If your child’s needs are not being met at SEN Support, or if it is clear they will need significant input to succeed at school, you should consider applying for an Education, Health and Care needs statutory assessment. Please note, this information is about England. We also help families in Wales and have a page about Additional Learning Needs in Wales here
You will need to gather together all your child’s medical and educational reports and information. Parents are expected to contribute a statement about their own perceptions and experiences of their child’s SEN.
How long does it take?
There are legal timescales that apply for statutory assessment. The local authority should decide, within six weeks of receipt of your application, whether they are going to conduct a statutory assessment. By law, the whole process should take no longer than 20 weeks from start to finish.
However, although these are the rules, families find the deadlines are not met or proper assessments are not carried out. This is why our help can be invaluable.
You can apply for an EHC needs assessment yourself. You may be able to find support locally to help you if you want to do this without legal help. However, it can be time-consuming and stressful.
How we can help
If you would like us to help take the strain, get in touch and we will outline how we can help. While you will, of course, have to pay for our services, we can help guide you through the process. We can ensure you have all the documents and reports required to ensure an assessment and plan are successfully secured without delay.
We are very experienced at applying for EHC Plans and have a high success rate. Using our services also saves your personal time otherwise spent preparing documentation and dealing with the local authority. It can help the process run more smoothly to have an expert on your side from day one.
We are also expert at negotiating and dealing with local authorities, so it may also mean you avoid facing the prospect of an appeal if the LA turns down your EHC needs assessment or plan request.
- Read more about SEN Support here
- Read more about EHC Needs Assessments here