just treated it as an established fact, right? Which is exactly why this orthodoxy is so worth testing for you the listener and I will be very careful right here at the start to frame exactly what we are doing today is this is not a case of us simply failing to find something it is a case of the sequencing being published very plainly and Almost nobody having actually read it Right. Okay. So let's start with the most obvious place then.

If we're looking for published timelines, what does the Commons Library briefing say about a new code of practice consultation? Nothing. Wait, nothing as in like not much detail? No, nothing as in it is not mentioned at all. There is no date. There is no hint. There is not even a watch this space. kind of thing to suggest it is on the horizon. I actually went looking specifically for the exact sentence that everyone in your cluster meeting seems to have heard, and it simply isn't there. That is genuinely odd because, I mean, as a governor, I read those commons library briefings and given the depth they usually go into, they cover an immense amount of ground.

They really do. So if something is happening any day now, you'd think it would be in there. Exactly. The briefings are comprehensive. which is why that absence is so informative rather than just being, you know, an accidental oversight. It's missing because the commitment lives somewhere else entirely. Okay. And it comes with a specific condition attached to condition that most staff room conversations seem to just skip straight past. All right. Well, you have my full attention. What is the condition? Let me just read the Department for Education's stated commitment in full.

And I want to read this slowly because this full sentence is essentially the whole episode. Go for it. Quote. It will update the setting code of practice after legislation, consult widely on the changes, clarify responsibilities, place stronger emphasis on evidence -based support, and promote inclusion. Wow. Okay. I am just counting that up in my head. That is five distinct promises packed into a single sentence. It is five promises, yes. But more importantly, it is one condition. And the word doing all the heavy lifting in that sentence is the word after.

After. Yes. So it says after legislation. That means not alongside the legislation and definitely not before it. Precisely. After it. Everything downstream of that word, the consulting widely, the clarifying, the evidence -based emphasis, the inclusion. All of it sits squarely behind that one preposition. Right. Well, let's actually unpack the other four promises in that sentence because I don't think I have ever heard them read out in full before. Sure. And if I'm going to go back and correct my governor's meeting, I really need to understand what exactly the Department for Education is actually committing to.

Let's do that. First, they promise to consult widely on the changes. Now, that is the specific event people at your cluster meeting are actually waiting for. Right. But notice the wording. on the changes. They are not consulting on whether there should be changes. They're consulting on changes that legislation will already have made. Ah, right. So the legislation has to exist first to make the changes before they can even consult on those changes. That makes perfect sense. Exactly. Then we have the promise to clarify responsibilities. Now, this is the one that Sankos will care about the most.

That phrase points directly to the boundary between the school and the council. And sitting in the governor's chair, I can tell you that boundary is always the friction point. Yeah. I mean, it is where everything gets stuck. So that clarification is vital. Next is a stronger emphasis on evidence based support. And this phrase is interesting because it tells you the shape of the revision without actually telling you the specific content of it. OK, yeah. And finally, they promise to promote inclusion, which really just simply states the overall direction of travel.

But looking at all of that. the consulting, the clarifying, the emphasis on evidence, the inclusion. I mean, none of those promises have a date attached. None of them can have a date. Right. They're all conditional on the exact same event. And we already know from episode 46 when that legislation is expected. Refresh my memory. It is not expected before September 20, 29. And even that timeline is entirely subject to parliamentary approval. Wait. September 29, I think we really need to step back and recap the three pillars from that previous episode, because this provides all the missing context.

It really does. Because the cluster meeting was acting like this was a single imminent event. Let's lay out those three pillars again, because they represent three separate timelines, not one single event. So pillar one is the reformed system. Based on the published documents, that is not expected before September 2029. Okay. And again, that is completely subject to Parliament. Which means we are sitting here now looking at a minimum of three years away for that first pillar. At least three years. Then pillar two focuses on existing EHC plans.

There will be no changes to those before at least September 2030. Wow. And it is crucial to remember that at least is a floor, not a fixed date. It physically cannot happen before then. And the third pillar. Because if Pillar 1 is 2029 and Pillar 2 is 2030, what happens in the meantime? Pillar 3 is the interim period in between now and then, and this is not a gap year. Right. The current system stays completely in place. There's preparation funding for schools promised in principle, but currently that remains totally unpublished in detail.

Okay, so following that logic step by step, if the Code of Practice update sits behind the legislation... Yes. then it is entirely downstream of the first pillar. It is entirely downstream of the first pillar, which, as we just outlined, is itself at least three years out and purely conditional. But wait, if the update is downstream of a piece of legislation that isn't expected before September 2029, then the consultation isn't overdue at all. I mean, it hasn't even been due yet. That is the big inversion here.

And honestly, it is the single most important thing worth carrying out of this conversation. When people sit around a table and say, any day now, it just assumes the consultation is running late. Yeah, exactly. But the honest read of the primary documents is that it was never scheduled to start this early. It is explicitly sequenced to come after a piece of legislation that itself isn't expected for another three years. Wow. I am just thinking about how many times I have told colleagues to keep an eye out for this consultation.

I should definitely stop saying that. Well, you don't need to stop watching entirely. You just need to watch for the right trigger. The thing to watch for isn't a code of practice consultation. Right. The actual trigger is the legislation passing. That is the singular event that starts the clock on this specific commitment from the Department for Education. Okay, so if someone comes up to me next month completely confidently and claims that a new code consultation has just opened, what is my honest response to them? Your honest response is to simply ask them where they read it.

Yeah, because if it were true, it would be genuinely new information, not some delayed thing finally arriving. Nothing in any source I have checked suggests it is imminent because by the government's own published sequencing, it structurally cannot be happening yet. Asking where did you read it? is a much steadier, calmer thing to say at a cluster meeting than just blindly accepting any day now. Absolutely. But I have to push back on our whole premise here for a second because sitting in the governor's chair, I am feeling a bit of frustration.

Go on. Somebody listening right now is definitely thinking. This is an episode entirely about a thing that has not happened. Like, why does a non -event need all this time? It is a totally fair pushback. And I ask myself the same question, honestly. I mean, if it's not happening until 2029, why are we talking about it today? Because the wrong version of this story is currently changing behavior in schools right now. Right. People are deferring training. Parents are being told to wait. That carries a real tangible cost.

And it is built entirely on a sentence that nobody has actually read. That makes a lot of sense. The myth itself is causing the damage. What is the honest concession here, though? Because, you know, government timelines can shift. The honest concession is that sequencing is not law. A government can announce consultation whenever it likes. If ministers decided tomorrow to consult early, they absolutely could. Right. What I can tell you is that nothing published points that way. And the published plan strictly says the opposite. That is a completely fair concession.

Now, sitting here thinking about government timelines and things running late, this feels very connected to the discussions we had in episode 41 and episode 45. It is connected, but it is definitely not the same. And the difference really matters for how you approach this. Let's just quickly review the ledger from episode 45. In that situation, we had a white paper published in February. We had a correction slip in April. We had a consultation that officially closed on the 18th of May. And then... We have a feedback page that has been stuck on the words, we're analyzing your feedback, visit this page again soon, ever since, with zero responses.

That scenario is genuinely overdue. Yeah, that was a window that actually opened, took all of our answers, closed, and then gave absolutely nothing back. That is incredibly frustrating. Exactly. Whereas the situation we are discussing today is not due yet. And that is a much calmer kind of waiting, even if it is still waiting. It really is two different kinds of quiet. I mean, if I conflate a window that closed and ignored us with a window that isn't scheduled to open for three years, I am fundamentally misunderstanding where we actually are in the process.

Precisely. Conflating them makes you sound either alarmist, or complacent. You have to distinguish between a broken promise on timing and a promise that was simply never timed to happen this early. So while all this waiting is pending, whether it's until 2029 or beyond, what is the actual statutory code we should be working with in our schools right now? The current code remains completely unchanged. The 2015 Code of Practice is statutory, it is still in force, and nothing about it is being revised in the meantime. But I know for a fact that staff are quietly holding off on their training.

Like, they feel like learning the 2015 code is a total waste of time if a new one is on the horizon. And that is a mistake. Training against the current 2015 code of practice is not wasted effort. Right. The update is sequenced after legislation that is not expected before September 2029. Right. Furthermore, ASCENCO, who is properly trained on the current code, is going to be much better placed to read and understand the next one. Not worse. I want to think about how this actually plays out tomorrow morning across different settings.

Let's look at the three rooms. If I'm in a primary school, how does the sequence of events hit the ground? In a primary school, the person most exposed here is the SENCO who is also teaching. If they have quietly parked a piece of code -based training until the new one comes out, that means they are looking at three years of it being parked. Wow. They need to unpack it this term. What about the secondary school? The dynamic is so different there. In a secondary school, you have the briefing problem.

Somebody stands up in front of 80 staff in a morning briefing and confidently says, the send rules are changing. Oh, yeah. Now you have 80 people who half believe in a false date. The fix for that is simple though. Just one sentence in the very next briefing, clarifying that the code we work to has not changed. And no consultation on changing it has opened. And the third room, a specialist setting. Because the stakes feel particularly high there when we talk about timelines. In a specialist setting, this comes down directly to the parent conversation.

Families hear the word reform in the news and they immediately fear for their child's plan. Right, understandably. The answer there is to return to the second pillar, said very plainly to them. There are no changes to existing EHC plans before at least September 2030. Let's bring this all the way back to where we started. The cluster meeting. The 12 people around the table. Back to the cluster meeting. The next time somebody sits at that table and says the consultation is coming any day now, you are not contradicting them out of pure skepticism.

No. You are simply quoting the sentence, nobody has read. I feel much more equipped to handle that now. Which leads us to what you call the kettle question. Yes, the kettle question for you to take away. At break time, ask whoever is standing next to the kettle, have they heard the any day now version? And if they have, ask them where they heard it from. And we also have a training question for the listener. We do. If a colleague asks you to hold off on your send code training because a new one is coming, could you correctly place that update after legislation that isn't expected before September 2029?

After today, I would definitely correct it. Let's quickly recast the four things to take off the drive. Yeah. One. No source anywhere mentions an active or imminent code of practice consultation. Two, the Department for Education's own commitment sequences, it's strictly after legislation, and that legislation is not expected before September 2029. Three, this is a case of not due yet. That is a totally different kind of waiting period from episode 41 and 45's genuinely overdue consultation response. Four. The 2015 Code of Practice is still the operative statutory document.

Train and plan against it right now. Everything we've discussed today is linked in the show notes. We also have a printable one -pager for this specific topic available at theeducationcommute .co .uk, which is perfect for handing to parents or just leaving in the staff room. Both voices on this show are synthesized. The judgment isn't. Safe trip in. See you at the gates.