After you send in your appeal form, the SEND Tribunal will register your appeal and will write to you and the local authority (LA) to tell you and the LA what steps needs to be taken and when by. At the same time, the SEND Tribunal will send to the LA a copy of your appeal documents.

The SEND Tribunal aims to reply within 10 working days (working days do not include Saturdays, Sundays, bank holidays, any day between 25 December to 1 January, or any day in August) of registering your appeal. This can take longer when the SEND Tribunal receives a high number of appeals around the same time.

In its registration letter, the SEND Tribunal will tell you about important dates. It will tell you when the LA are required to respond to your appeal, and give you a deadline to send further evidence. In most appeals it will also tell you when the hearing date will be.

• It may be possible to seek a change to the hearing date. It’s not likely that a long delay will be in the interests of justice so the SEND Tribunal is unlikely to agree to this. 
• Similarly, it may be possible in cases where a child or young person has been permanently excluded to have the hearing date brought forward.
• If you decide you want your appeal decided ‘on the papers’ and without a hearing on the basis that it might be quicker, you should contact the SEND Tribunal first to check if that would be the case.
• A hearing date change is more likely to be agreed if you can show that it is in the interests of justice and the LA has agreed in advance.

The SEND Tribunal has said that it is planning to manage phase transfer appeals involving section I differently in 2026. The SEND Tribunal has said that after the bundle deadline it will consider whether these appeals are ready to be heard and will check whether the parties have complied with the directions. If the appeal is ready to be heard, the Tribunal will provide a hearing date at that point (and not on registration). The Tribunal expects you will have around 4 weeks’ notice of your hearing date. So, when your phase transfer appeal is registered please do not worry if you have not been given a hearing date. You will be provided with the relevant information, and if anything is not clear, you should email [email protected] to ask.

You should read the registration letter very carefully and write down the important dates.

It will also set out other important information, such as the deadline for the sending out of the appeal bundle and the fact you have a right to request the appeal be actively case managed by a member of the judicial team.

Once the appeal has been registered, any further communications with the SEND Tribunal (such as sending a Request for change form) must also be sent to the LA at the same time.

The SEND Tribunal will tell you on registration if it wants you to copy it in to emails that you send the LA. Traditionally, the SEND Tribunal has required parties to copy in the Tribunal to emails when providing further evidence, but the SEND Tribunal has told us it is considering changing this process and in future it may not want to be copied in to emails that you send to the LA in the run up to the final evidence deadline. You should check what your registration letter says, and do as it says.

On registration, you should also expect to receive a Case Review form and a copy of a Request for Change form.

Case review forms

The SEND Tribunal uses a Case Review form to assist with case management. It’s to help the SEND Tribunal manage cases as efficiently as possible, by getting an update on the case and to see if there has been any progress on agreeing the disputed issues ahead of the hearing.

It will tell you if you need to use this form – if you do, you need to complete it by the bundle deadline.

Updates - progress and new issues

As well as helping the SEND Tribunal understand what progress the parties may have made on agreeing matters, you should also use this form to tell the SEND Tribunal all the issues or matters you want the SEND Tribunal to resolve, including any which you did not refer to on your appeal form.

At the hearing the SEND Tribunal will only focus on the issues it has already been told about on the Case Review Form and any final working document. For example, if you also want speech and language therapy specified in a particular way in section F following a new assessment, and you had not told the SEND Tribunal about this when you made your appeal, you will need to:

• tell them about it on this form
• make sure these changes are contained in any final working document, and
• have provided evidence for the changes you want made before the final evidence deadline (or ask for permission to include late evidence (please see our bundle and evidence page).

When telling the SEND Tribunal about all the issues you want it to resolve on this form, you should be as clear as possible on each and every issue. You should not simply refer to the working document, or simply say, for example, “issues relating to sections B and F”.

Witnesses

You will also use this form to update the SEND Tribunal and LA about who is attending the hearing (instead of an Attendance Form). This will be anyone from your side, including representatives or helpers and witnesses. The LA will need to do the same for its side.

You will need to give details of any witness you want to attend. If a witness’ name and role are not provided, the SEND Tribunal will not allow them to attend the hearing unless they consider there are exceptional circumstances.

In addition, all witnesses must provide a written witness statement or report by the final evidence deadline (please see our evidence and the bundle page for more information on reports and statements).  

So, make sure you say which witnesses you want to attend, and make sure a statement or report is provided by them.

Reasonable adjustments

You might need some reasonable adjustments made to help you (or a witness) fully join in with the appeal. What you should ask for will depend on what is needed. It might be:

• more time to respond to questions
• for legal points to be explained (without you having to ask each time)
• for regular screen breaks if the hearing is held online
• for a face to face hearing (you can also ask for an assistance dog to attend should you need that), or
• for someone to help you or one of your witnesses understand what is being said and to join in – these are called intermediaries. An intermediary won’t be on anyone’s ‘side’ but are there to stop misunderstanding and step in if needed to stop it.

It is best to tell the SEND Tribunal about the reasonable adjustments needed on your appeal form. You can also confirm these on the Case Review form, or request them on this form if you have not already done so.

The SEND Tribunal asks to be given as much time as possible to arrange these (otherwise it might need to delay the hearing if the request is made too close to it).

Once you have made your request for reasonable adjustments, someone from the SEND Tribunal will get in touch to discuss them with you further (if you don’t hear back, you should email [email protected] and ask for someone to contact you about it).

Request for Change form

If you want to make changes to your appeal or to communicate with the SEND Tribunal during the appeal, then you should use the Request for Change form. You can download it from the SEND Tribunal site.

It can be used as many times as needed during the process of appeal. You can use this form to ask the SEND Tribunal to, for example:

• extend a deadline
• make an order
• change any information you previously submitted (for example, if you want to bring another witness)
• agree to include late evidence 
• exceed page limits, or
• make any reasonable adjustments you have not already asked for.

If the Request for Change form concerns widening the appeal, for example to include sections B and F of the EHC plan where you have only appealed against section I, you should give the LA plenty of warning of your intention and the request should explain the reasons for the changes.

If you need to use this form to ask the SEND Tribunal to extend time (such as for submitting further evidence) and your hearing date is still some time away, it is a good idea to write on the form that if the SEND Tribunal agrees to your request it will not need to move the hearing date, as it is far enough away.

Before submitting a Request for Change form you must seek the other party’s response and this should be included on the form. You do not need their agreement, but you must give them a chance to respond.

If the request is urgent, and you are still waiting for a response from the LA, you should make clear on the form that you have asked the LA for its views and include a copy of your email to the LA if possible.

For further information on this topic, see our main 'What happens after I submit my appeal?' page.