Asking for an EHC needs assessment
The statutory test, who may make the request, and what the graduated approach contributes to it.
Who can request an assessment?
A request may come from the child's parent, a young person over sixteen, or a person acting on behalf of a school or post-16 institution — which in practice usually means the school makes it with the family's knowledge. The right to ask does not depend on the school agreeing, and a parent may request one directly.
What test does the local authority apply?
Children and Families Act 2014 s.36(8): the authority must secure an assessment where the child may have special educational needs, and it may be necessary for special educational provision to be made in accordance with an EHC plan. Both limbs are thresholds rather than certainties — the question is whether it may be necessary, not whether it has been proved.
What evidence does the school contribute?
What the graduated approach has already produced: the cycles that have been run, the provision put in place, what changed and what did not, the views of the family and the pupil, and the advice of any outside professionals involved. A record showing several cycles with different provision, and what each achieved, answers the statutory question directly. One showing a single open cycle with no review has less to say, whatever the child's needs.
Is a refusal the end of it?
No. A decision not to assess carries a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability), and the authority must tell the parent or young person about that right when it gives its decision. Mediation information is normally offered alongside it.
What must an EHC plan contain if one is issued?
CoP 9.62 sets out the statutory minimum as sections A to K — covering the views of the child and family, the child's needs across education, health and social care, the outcomes sought, the provision required, placement and arrangements for personal budgets. Sections must be separately labelled, and the special educational provision in section F is the part that is legally enforceable.
Striova keeps a school's SEN register, its graduated-approach cycles and its costed provision in one place, and produces the paperwork in the layout a local authority asks for.
General information about the SEND system in England, not legal advice, and not advice about provision for any individual pupil. Where a page names a regulation or a paragraph of the SEND Code of Practice, read it alongside the source.