If you teach children with special educational needs, the headline from John Healey's first Budget on 28 October is simple: nothing new arrived for SEND. The money that matters to you was already promised back in February, and the bigger decisions have been pushed to 2027.
The chancellor spoke for around an hour without once saying the word "education", as ASCL's Julia Harnden pointed out. Local government press summed it up bluntly: no notable measures to ease SEND pressures.
But "nothing new" isn't the same as "no impact". Inflation forecasts, wage rises and the official spending projections published alongside the Budget all land in your classroom eventually. Here's what changed, what didn't, and what to keep an eye on.
The education content was thin, and most of what matters for SEND sits in the Office for Budget Responsibility's forecasts rather than the speech itself.
The OBR also flagged real uncertainty over how the February SEND reforms will affect costs and the number of children supported. Its central assumption is that underlying SEND spending grows by just 0.4% a year in real terms after 2028-29.
The biggest day-to-day effects come from costs rising faster than budgets, not from any single announcement.
Your pay. The OBR now expects inflation of 3.4% in 2027, up from 2% in March. Next year's planned 3% teacher pay award could therefore be a real-terms cut, unless it is revisited.
Your support staff. SEND classrooms rely heavily on teaching assistants and one-to-one support. A 3.9% rise in the minimum wage is good news for them, but schools must fund it from existing budgets. Watch for pressure on TA hours, especially where funding is tied to individual pupils.
Resources and therapies. The OBR estimates departments would need about £7bn more a year to keep 2025 Spending Review plans whole after inflation. In practice, sensory equipment, specialist resources and bought-in therapy time may stretch less far.
Specialist settings. Special schools depend on local authority high-needs funding, and council deficits are forecast to roughly double before 2028. Expect continued scrutiny of placements and top-up rates in the meantime.
The SEND investment that will reach classrooms was set out in the Schools White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, published on 23 February 2026. October's Budget left those plans intact.
For teachers, the most direct changes are a requirement for all teachers to be trained to support pupils with SEND, and inclusion bases in every secondary school and many primaries. New Targeted and Targeted Plus support tiers aim to give access to specialists such as speech and language therapists without waiting for an EHCP. Ofsted will also judge schools on inclusion.
The government describes this as the biggest SEND training offer English schools have seen. Unions are less sure: ASCL called the training money a drop in the ocean, and the NAHT questioned whether inclusion bases can meet the full range of needs. The transition is phased from 2028 to 2035, and the bill to put it into law is now not expected until the new year.
The key decisions for SEND funding now sit in 2027, not in this Budget.
In the meantime, a few practical steps help:
This Budget didn't cut SEND funding, but it didn't ease the pressure either. For SEND teachers, the next two years mean tight budgets, rising costs and big reforms still taking shape. The best protection is staying informed, using the training on offer, and keeping strong evidence of the progress your pupils make.