Education Health and Care Assessments and Plans

What if I think my child needs more help than the school can provide?

If you think that your child needs more help than the school can provide, there is the option of asking the local authority for an assessment to decide whether an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan is needed. These plans used to be called Statements of SEN. Having an EHC Plan means your child needs a very significant amount of individualised support that cannot be provided from the budget available to the school. It also usually means their needs are very severe, complex and likely to have a lifelong impact on their learning and development.

For your child this would mean:

The school (or you) can request that the local authority carry out an assessment of your child’s needs. This is a legal process which would set out the amount of support that will be provided for your child if they had an EHC Plan.

After the school have sent in the request to the Local Authority (with a lot of information about your child, including from you), they will decide whether they think your child’s needs are complex enough to need an assessment. If this is the case they will ask you and all professionals involved with your child to write a report outlining your child’s needs. If they do not think your child needs this assessment, they will ask the school to continue with school-based support

After the reports have all been sent in, the local authority will decide if your child’s needs are severe, complex and lifelong. If this is the case they will write an EHC Plan. If not, they will ask the school to continue with school-based support and also set up a meeting in school to ensure a plan is in place to ensure your child makes as much progress as possible.

What if I disagree with some aspect of the plan, or I disagree about them conducting the assessment?

The best thing for you to do is to talk to the local authority about why they have made the decision they have. The Parent Partnership Service are also available to help you, and there are routes you can go down if you remain dissatisfied – please see the relevant local authority’s procedures for this.