The EHCP Process Explained: A Parent's Guide from Request to Final Plan

You've lost count of the meetings. Targets have been set and gently missed, interventions have started and quietly stopped, and your child, who works twice as hard as anyone in the class for half the result, is starting to say things about themselves that break your heart. Somewhere along the way a teacher, or another parent at the school gate, says the four letters: have you thought about an EHCP?

An EHCP, Education, Health and Care Plan, is a legal document, issued by your local authority in England, that describes a child or young person's special educational needs and sets out, with legal force, the provision that must be made to meet them. It can cover ages 0 to 25, it follows the child rather than the school, and the provision in its key section is enforceable in a way that no school promise, however sincere, ever is.

It is also a process with a fearsome reputation: deadlines, panels, paperwork, appeals. The reputation isn't entirely unfair, but the process is far more navigable when you know its actual legal shape, because at every stage the law is more on your side than the average parent realises. Here is the whole journey, step by step. (This article covers England; Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own systems with different names and rules.)

Before the EHCP: SEN Support and the Graduated Approach

An EHCP is not the first rung of the ladder. The system expects most children with special educational needs (SEN) to be supported through SEN Support, the help a school provides from its own resources, coordinated by the SENCO (Special Educational Needs Coordinator).

SEN Support is meant to run as a cycle the SEND Code of Practice calls the graduated approach: assess the child's needs, plan the support, do it, review whether it worked, then go around again with better information. For many children, well-run SEN Support is enough, and no plan is ever needed.

For EHCP purposes, though, this stage has a second function: it generates the evidence. When a local authority considers whether to assess, the question in practice is usually "what has already been tried, and why isn't it enough?" So even while you're at this stage, act like a record-keeper:

• Keep dated copies of every support plan, review and email.
• Ask for the school's interventions, their frequency and their measured results in writing.
• Note the gap between effort and outcome, a child receiving significant support and still falling behind is exactly the situation EHCPs exist for.

A common myth needs clearing here: there is no legal requirement for a diagnosis, and no rule that a child must be a set number of years behind. The test is need, not label.

Step One: Requesting an EHC Needs Assessment

The formal process begins with a written request to the local authority (LA) for an EHC needs assessment. Three parties can make it: the school, you as the parent, or the young person themselves if they're over 16. You do not need the school's agreement, and a parental request carries the same legal weight as a school one.

The legal threshold for the LA to agree is deliberately low. It must assess if the child may have special educational needs and may need provision through an EHCP. Note the word may, twice. The LA is not deciding at this stage whether a plan is warranted, only whether it's worth investigating. Local authorities sometimes apply stricter informal criteria ("must be X years behind", "must have had two cycles of SEN Support"); these have no legal force.

A strong request letter is short and evidence-led: who your child is, what their difficulties are, what support has been tried, what the results were, and why you believe they may need more than SEN Support can provide. Attach the paper trail you've been keeping.

From the day the LA receives the request, the statutory clock starts: it has 6 weeks to decide whether to carry out the assessment, and it must tell you the decision and your rights if it refuses.

The 20-Week Timeline at a Glance

The entire process, from request to final plan, has a legal maximum of 20 weeks. The key milestones:

• Week 0: request submitted; clock starts.
• By week 6: LA decides whether to assess.
• Weeks 6-16 (approximately): the assessment itself. The LA must gather advice from you and your child, the school, an educational psychologist, health services, social care, and anyone else relevant, and if you request advice from a particular professional, the LA must seek it if reasonable.
• By week 16: LA decides whether to issue a plan.
• If yes: you receive a draft plan and have at least 15 days to comment and to name your preferred school or setting.
• By week 20: the final EHCP is issued.

Two honest caveats. First, statutory deadlines are sometimes missed in practice; chase in writing, because the duty doesn't lapse just because the LA is busy. Second, there are limited lawful exceptions to the timescales (school holidays around assessment, for instance), but "we have a backlog" is not one of them.

What Happens During the Assessment

The needs assessment is the information-gathering heart of the process, and it's the part parents can influence most.

Your contribution matters more than its place in the pile suggests. You'll be asked for your views, usually via a parent form. Write it as the person who knows the child best: a clear picture of daily life, what helps, what fails, and the cost of the current situation to your child's learning and self-worth. Specific beats general: "reads 60 words a minute and avoids any task involving writing" lands harder than "struggles with literacy".

The educational psychologist's advice is usually pivotal. The EP will typically observe or assess your child and report on their cognitive, learning and emotional profile. Their advice often shapes both the description of needs and the recommended provision.

Private reports can be submitted and must be considered. If you already hold an independent psychologist's report (typically £650-£1,600 in the UK, the NHS does not fund dyslexia assessments), include it. The LA isn't bound by it, but it can't ignore it either. If you're weighing up whether that spend is justified, it helps to know beforehand where the genuine weaknesses are likely to be: a structured at-home screening of reading, maths, working memory, attention and related skills can map the terrain and tell you whether a full assessment, and which kind, is worth pursuing. [/how-it-works] explains what that looks like. A screening never diagnoses, but it organises your evidence and your thinking.

At the end of the assessment the LA makes its second decision: whether the evidence shows the child needs provision to be made through an EHCP. This is a higher bar than the assessment threshold, and it's the other common refusal point.

Reading the Plan: Sections A to K, and Why Section F Rules Them All

EHCPs follow a lettered structure. The ones to know:

• Section A, your child's and your views, interests and aspirations.
• Section B, the child's special educational needs. Every need should be here; if it isn't named, provision for it can't be required.
• Section E, the outcomes the provision is working towards.
• Section F, the special educational provision. This is the legally enforceable core: the LA has an absolute duty to secure everything written here.
• Section I, the placement: the named school or setting.
• Sections C/D and G/H cover health and social care needs and provision; J covers any personal budget; K lists the advice gathered.

When the draft arrives, put your energy into B and F, and apply one ruthless test: is it specific and quantified? "Access to small-group literacy support" is unenforceable mist. "A structured, evidence-based literacy intervention delivered 4 × 30 minutes per week, individually or in a group of no more than three, by a teacher trained in the programme" is a commitment someone can be held to. Vague provision is the single most common weakness in draft plans, and the draft stage, your 15-day window, is the cheapest moment to fix it. You can also request a meeting with the LA to discuss the draft, and it's often worth doing.

On placement: you have the right to request a particular school, including maintained special schools, and the LA must name it unless narrow legal exceptions apply (unsuitability for the child, or incompatibility with the efficient education of others or efficient use of resources).

When the Answer Is No: Mediation and the SEND Tribunal

Refusals happen at two main gates, refusal to assess (week 6) and refusal to issue (week 16), and you can also appeal the contents of a final plan: sections B, F and I in particular.

The route is the SEND Tribunal (formally the First-tier Tribunal for special educational needs and disability). Before lodging most appeals you must contact a mediation adviser and obtain a mediation certificate; you can choose to mediate or simply take the certificate and proceed. Appeals are designed to be parent-navigable, many families represent themselves, and the tribunal looks at the evidence afresh rather than deferring to the LA's judgement.

Two facts should stiffen your resolve if you believe the evidence is on your side. Parental appeals succeed at strikingly high rates, the great majority of appeals that reach hearing are decided wholly or partly in the family's favour, and refusal-to-assess decisions are frequently overturned or conceded before hearing. And lodging an appeal costs nothing. Free support exists too: every area has a SENDIASS (SEND Information, Advice and Support Service), and charities such as IPSEA publish model letters and legal guidance.

Living with an EHCP: Reviews, Changes and the Long Game

A final plan is a beginning, not an ending. Every EHCP must be reviewed at least annually, the annual review, checking progress against outcomes and whether needs, provision or placement should change. Reviews are your scheduled lever: prepare for them the way you prepared the original request, with evidence, and don't accept "no changes needed" as a reflex. Plans can be amended after review, and key transition points (starting secondary school, post-16) have earlier review deadlines so placements can be sorted in time.

And keep the wider toolkit in view. An EHCP governs school provision; exam adjustments at GCSE and A level run through the separate JCQ access arrangements system ([/learn/jcq-access-arrangements]), and university brings the Disabled Students' Allowance. The skills you're building now, keeping records, asking for specifics, trusting evidence over reassurance, are the same ones that will carry your child, and you, through all of it.