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.

40 years of educational reform is causing more harm than good

If I get a headache, going for the paracetamol is not my instinctive response. I’d always prefer to resolve things without resorting to tablets if at all possible.

So here we are again, at the start of a new academic year. For many a source of much excitement, and, for others, a source of much anxiety.

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.

Reasonable adjustments are accommodations that schools, whether state-funded or independent, have a duty to make. These adjustments apply to disabled pupils, where the disability creates a long-term and substantial adverse effect on the pupil’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

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.

SEN, SEND, Special educational needs. This terminology is used to describe a relatively complex concept, and yet, rarely is this acknowledged.

All too often I hear stories of how school staff or Local Authority (LA) staff have been unhelpful or provided incorrect information to parents. We are quick to rush to blame, when people we deem as ‘professionals’ give the wrong information, particularly where our children are concerned.

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?

When our parenting skills come under scrutiny our natural reaction is defensive - how dare you think I am the problem?

Behaviour is a function of a person in their environment.

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.

Somehow we have to find ways to support our children with their anxieties. Imagine waking up every day and having to face your worst nightmare. The long-term effects of this would be damaging beyond belief, both emotionally and physically.

Ending the week on a high.

Rebelling’ behaviour comes from a child where there is a fundamental unmet need, and the child is unable to communicate their need, other than through their behaviour.

Does your child explode when they get home from school, and yet at school they appear to be fine? It could be they are masking…

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.