We had always wanted our son to go to the local primary school along with his sisters. Our son has attention deficit disorder and he is a very slow learner. He has been assessed by the LA and we have just received the draft EHC plan

Now that you have the draft education, health and care (“EHC”) plan you have the right to ask for a meeting and/or make written representations about the contents of the EHC plan. The local authority (“LA”) must give you at least 15 days to make any representations and/or request a meeting. For more information, see the section on what to do when you receive the draft EHC plan.

We would recommend you arrange a meeting with the LA and raise the following points:

The law says that written advice must include a professional’s opinion on ‘the provision which may be required.’ The educational psychologist’s (“EP’s”) advice says nothing about the amount of help your son needs, but you know he has an opinion on this because he discussed it with you.
The EP now needs to say, and put on record, the amount of support – teaching and non-teaching – that he believes your son re (If the EP does this, ask that it be written down and attached to the advice as an addendum.)

This means the EP’s full opinion will form part of his written advice and that, therefore, the LA will have to take account of it when they make their decision about the amount of provision to be specified in Section F of the EHC plan. It should also help you, as parents, to argue for an appropriate amount of help for your son in the mainstream school of your preference. And, if the LA ignores the EP’s views and your own views, you will be in a stronger position to challenge the LA through an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) (“the SEND Tribunal”).

It may be that the meeting gets you no further forward. The LA officer may say they have a policy preventing professionals from recommending particular provision, or the EP may say he is not allowed to include his opinion on types of school in his professional advice. This is not in line with the law or the statutory guidance; see the section on what to do when you receive the draft EHC plan for more information.

If this happens, you should inform them that you will be raising these issues as part of your appeal to the SEND Tribunal should it be necessary when the EHC plan is finalised. The deadline for appealing is two months from the date of the final plan or one month from the date of the mediation certificate, whichever date falls the latest.

You should also leave the LA officer with written points stating exactly how much help and support you want the EHC plan to specify for your son in Section F.

The law gives parents the right to express a preference for the type of school and the individual named school which they ‘prefer’ for their child (as set out in the section on choosing a school). When a child has special educational needs, parents inevitably decide their preference on the basis of which school can give their child the right kind of help to meet their needs. When LA officers and professionals refuse to tell parents how much help their child needs (following an EHC needs assessment which is intended to find this out), they prevent parents acting in their child’s best interests. LAs are under a duty to specify the special educational provision a child or young person requires and this must not be ignored.

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We want occupational therapy moved into Section F of our son’s education, health and care plan.

Section B lists fine motor skills and sensory difficulties as some of his special educational needs, but occupational therapy is written in Section G as ‘health care provision’. We do not believe this is right but what else can we do? We had a meeting with the LA when the EHC plan was at the draft stage but it said it is a service provided by the NHS and it is out of the LA's hands.
The EHC plan has been finalised and we still disagree with the description of our son's needs in Section B and the lack of appropriate provision in Section F of the final EHC Plan.

The provision in Section F is really vague and there is an appendix to the EHC Plan titled ‘steps to achieving outcomes’ which lists all the special educational provision.
The LA agreed to do an EHC needs assessment but now it is complete we’ve received a letter saying the LA is going to make a ‘My Plan’ for our daughter.

This looks like a EHC plan but the information accompanying it says it is ‘non-statutory’. What does this mean? Does our daughter have an EHC plan?
We have the draft EHC plan, and there is a therapy we would like to have included in section F. Can a particular therapy be included in an EHC plan if it is not available from the local health service?
Section F of the draft EHC plan does not detail any of the special educational provision our son needs.

There is only a paragraph to say the school will decide how much provision he needs and when. Is this lawful?
We have just received our daughter’s draft EHC plan and we are not happy with the way her needs have been described in Section B.

All it says is that she is a friendly and playful little girl (which we already knew) with ‘a general delay with her learning’. In fact she has a specific problem with reading and writing. In other areas her development is fine. What can we do?
The LA has agreed to an EHC needs assessment but when we asked for it to approach Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services for advice it said no because there is a really long waiting list.

Our son is suffering with anxiety and we don’t know what else we can do. What rights do we have?
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