What we learned from supporting a shared response to the Schools White Paper
When the Schools White Paper was published, we brought together organisations working across inclusive education to develop a shared response. This article reflects on what the process taught us about supporting co-creation: providing enough structure to sustain momentum while leaving space for participants to shape the work and retain ownership of the outcome.
At Wates Family Enterprise Trust, we think of co-creation as part of the long-term work of building relationships, trust and shared purpose. We want to help people with different specialisms, perspectives and pressures to learn from one another and work together where there is a useful reason to do so. In much of our work, we take a long view, recognising that those relationships can take time to build and, therefore, any collaboration will take time to bear fruit. However, when the Schools White Paper was published, members of the Inclusive Education Community came together to develop a shared response and the timescales forced us to think differently. A live consultation created a short window and those involved were contributing alongside the day-to-day demands of running services, supporting young people and working with schools and families. That made the process a useful example of what can be achieved in a short time when there is enough structure to support collaboration and enough openness for the work to be shaped by those involved. This reflection is about the process behind the response: how the work came together, what made it feel genuinely shared and what it has helped us think about as we continue to develop the Inclusive Education Community.
The work grew out of a convening focused on young people’s social, emotional and mental health hosted by WFET and partners earlier in the year. Some contributors raised the possibility of a joint response on the day, while others joined through the wider Inclusive Education Community. The final group brought together experience from mental health, alternative provision, youth support, inclusion and vocational pathways, and that breadth was important for the final piece. Although the original conversation started from a focus on children and young people with SEMH needs, the group quickly moved into wider questions about the conditions that make inclusion possible: what is measured, how schools are held to account, how pupil voice is heard, how inclusive practice is supported and whether vocational routes are valued as genuine pathways to success.
WFET’s role was to create the opportunity and support the process, rather than to decide the content. We did not begin with a fixed policy position or a predetermined set of recommendations, nor were we asking people to endorse a WFET view. We wanted to help bring interested contributors together and create the conditions through which they could discuss the White Paper, develop shared recommendations and decide what they wanted to say collectively.
To ensure this was a genuinely shared piece of work, we also knew we shouldn’t try to facilitate it ourselves. Holding the space as a neutral convenor while also designing and leading the discussions would have blurred those roles. We therefore asked Social Finance to design and facilitate the process. Their expertise meant that they could create the structure, ask the right questions and keep the work moving, while allowing the content and ownership to remain firmly with the group.
It is also important to note that none of those involved were WFET grantees. This was not about convening a funded portfolio, but about using the Inclusive Education Community as a wider space for connection and shared work.
Bringing in Social Finance also gave the process a different kind of discipline. They designed a series of workshops framed around three stages (align, focus, develop) that balanced space for openness with momentum, creating enough structure for people to make progress without closing down discussion too early. The sessions moved from exploring the opportunities and challenges within the White Paper, through identifying common themes, to collectively refining recommendations that everyone could see themselves in. Throughout their role was not to shape the conclusions but to help the group do its best thinking together.
The first session was important in setting the tone and was focused on creating the conditions for the recommendations to emerge. People spent time agreeing how they wanted to work together, what good recommendations looked like and what they were collectively trying to achieve. A discussion on the inhibitors that might prevent the White Paper’s ambitions being realised, and the enablers that could support success, helped keep the conversation constructive. The aim was not to produce a list of criticisms, but to think carefully about what would need to be true for the reforms to work better for children and young people who are too often missed by the current system.
With a group that was bringing real energy to the process but that, in almost all cases, did not know each other before the process began, the approach was important. From the outset, contributors were asked to work to a shared agenda, balance ambition with pragmatism, move at pace and offer friendly challenge. These were simple expectations but they created useful guardrails. They allowed the group to be positive without avoiding challenge, and practical without losing sight of the scale of change needed. As this was not our normal way of working, there was some uncertainty in bringing a group together at pace around a live policy issue, but the participants arrived willing to listen, share expertise and think beyond their own priorities.
As the work developed, the process became more focused without becoming closed. By the second workshop, the group’s thinking had begun to organise around two broad areas: systems and practice. Those areas later developed into the three final recommendations on broadening what is important in accountability, building inclusive practice into every school and valuing vocational pathways. Having members of the group volunteer to lead the creation of the different sections helped with this step. Contributors were asked to clarify the problem each recommendation was trying to solve, identify what the White Paper missed or left unclear, set out the opportunity, develop specific recommendations and consider first steps. That helped move the work from shared concern into something more usable for policymakers.
This is one of the reasons the response felt genuinely co-created. It was not a set of separate asks brought together at the end. Strong ideas were present from the first session, and the later workshops helped refine, test and strengthen them together. Some contributors took on more writing, while others shaped the work through discussion, comments, review and sign-off. Not everyone could be present at every stage, but there were different ways back into the process. It was important to design this into the process given the pressures small and medium-sized charities face when engaging in policy work.
Policy engagement and collaboration both take time, and time is often one of the scarcest resources for those closest to children, families and schools. These charities often hold the insight that policy needs but may not have the capacity to sustain engagement on their own. Part of WFET’s role is to help create some of that capacity through coordination, facilitation and practical support that enables people to contribute without the process becoming unmanageable. Our role is not speaking on behalf of others; it is supporting the conditions in which they can speak and work together.
This experience has reinforced the importance of an asset-based approach to co-creation. The strength of the process came from what people already brought: practice knowledge, relationships with schools and young people, policy insight, leadership experience and a willingness to listen across different parts of the system. The role of structure was not to control that expertise, but to help make it visible and useful to the group. People need to understand the purpose of the work and how decisions will be made, but they also need enough space to shape the direction and challenge the thinking as it develops.
It has also helped us think about the next stage of the Inclusive Education Community. The White Paper points towards greater collaboration between schools and local systems, and we are interested in how that can be supported well in practice. For us, that means paying attention to relationships, power and the conditions that allow different partners to contribute meaningfully. Collaboration between schools, charities and the wider system works best when there is time to understand what each brings, when community knowledge is valued and when people are able to recognise when to lead, when to listen and when to share ownership.
As we work with the Centre for Social Justice to develop the Inclusive Education Community, we want to build on this learning carefully. That will include further convening, communities of practice, shared learning and practical collaboration across the education and charity sectors. We are particularly interested in how schools and charities can work together around children and young people in ways that are relational, respectful and useful. The Schools White Paper response was shaped by one policy moment, but it has reinforced something important about the wider work: co-creation needs trust, structure and care. Our role is to keep creating the conditions in which that can happen.
The full response can be read here: https://www.inclusiveeducation.org.uk/resources
WFET and Lund Trust, have launched a new partnership rooted in the shared belief that everyone deserves access to nature on their doorstep. We’ve pooled resources and experience to co-develop Nature Based Neighbourhoods: Growing Strong.
Read more about What does it take to grow community?Joint funding can create more than financial support, building stronger relationships, shared learning and more connected approaches to systems change.
Read more about When funders come together: unlocking more than fundingWhen funders come together around shared purpose, their impact can extend far beyond financial support, creating space for collaboration, shared learning and more connected system change.
Read more about Why we are investing in collaboration
