Draft Checking, Free Resource

If you feel unable to check your child's draft due to timescale or your current situation or energy level, please feel free to cut and paste the email below and send back to your LA.

This is all about you doing what you can. If you can fully check the draft and state what is missing then that is best, but if you don't feel able, then it is still important to feel heard.

Dear 0-25 team

Below are my concerns in regards to my child's EHCP and I would like you to review and amend the document based on these:

• I am concerned that you have not included ALL needs from ALL reports in section K in section B.

• I am concerned that you have not included ALL provisions from ALL reports in section K in section F.

• Section F is not clear and concise or specified.

I also feel you have missed the following reports which you were sent in the assessment stage................

My child also has the following needs which you have not fully documented: ................

In reading the EHCP it is very unclear as to what level of support is required day to day. An EHCP is required so that our child has specified and quantified provisions to reach SMART outcomes. The way section F has been written does not make it clear who will do what, when and for how long. This is the level of plan I would like to see before it is finalised, otherwise parts of the provision in section F are unmeasurable and left to the opinion of any given caregiver.

Please see below the law around the EHCP delivery:

Paragraph 9.61 of the Code of Practice issued under the 2014 Act, provides that:

“EHC Plans should be clear, concise, understandable and accessible to parents, children, young people, providers and practitioners. They should be written so they can be understood by professionals in any Local Authority.”

Paragraph 9.69 states that Section F:

“provision must be detailed and specific and should normally be quantified, for example, in terms of the type, hours and frequency of support and level of expertise, including where this support is secured through a Personal Budget”.

Any provision within Section F must be so specific and clear as to leave no room for doubt as to what should be delivered (L v Clarke and Somerset County Council (1998) ELR 129).

IPSEA v Secretary of State for Education and Skills 2003 EWCA Civ 7, (2003) ELR 393 the Court of Appeal held:

“Any flexibility built into the Statement (now EHC Plan Section F) must be there to meet the needs of the child and not the needs of the system.” The decision of the Court of Appeal concluded: “It remains the case that the statements (now EHC Plan Section F) which do not specify the provision appropriate to the identified special educational needs of the child will not comply with the law.”

We would like to name xxxxxxx school for section I.

Please amend the plan using the information we have provided and re-draft, using all the relevant reports. The plan must meet the minimum standards for specification outlined in the Code of practice and SEND law and must contain all my child’s needs, outcomes for those needs and provisions to support those outcomes.

Kind Regards