Spring 2026 Update

EFFECTIVE CHAIRS – Spring 2026

Happy New Year, let’s see if we can work out what is coming our way this year.

1.The Schools White Paper, has been a long time coming and now looks likely for early February when hopefully we get to see the government’s vision for education, along with the SEND Review.

2.Ofsted is now inspecting schools against its new framework. Once the new framework is bedded in DAG will be arranging an online Ofsted seminar for members.  We will keep you posted on when it will take place. New legislation will be coming to enable Ofsted to inspect multi academy trusts, rather than just individual schools, these inspections would not start before the 2027/28 academic year.

3.The curriculum and assessment review final report was published in November 2025 and will now lead to a national curriculum rewrite likely to be published in Spring 2027, with the new curriculum being taught September 2028.

4.RISE, Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams are in place. The aim is to break the link between young people’s backgrounds and their future success. RISE  advisers are educational experts with direct experience of improving schools who will work at 2 levels:

• Universal support to help all schools improve
• Targeted interventions for eligible schools.

For school improvement targeted interventions,  RISE  advisers engage with the eligible school and its responsible body to agree an improvement plan. Improvement is expected over 12 to 24 months and is monitored by regular Ofsted inspections. The four priorities for the South West are improving English and maths attainment, the quality of reception education, attendance and inclusion. Rise advisers have been appointed in Devon with local schools now part of the scheme.

Boards to consider: Does our board ensure governors/trustees stay up to date? How does it do this and how can it demonstrate that it is happening?

5.SEND: The main discussions around educational funding continue to be linked to SEND. Whilst many local authorities including Devon are running significant SEND deficits, it is worth noting that poorly funded local authorities including Devon still have less money to educate all of their pupils than other authorities. F40 is the organisation trying to make this case to government.

Much of the SEND money announced so far will go to Local Authorities. Around 50,000 specialist places are to be created nationwide at a cost of £3 billion to ensure more children with SEND can remain in mainstream education. Councils will be able to decide whether to carry on with plans to build special and AP free schools or receive cash to create places in existing mainstream schools.

Inclusion: Expect to continue to hear a lot about inclusion during 2026. A big part of how the government and local authorities are dealing with SEND costs is to champion inclusion as a way of ensuring as many SEND pupils as possible remain in mainstream schools. In Devon, Inclusion and Learning Partners are now working with schools as part of the Inclusion strategy for Devon. At the end of last term, Devon’s new Inclusion Partners transitioned from their previous DCC school improvement roles and were allocated a group of schools within their locality.

The 0.5% block transfer: If this is new to you, it’s worth noting because it may affect your budget. Devon Local Authority’s very significant overspend of the SEND High Needs Block is now part of the ‘safety valve’ scheme to reduce the deficit driven by SEND demand. Devon schools were consulted at the end of 2025 on the transfer of 0.5% between council funding blocks, from schools to SEND High Needs for 2026-27. The Schools Forum (DEF) rejected the transfer in line with schools’ wishes, but the DfE may well approve DCC’s request and override the decision made by DEF. We will keep you posted.

Boards to consider: Does our school have a well-trained SENCo, with sufficient hours to effectively carry out the role? How do you know?  Does your SEND governor regularly meet with the SEND team and report back to the board? Have you seen the DAG Busy Governance Guide to SEND?

6.Attendance as a priority: Last year saw the biggest improvement in overall attendance in a decade, but with 1 in 3 schools failing to improve, the DfE has set out a roadmap for every school to increase its efforts to support pupils back to class. Every school will be issued with AI-powered minimum attendance improvement targets for the rest of this academic year to ensure children are in school and ready to achieve. The attendance baseline improvement expectation (ABIE) will be based on schools’ circumstances, including location, pupil needs and deprivation. The targets will not be published or shared with Ofsted, but schools that fail to meet the new attendance expectations will be referred for support to RISE teams (see above, noting South West priorities). Remember ‘Working together to improve school attendance is statutory and governors/trustees need to engage with their responsibilities around this educational priority, see the DfE School Attendance Guidance Training Webinar, Effective governance that supports stronger attendance. See also DAG Busy Governance Guide to Attendance for more information.

Boards to consider: How does attendance in your school(s) compare with national data?  How do you know? Has your board undertaken the DfE Attendance Training?

7.Staffing

Teachers pay: This could be a crunch point as the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) has been asked to make recommendations on pay for the next three years and to give a view on the 1,265 hours of directed time allowance, with the government response expected in March. The government has indicated that pay should rise roughly in line with inflation, with schools having to part-fund some of this from existing budgets and the treasury stating that no additional funding will be provided beyond existing settlements. The STRB is likely to recommend something above the 6.5 per cent DfE suggestion, but well short of the pay restoration unions are calling for. The DfE won’t have any new money, so industrial action may be back on the cards.

Employment Rights Bill: Designed to deliver stronger protections for workers, it will:

• Reduce qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims and remove statutory cap on unfair dismissal compensation
• Extend rights for those on zero-hours or highly variable contracts
• Provide day-one rights and strengthen leave entitlements
• Require employers to be under a stronger duty to prevent harassment in the workplace
• Clarify Flexible working rights.

There is a phased roll-out, with reforms being introduced gradually across 2026/27. Day-one rights for certain leaves and statutory sick-pay reforms are likely from April 2026. See this factsheet from the Department for Business and Trade for more information.

Employers’ national insurance contributions: The grant to cover the increase from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent from April 2025 will only cover the current academic year and then be rolled into mainstream funding for 26/27.

8.Pupil Premium

Auto Enrolment: This process in Devon has Identified 1,079 pupils who were entitled to FSM but were not previously receiving it and secured just under £1.5 million in additional pupil premium funding. The move to auto enrolment and achieving the additional £1.5 million for our schools is in large part thanks to the tireless campaigning of Alex Walmsley, Devon Association of Governance (DAG) Board Member and Devon Education Forum (DEF) Vice Chair. His tenacious approach ensured that Devon County Council investigated and then implemented the scheme.

Income Data: Ministers have indicated that they are reviewing how pupil premium should be allocated, this could mean that income data rather than free school meal claims is used to identify where the funding goes.

Maximising value for pupils: The government has provided a suite of guidance for schools on how to maximise value. The programme supports schools and trusts to allocate resource effectively across 4 pillars. It explains current initiatives, future plans and practical tools to help schools and trusts secure better deals, optimise budgets and reinvest savings .

• Commercial – better value for money in line with procurement regulations. Achieving better value when buying
• Assets – how to maintain, improve and use financial and physical assets effectively. Maximising school and trust resources: managing financial and physical assets
• Workforce Support – to plan the workforce, recruit effectively and develop staff to meet pupils’ needs. Strategic workforce planning for schools and trusts
• Developing capability, including digital and commercial – to build capability, improve expertise and meet digital standards. Improve your schools and trust’s digital and financial planning.

School Uniform Guidance: The updated draft guidance urges schools to take action before parents purchase school uniform this summer, noting that most sales take place in the weeks before the start of the academic year.

9.Increased Government funding for…

The Breakfast Clubs scheme will move on from the 2025 ‘adopter’ first phase to give way to the national roll out of free breakfast clubs from April 2026. An £80 million investment, for 2,000 new schools to join the 750 schools already in the pilot delivering free breakfast clubs.

Extra Nurseries: £45 million allocated for new or expanded nurseries. The second phase of the government’s project to turn empty classrooms into nurseries has just closed, with schools with poorer intakes and top Ofsted grades being prioritised for funding to create 7000 more places from September 2026.  Phase three of the programme, will be aimed at local authorities to develop multi-year funding proposals from 2027 to 2030.

Libraries: New funding of £5 million for state secondary schools to buy new books, roughly £1,400 per school. This is in addition to the pledge of £10 million in funding to provide every primary school in England with a library by 2029.

Boards to consider: Does our school have well trained finance governors/trustees and does the board provide full accountability for the funding it receives as evidenced by up to date statements on the school website?

Coming to an end…

The government launched a review into whether free schools offer value for money, concluded they don’t and are now bringing to an end the Conservative party’s original free school model.

Earlier breakfast schemes will end this year, Wraparound childcare scheme (2024) will end in March 2026 and The National School breakfast Programme (2023), supported by Family Action will end in July 2026.

7. Support for your Board:

Effective Governance Resources. The DfE have published support for maintained school governing bodies, academy trust boards, leaders, governance professionals and clerks in developing sustainable and effective governance. Each resource contains links to further reading, the documents are:

• Working with governance professionals (clerks)
• Governing strategically in your school or academy trust
• Producing effective board reports for strong governance
• Creating an effective and agile governance structure
• Recruiting governors and academy trustees.

This differs from the maintained schools governance guide and academy trust governance guide, updated last term which focus on compliance and regulatory responsibilities.

8. Be aware…

At the end of 2025, the DfE published its Restrictive interventions, including use of reasonable force, in schools guidance, which aims to provide clarity on how schools use rarer interventions like restraint. This will become effective in April 2026.

Early Years: The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework strengthened safeguarding requirements from September 2025. Also be aware of the ‘Experience based route for early years’ guidance, for staff and early years ratio calculations. Devon has re-set its core support offer for Early Years from January 2026 to help settings re-evaluate using Ofsted’s latest framework, see their Early Years page for more information.

Environmental Sustainability: The DfE are clear that senior decision makers, SLT and governors should support and drive school sustainable activity. Sustainability leadership and climate action plans in education guidance has been updated and is clear that a nominated sustainability lead and climate action plan should be in place. Whilst this guidance is non-statutory,  the DfE Estate Management Standards now include the requirement for both to be in place. Need some help with this area?  Have a look at the DAG Busy Governance Guide to Environment Sustainability for help.

Relationships, sex and health education guidance: The DfE has updated relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education guidance. The statutory guidance is to support schools in addressing misogyny and incel culture, violence against women and girls and related factors. For the first time, secondary school pupils will be taught topics such as how online content can impact a person’s understanding of sexual ethics and behaviour, staying safe in public spaces and positive concepts of femininity and masculinity. Whilst the guidance is statutory from September 2026, schools can begin teaching it from September 2025 if they choose.

Violence against women and girls strategy: This whole government initiative ‘Freedom from violence and abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls’ is the first step in an approach to addressing violence against women and girls (VAWG). Under the £20 million package, teachers and families will be empowered to address harmful attitudes and behaviours head on, with young people taught to identify positive role models and challenge unhealthy myths about women and relationships. Three new pilot programmes have now been announced as part of VAWG strategy.

• A £3million investment in a teacher training fund over the next two years to ensure the new curriculum has the greatest impact
• A £5 million pilot of healthy relationship training delivered by external providers
• A £3 million pilot programme to tackle harmful sexual behaviours.

Grants for schools are listed on the Devon County Council website page ‘Grants for schools’  and remember to stay up to date with general grants available from your local district council, many provide weekly email updates, see their websites for further information.

AI: The Department for Education has launched a package of measures to transform how schools use AI. AI guidance sets out how schools can safely and effectively use AI, it also provides information on how Ofsted will view the use of AI in classrooms.

Boards to consider: How do we ensure that we stay up to date and aware of what is happening within the education sector both locally and nationally?

8. Training for free…

Food: A whole school approach to food: Online training on the school food guidance for governors with free to access training from NGA.

Prevent in education, training for governors and trustees. The training package has been designed by DfE for school governors to understand their responsibilities and the importance of the Prevent duty. Forthcoming dates: Wednesday 11^th February 5pm to 6.15pm, Tuesday 21 April 5pm to 6.15pm.

Governors For Schools have a range of eLearning modules that are free, have a look at the selection available including SEND, reducing exclusions, school improvement, wellbeing culture, anti-bullying and recruiting a headteacher.

Clerking Handbook.  A free clerking handbook guide from the National Association of Governance Advisory services (NAGAS).  Advice, examples and resources to support this key role within governance for academies and maintained schools. Download a copy at www.nagas.org.uk

Boards to consider: Is your board trained and up to date, and how do you know?

Finally, a bit about what DAG can do to support your governance…

In addition to over 150 articles each year and bespoke resources all free to DAG members, we support members coming together online to discuss the latest issues affecting governance. Have you considered our community networks?

DAG Community Networks- Chairs, Governors and Trustees: Support each term to come together in a free interactive session for academy and maintained boards.

DAG Community Networks – Governance Professionals/Clerks: Support for clerks and governance professionals each term to come together in a free interactive hour-long session recognising their key role in delivering effective governance.

Each forum has a theme and is facilitated by DAG board members or associate members with considerable governance experience, dates for this term will be available soon, contact [email protected]

DAG Conference – Thursday 14^th May 4.30pm at Exeter Race Course. ‘Inspirational Governance – more than just metrics’ will provide an opportunity for members to be part of a social and learning evening, with key note speakers and time to network, enjoy a buffet and a short musical event by Devon pupils. All designed to help members to consider how and why they should support their schools to provide enriching life experiences to expand education from narrow to broad – so save the date and register your interest at [email protected].

Boards to consider: Are all opportunities being taken to upskill the board, share experiences and concerns and support all board members and the governance professional/clerk?