The annual review

If your child has an EHC plan (Education, Health and Care plan), the local authority must review it at least once every 12 months. The annual review is the meeting where the plan can be kept as it is, changed, or (rarely, and only on proper grounds) stopped. It is your main yearly chance to fix anything in the plan that is not working. Treat it as important, because it is. This applies to England; the law differs elsewhere in the UK. This is information, not legal advice.

To prepare, dig out the current plan and read it in full, especially Section B (your child’s needs), Section E (the outcomes they should achieve), and Section F (the special educational provision, the help they must get). Note where the plan no longer matches reality: needs that have changed, provision that is vague or not being delivered, outcomes that are out of date. You are allowed to write your own short report on how the year has gone and submit it before the meeting. Send it to the coordinator in advance.

Make it count by steering the meeting to what matters. The school usually chairs, but you can ask for a structure that puts the plan at the centre: your child’s views, progress against the outcomes in Section E, whether the provision in Section F is being delivered, what has changed, your three asks, and what the review will recommend to the local authority. A clear agenda keeps the meeting from drifting into a pleasant chat about how nice your child is, with nothing decided.

Three questions cut through. “Is every part of Section F being delivered, in full, exactly as written?” “Where the plan is vague, can we make it specific and quantified, who does it, how often, for how long?” And “what exactly will the review recommend to the local authority, and will that be in the report?” That last one pins down what actually goes back to the people who decide, so the meeting’s conclusions do not get lost on the way.