Making the most of EHC Plan Annual Reviews – a SENDIASS guide

Every EHC Plan must be reviewed at least once a year by the local authority to ensure it is kept up-to-date and continues to provide the support the child or young person needs. It is also possible to ask for an early annual review if things are going downhill for your child and it is too long until the next one is due. Speak to your APO or Casework Officer in this case. It is up to the local authority whether they agree to this.

When we hear the words “annual review” (AR) we often think of the meeting, but actually there are four parts to the AR process. If the child or young person is at a school or college they organise most of this, otherwise the local authority will do it all.

1. Gathering information: from parent, child, school and other professionals involved. The school should ask for these and send them out at least two weeks before the meeting, so that you and the professionals have time to read them and prepare for the meeting.
2. The meeting: usually in school although some participants may join online. Parent, child/young person, school SENCO or head teacher, health and social care reps and other relevant professionals are all invited, but a meeting can go ahead with just the parent and school there, and this is normal if it is not a year when there are big changes or issues to consider. The meeting should decide if the EHCP still describes the your child’s needs and whether the outcomes have been achieved or need to be altered. Once agreed, the provision can be discussed.
3. Report from the meeting: prepared by school/college and sent to the local authority within two weeks. Copied to parent and /or young person. Should include recommendations from the meeting, any differences of opinion and the reports or information that was gathered in advance.
4. Local authority decision: the local authority must decide whether to continue the EHC plan unchanged, amend it (change what it says about needs, provision, outcomes or placement) or cease it (end the plan altogether). They should give this decision within four weeks after the meeting date. There’s a right of appeal about this decision if you don’t agree.

There are special rules for the AR process at the points when a child is coming up to a phase transfer (e.g. primary to secondary). For children starting school who already have a plan, or moving from primary to secondary, the AR must take place in in time for the whole process to be complete and a final plan sent out by 15 February. For Year 11s moving to college, the deadline for issuing the final amended plan is 31 March.

You and your child/young person will be asked to contribute your views in advance. You may be sent a form you can use. If it is a year when everything is going smoothly and nothing much is changing you can keep this quite simple. But some years you will want to say more. You can approach it the same way you did the parental contribution when the plan was first written. Our Amaze SENDIASS service have a guide that might help.

Download our SENDIASS Guide to the parental contribution (pdf 260kb)

A good tip is to look at what you wrote last year and use this to identify changes that have taken place since the last review. And have a look through your copy of the current EHC Plan too, marking it up with any questions you have or updates to what it says. You can use our SENDIASS Guide to checking your draft EHCP (pdf 360kb) to make sure the proposed plan contains everything it needs to.

Minor details don’t need to change every year and may be able to wait until the next essential update point such as moving from primary to secondary school. But if you think major changes are needed, you will need to explain this in your contribution and think about what evidence there is to support this. Are there any new reports about your child? Make sure the school have all of these.

The school may offer to collect your child’s views but you can do this too. As your child gets older, it is even more important that their views are central. Their views, wishes and aspirations can be written, filmed or presented in whatever way  your child or young person chooses. SENDIASS have a young people’s worker who may be able to help them express their views. This is also the moment to plan how your child will be involved in the meeting itself. Will they come for all or part of it?

When the reports from the school and others are sent, around two weeks before the meeting, read them through. Do they throw up any questions? If you want change, will any of the reports help show this is needed? Decide whether you want a friend or relative to come to the meeting with you, as you will need to tell the school this in advance. You could ask your friend to prompt you with the questions you have prepared and to make notes of any changes that are discussed.

Just before the meeting, make a final checklist of what you want to say. Include any changes you want to ask for and new outcomes you think are needed, now and for the future. Have a copy of the EHC Plan and the reports ready so you can refer to them in the meeting.

Make sure everyone in the meeting is introduced to you and your child.  Check who is making notes. The agenda should give time to looking back at how things have gone over the past year, but leave plenty of time for looking ahead too. Try not to get bogged down in small details, as this can mean the meeting ends without important issues being covered.

There should be time to look through the EHC Plan sections and discuss if there have been any changes in your child’s needs:

• Have they achieved their outcomes or do they need amending?
• Is the provision still relevant to meet their needs?
• Are they making progress? If not, what would help?

If things are really not going well, you will want the meeting to look at whether this is still the right setting for your child. If you are approaching a phase transfer, the meeting should discuss their next possible placement.

In Year 9 and above, the annual review should also look at preparing for adulthood i.e. longer term goals around

• education, employment and training,
• participating in society (including getting around and developing and maintaining friendships and relationships)
• maintaining good health, and
• where they will live

You may need to remind the meeting of this as often schools are very much focused on the next 12 months, not the long term.

Before the end of the meeting, make sure you clarify what has been agreed and who will do what. Check what the school’s report is going to say. If there are disagreements, these should be noted in the report.

The school should write up the report and send it to the local authority and to you. Read through this carefully to check that it is a true reflection of what was said in the meeting. The LA must then decide if they are going to keep the plan as it is, cease it or amend it and let you know. This should be within four weeks.

Ceasing an EHC Plan means ending it altogether and should only be suggested if it is clear that the child or young person no longer needs one, for example when they finish education or if they have achieved all of the outcomes listed in the EHC Plan. This would be a good time to contact SENDIASS for advice if you are unsure.

Amending the plan means changing what it says about needs, provision or placement. In this case, you will get a copy of the original plan with the amendments as an accompanying note with the plan.  The process is more or less the same as when you first get an EHC Plan. You will have at least 15 days to check the draft and request changes and a new school, if necessary. Within four weeks of the meeting, the LA must notify you of its decision to amend the plan and what those changes are. The final EHC Plan must be issued within eight week of that notification.  The annual review process is not complete until you have the final plan.

If you are not happy with the outcome of an annual review, you have the right to go to mediation and/or appeal. SENDIASS can give advice about this too.

SENDIASS run workshops about annual reviews each term. You can find and book our workshops on Eventbrite. Liking our Amaze Facebook page is also a good way to be notified of upcoming events.

If you can’t get to an annual review workshop, there is video recording of the Annual Review Zoom Workshop that you can watch on YouTube in your own time.

The SENDIASS advice line can give advice about annual reviews. Leave a message on 01273 772289 to request an advice call or email [email protected]

Contact has a useful guide to annual reviews: https://contact.org.uk/help-for-families/information-advice-services/education-learning/ehc-plans-assessments/annual-reviews/

IPSEA has a checklist that sets out the law around annual reviews in detail. You can download it from here: https://www.ipsea.org.uk/the-annual-review-process