What to send with your notice of appeal

If you are appealing the contents of an EHC plan you need to send with your appeal form:

• all of the items referred to on our general advice about submitting an appeal page, and
• the EHC plan itself and its appendices. 

If any of the appendices in section K are missing you should send what you have and then during the course of the appeal, copies of the missing documents can be requested from your local authority (LA).

It is important to know there are deadlines for bringing an appeal to the SEND Tribunal. We explain these in detail on our page containing general advice about appealing.

If the appeal includes sections B and F of an EHC plan (the special educational needs of the child or young person and the provision to meet those needs), this must be made clear and you should explain clearly what amendments you want made to the EHC plan. You can do this on a separate, clearly labelled, document if there is not enough room on the appeal form.

Please use the options below to see when you may want changes to be made to sections B, F and I, and what changes you can consider asking for.

Please click on the links below to jump to the section you want to read about:

Changes to section B

Changes to section F

Changes to section I

Changes to section B

What changes might be needed to section B of the EHC plan?

Section B of an EHC plan must specify all of the special educational needs (SEN) of your child or young person. This means it must say all of the SEN, not just some, and the description of your child’s SEN should be clearly and fully described. Please see our EHC plan checklist for further detail on what the law says section B should contain.

When we talk about SEN, we mean the learning difficulty or disability that your child or young person has which gives rise to their need for special education provision. So for example, for a dyslexic child, section B should contain details of their dyslexia and the difficulties it causes them. It won’t be enough for section B to simply state that they are dyslexic. You will want all the challenges they face as a result of that condition to be detailed.

This will also be the case if your child is autistic for example; simply naming their condition does not specify what difficulties they face as a result of that. Remember too, all children and young people are different. Not all children and young people with the same condition will experience the same challenges and to the same degree.

The first step with a section B appeal will be to identify where the SEN are set out. If any SEN are included in other sections of the EHC plan, they will need to be moved to section B.

You may want to appeal section B if it:

• does not include some of your child or young person’s learning difficulties or disabilities, and this means section F is missing some provision
• overestimates or down plays  your child or young person’s difficulties and this has an impact on levels or type of provision and/or which setting has been named, or
• misconstrues your child or young person’s learning difficulties, for example where there is a difference of opinion over a diagnosis, or overemphasises one learning difficulty over another.

The notice of appeal does not have to specify every single amendment you want to include in section B, but you will need to explain why you want changes to be made.

Changes to section F

What changes might be needed to section F of the EHC plan?

Section F of an EHC plan must specify all of the special educational provision called for by your child or young person’s SEN. This means all of the special educational provision required should be both included and should be clearly and fully described. Please see IPSEA’s EHC plan checklist for further detail on what the law says section F should contain.

You will need to make sure that there is a clear and stand-alone section F setting out the special educational provision. The reason for this is that your local authority (LA) has a legal duty to make sure your child or young person receives all of their special educational provision. If section F is vague or does not contain all the provision your child requires it will be harder for you to enforce section F and there is a risk your child or young person will not receive all of their support.

You may want to appeal section F if it:

• does not include provision for each and every special educational need identified in section B (or which you believe should be identified in section B)
• does not contain health or social care provision which educates or trains your child or young person (for example, speech and language therapy). This must be treated as special educational provision (section 21(5) of the Children and Families Act 2014). If any such provision is wrongly included in sections G and H it will need to be moved into section F
• is not sufficiently clear. As described in the EHC plan checklist, section F must be specific. It should be clear what support is to be provided, who is going to provide it, where it is going to be provided; for how long; and for how often, or
• includes loose and meaningless wording, such as ‘access to’, ‘regular’ or ‘opportunities for’ and other similar expressions, which do not make it clear exactly what should be provided for your child or young person.

Section F considerations for young people

Particularly in appeals concerning a young person, it will be necessary to be clear how many days a particular placement is going to provide.

Most Further Education colleges provide courses which run for a limited number of hours in a week. If a young person  need a full-time five day a week package, then this will need to be specified in section F. This can include, for example:

• time spent at different providers
• support for independent study, and
• non educational activities such as volunteering, work experience and support to help you develop skills you need for adulthood and social situations.

If a course is normally offered over three days but needs to be spread over four or five days because it is likely to lead to better outcomes, make sure  this is made clear.

Changes to section I

What changes might be needed to section I?

You might want to appeal section I if it:

• names a setting you do not agree should be attended by your child or young person
• names a type of setting you do not agree should be attended (such as ‘special’ or ‘mainstream’)
• names a type of setting which you may agree with but section I does not say which setting will be attended, and there is a setting you want to be named, or 
• names a setting or type and you do not think any setting or type should be named.

It is worth remembering that an EHC plan should follow a process: first, all your child or young person’s SEN should be identified in section B. Then, provision to meet each of those needs must be identified in section F. The school or other institution named in section I will be an institution which is able to meet the needs and provision as set out in sections B and F.

Therefore if you want to appeal section I of an EHC plan we would always recommend that you consider whether sections B and F give enough accurate detail about the needs and provision required to support your arguments for the school or other institution you want in section I.

This will also be the case if a school or other setting is named in section I but you would like your child or young person to be educated otherwise than in a school under section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014. You will want to make sure that sections B and F contain the necessary details to support your argument as to why it will be inappropriate for your child’s special educational provision to be delivered in a school.

If you want to appeal section I only, then remember that you have a right to mediation. You do not have a duty to consider it unlike in other appeals, but you still have the right to it if you want it. You will not receive a mediation certificate either after asking for mediation advice or after attending mediation, and this has implications for your appeal deadline should this still be necessary. You need to make sure your section I only appeal is sent to the SEND Tribunal and received by it within 2 months of the date on your LA’s decision letter/ letter enclosing the final EHC plan.  

If you decide to include sections B and/ or F in your placement appeal, you will need to consider mediation first and get a mediation certificate. Here, the deadline for your appeal will be 2 months from the date on your LA’s decision letter/ letter enclosing the final EHC plan or one month from the date on the mediation certificate, whichever is later. 

We recommend that you also read the section containing general advice on submitting an appeal. If you can’t find the answer to your question, you can book an appointment to speak with us.