When you apply for an Education Health and Care Needs Assessment (EHC NA), there is a strict statutory process that applies.

School advice in relation to Educational Health and Care Needs Assessments (EHCNA) can be a bit like a SatNav. Very often it is OK. It might not be the best route, however, you will generally end up where you need to be eventually.

However, when the SatNav is playing up, the well-meaning bad advice from a school can cost months of inadequate education for a learner.

As 2022 draws to a close and I write my last blog of the year, I thought I’d reflect on the year.

Education and Health Care Plans have been with us since 2015. That’s six years, and yet there is still so much misinformation about them. I still, regularly come across schools that don’t fully understand the law.

During an appeal to the SEND tribunal, there is a period of going backwards and forwards between yourselves and the LA. This is usually facilitated through a working document (WD). This is a copy of the EHCP in which your change requests are annotated in bold and the LA indicates by underlining what it will accept.

The work of a SEND parent is rarely over. No sooner than you’ve managed to get a fit for purpose EHC Plan finalised, you are on to the next thing. Make sure it gets implemented.

There’s a feeling of excitement and frisson when you hear the LA will write an Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP) for your child. It might be they call you to let you know (that was my experience), or you might receive an email. Alternatively, the first you hear about it might even be when the draft plan drops through your letterbox.

When life is a challenge, we can often forget to celebrate the little “yay” along the way.

Doing what I do, I get to support parents at mediations. I see it as a huge privilege to be invited to attend a mediation meeting, and I hope that I am able to provide not only moral support but an objective viewpoint.

It’s such a dilemma, isn’t it? On the one hand, you can see the harm that school is doing, and on the other, you feel that if you take them out, it might be worse. Could it be a case of out of sight out of mind?

I have a friend who can’t find trousers to fit. They are always too long. They have been faced for many years with the pain of having to do their own alterations which have never really worked or the expense of custom-tailoring. They have a dream of finding a shop that will alter their trouser hems while they complete their shopping elsewhere, for a nominal charge. I have a friend who can’t find trousers to fit. They are always too long. They have been faced for many years with the pain of having to do their own alterations which have never really worked or the expense of custom-tailoring. They have a dream of finding a shop that will alter their trouser hems while they complete their shopping elsewhere, for a nominal charge.

When it comes to the decision over which school is to be named on an EHC Plan, parental preference has power.

Ending the week on a high.

Kent has 70 working days from 29th March to provide Ofsted with a written statement of action detailing how it plans to address issues raised in 9 different areas.

Sadly, not all EHC plans are equal. If an EHCP is required, and that is not always the case, generally the child has needs and requires additional provision that is not already in place and is beyond the resources of a mainstream school.

February 15 is the key date for finalising EHCPs for transition. The plan must be reviewed and amended by this date in the child’s year of transition.

This week we had our first ever parent's evening at my son's new secondary school. If you've read my previous blog on feeling despondent you will have some understanding of where we were a few years ago.

Why is today so significant? For one child at least, today is significant because today is the deadline by which the Local Authority (LA) needs to decide whether or not to undertake an assessment for an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP).

When you have a child who is struggling at school, you want to be able to rely on the system to provide support. Many of us in this situation find ourselves reading up on what support is available, what the law says and we get really well qualified to advocate for our child or children.

So when we come up against parts of the establishment that seem to have a different understanding of the rules of the system it is emotionally draining.