Making your education health and care plan (EHCP)

In making a decision whether your child/young person require an EHC Needs Assessment and support through an Education, Health and Care Plan, we will look at:

  • Whether your child/young person have complex special educational needs and/or disability which affect her or his everyday life
  • Whether your child/young person needs support that is not usually available in your child/young person’s nursery, school or college
  • Whether your child/young person need intensive support from other services such as health and/or care
  • Your child/young person’s progress with the support he or she is getting now
  • What support is already in place under the Local Offer and what progress, if any, your child/young person are making

If it is clear that your child/young person require an assessment, we will make a decision based on the information and reports presented to the Local Authority. If it is not clear then we will ask Multiagency panel members, made up of education, health and care professionals to help the local authority to make the decision.

Professionals from education, health and care will be invited to provide us with up to date information and advice, they may invite your child/young person to attend appointments with you. They will have six-week timescale to provide us with their information/advice.

We will use the information/advice to make a decision if your child/you need support through an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, we will work with you and your child/young person to put a draft EHC Plan together.

It is important to note that not all assessment lead to an EHC Plan, if we decide your child/young person do not need support through an EHC Plan, we will write to you by week 16 of the 20 week process and give you your rights to mediation and appeal.

On this page you can find out about what an EHC plan should include, how we prepare a plan and how we review it.

What an EHC plan must include

The SEND Code of Practice 2015 outlines what the EHC Plan must include, the following must be included:

  • Child/young person’s and your views and hopes
  • Child//young person’s assessed special educational needs, desired Outcomes for the child/young person
  • the special educational provision to meet those needs to achieve the desired outcomes
  • Child/young person’s assessed health needs and the health provision to meet those needs
  • Child/young person’s assessed care needs and the care provision to meet those needs outcomes.
  • the name and type of early education, school or college needed (in the Final EHCP).

If you choose to have a personal budget, the EHC plan must include clear information on:

  • which outcome the personal budget is for
  • personal budgets, including direct payments
  • support available to help manage personal budgets.
  • It must also include:
  • all the information collected during the assessment
How we put an EHC plan together

The Newham SEND Service will aim to work with you to support you through the EHC Needs process and you will have a named SEN Officer allocated to you following your request for assessment. In addition there is support available to you through SENDIASS and your child’s/ your school may also be able to provide you with support. The SEN Officer will coordinate the assessment and pull together all the reports on your child’s/ young person’s education, health and care needs. He or she may meet you and your child to talk about it and about what your child wants to achieve.

The SEN Officer leading on coordinating the assessment will offer a meeting through the process, this will provide you with an opportunity to meet with us. If you decide to take up the offer for a meeting, your child/ young person’s education setting will arrange the meeting and the SEN Officer will lead on the meeting. You can ask SENDIASS to attend with you, alternatively you can bring someone of your own choosing to support you at this meeting. You can talk about who should be at the meeting and what will happen with your allocated SEN Officer.

The time between you asking us for an assessment and us finishing the plan should be no more than 20 weeks.

Where parents or a young person express a particular preference for an independent provider of a particular intervention or programme that they wish for their child or young person, the SEN team will consult with that provider in the same way as other providers in the context of the EHC process.

The final naming of an education setting in Section I in a plan will take into account its appropriateness in the context of:

  • the needs of the child or young person based upon professional reports
  • the distance and cost of travel
  • the responsible management of public money
The EHC plan meetings

If you have requested a meeting then the we will have made a decision that your child/young person needs support through an EHC Plan and a draft EHC plan will have been issued to you. Your child’s/young person’s education setting will arrange the meeting and will usually be held at their current education setting.

You and your child/young person will attend the meeting, however the following can be invited to attend:

  • SENDIASS worker or a friend or relative if you wish
  • SEN Officer, who will lead the meeting
  • education, health and care professionals
  • any other person you or we think should be there.

At the meeting your allocated SEN Officer will work through the draft EHC Plan and consider any changes you may want to the draft. For major changes the SEN Officer may not be able to agree these at the meeting as they may need to refer to their Manager. A further amended draft plan will then be issued for your consideration.

We will send you a copy of the plan along with a letter explaining what it means and your right to appeal

Review of your child's EHC plan

At least once a year (every 6 months for children under 5 years of age) there will be an annual review meeting to talk about your child/young person’s progress towards the outcomes in his or her EHC plan and overall progress with learning. The annual review meeting will:

  • check that your child is making progress towards achieving the outcomes in his/her EHCP
  • set targets for the coming year
  • check to see if he or she still needs the same plan or whether it should be changed.

Your child/young person’s education setting will arrange the meeting.

Who goes to the review meeting:

  • Your child/young person's head teacher will invite:
  • you (you can also bring along a friend, relative or SENDIASS)
  • your child/young person
  • a teacher who knows your child/young person well
  • someone from the SEND Service
  • any other professional who is involved with your child/young person.

What happens at the review meeting:

  • We will ask everyone to prepare a report, including you.
  • Your child/young person,

When you write your report, you need to include:

  • what progress you think your child/young person has made in the past year
  • whether there are any major changes that may or have affected your child's progress
  • what you hope your child/young person will achieve in the coming year.

What happens after the review:

The school writes a report and sends it to the local authority no later than 10 days after the meeting

The education setting may suggest:

  • any targets for the next year
  • any changes to the EHC plan
  • whether the EHC plan should continue.

If we think your child/young person’s EHC plan needs to change, we will write to you/young person and your child/young person’s school about what we think ought to be included.

Changing school:

You have a right to ask for a change of education setting through an annual review however the final decision remains with the local authority.

When your child is in Year 1 in Infant school/ Year 5in primary school, there will be an annual review meeting to plan the change of school for their nest phase transfer. You can find out more about this under Phase Transfers.

Children and young people in year 9 and upper years, consideration must be given to the preparation for adulthood. This will include the desired outcomes that will support your child/young person in preparing for their further education, employment and training as well as where they wish to live and about their relationships. More information on this can be found under Preparation for Adulthood.

Will my child/young person always need a plan?

Some children and young people only need an EHC plan for a short time. An annual review may suggest that the EHC plan ends. If the local authority decides to cease/end the EHC plan, we will tell you/ discuss with you and outline the reasons why. If you are not happy with the local authority decision you ill have a right of appeal. We will tell you how to do this in the letters we send to you.

Where to get advice if your child has special educational needs

You can contact your allocated SEN Officer, contact details will be in the letters we send you.

Teachers at your child's school will help you with any questions you may have.

You can seek free advice from Newham’s SEND Information Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS) who support Newham parents/carers and young people. You can contact them on 020 3373 8385 or by e-mail to sendiass@newham.gov.uk.

If you're unhappy with our decisions

If you are unhappy with our decisions, go to our Complain, compliment or suggest page.

Related Information

Last updated: 29/09/2022

Rate this page

happy face neutral face unhappy face
Skip back to top of page