From consultation to co-creation: lessons from responding to the Schools White Paper

Different perspectives.
Shared recommendations.
A response shaped together.

The idea began at WFET’s Working Together for Young People’s Wellbeing event, where participants suggested developing a joint response to the Schools White Paper and SEND reforms. WFET shared the opportunity across the Inclusive Education Community, bringing together organisations from mental health, alternative provision, youth support, school leadership and inclusion. Working together with Social Finance, WFET created the conditions for collaboration as a neutral convenor, while Social Finance facilitated workshops to help participants explore the proposals, identify shared priorities and develop recommendations, allowing the group’s position to emerge from the organisations involved.

The resulting paper, Creating the conditions for inclusion, welcomed the government’s ambition for every child to achieve and thrive, while highlighting the need for changes to the structures surrounding schools. It set out three interconnected recommendations: align accountability with inclusion, build inclusive practice into every school and recognise vocational pathways as equally valid routes to success.

Developing a collective response required organisations to listen to one another, work through differences and actively shape a shared position together. Rather than contributing to a pre-defined response, participants were involved from the outset, ensuring their experience influenced the questions being asked, the arguments developed and the recommendations put forward.

The response offers an example of what can emerge when organisations come together with purpose and shared intent and creates a starting point for further engagement with government and the wider sector.