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Naming a CIC in Section I
My daughter has severe SEMH needs and we’ve identified a CIC which delivers alternative provision for children with SEMH, however they only offer part time hours 15 hours over 2.5 days. The LA are saying as the organisation is not a school, they cannot name it. The organisation have said that they have other kids who attend with EHCPs and this is funded through a personal budget. The other 10 hours to make up full time provision we are considering another provider which isn’t a school but an alternative provision provider. We’re anxious to know whether we can have named in section I of my daughter’s EHCP the CIC and also if we can also have named the other provider for the other 10 hours?
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(In)appropriate Local Authority attendance at the Annual Review
My daughter’s EHCP Annual Review (AR) takes place one week today. Per the norm, the LA has been invited to attend. We’d not had an indication one way or the other if they would; our LA doesn’t usually attend. Today, her college received a phone call from the caseworker saying that they would / could not attend, but their superior would (we do not know yet if this is virtual or in person).
The named person they propose was the lead and very adversarial protagonist on the LA’s behalf for a Lower Tribunal hearing (which we ‘won’), a subsequent appeal (which was also won), and then made an LA appeal to the Upper Tribunal, which we again won, which resulted in the (very successful) placement at the current college.
My questions are:
1) Is it permissible that an LA representative be substituted at this late stage and can we ask for an alternative person?
2) Can we request that the LA does not allow this person to be involved in our daughter’s AR, or indeed any aspect of her ongoing engagement with the LA SENAT?
We feel threatened and intimidated by the named person’s involvement because:
a) their extremely adversarial approach to the tribunals caused a lot of pain, distress, delays and expense – both to us, and to the public purse.
b) their various submissions and representations were found to be at best irregular, at their base level they were incorrect and manipulative, which the judge(s) concurred with (in other words, they were not faithful and truthful, but this is of course tricky territory).
c) we believe they are very prejudiced against us as a family.
d) my daughter is vulnerable and is still scarred by the tribunal process and we do not want this person to have any contact with her.
Thank you in advance for any guidance at this difficult moment, served on us at very short notice.James Doherty
24 Mar 2025
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Is there any legal basis for an LA to enforce pre-defined costings onto schools spending of the notional budget?
When providing provision maps to support top-up funding requests Derbyshire County Council is requiring provision to be costed at a pre-determined amount rather than the actual cost even when the school is evidencing the cost of what they are already doing (ie from their notional budget). This means that schools are repeatedly working at a loss in relation to this- can local authorities legally do this/ or is there a legal challenge that can be made against them doing this please?
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We are in the final stages of EHCP. We have requested EOTAS (to pay for online school) and a personal budget. The LA have said "County Independent panel have reviewed your request for EOTAS and personal budget to fund Kings Inter High, further information is required before EOTAS can be considered. We will be contacting F...... high school to establish if they are able to support funding Kings Inter High as E. remains on their school roll. We will also be issuing consultations to independent settings to establish suitability; these consultations will be shared with you before they are issued." My question is does the LA pay for EOTAS - why are they asking the school? The LA tried to unroll her from mainstream but we said they could not do this until they have provided alternative provision - and we request EOTAS - were we wrong to do so?
My daughter is happy at online school. She has tried two mainstream schools and cannot manage. She will not attend school in person and the EP report is fairly conclusive with this regard.
Angie Lee-Foster
17 Jan 2024
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Can I request the EP as an expert witness in my EHCP appeal, or could this backfire?
Our Educational Psychologist (a 2nd-year trainee) wrote a vague Section F provision with many examples rather than specific, quantified provisions. I have emailed three times requesting that it be made legally compliant, but the response I received stated:
"EP reports are written with the intention of enabling education staff to plan and deliver a personalised curriculum within a school or other educational setting. The additional examples that are included within advice help educators to incorporate recommendations/approaches into their lesson planning without limiting their creativity and flexibility, allowing staff to interpret the essence of the recommendation and plan to best effect."
I assume this aligns with LA policy, but my concern is that the vagueness makes the provision unenforceable. My son has an EOTAS package (recently agreed in final/nothing in place), and the LA is only organising tuition for the core curriculum. This means the examples listed in the EP report linking learning to interest (especially computing, which he accesses privately and consistently) are not included in his provision.
I agree with the essence of what she has written within F but due to the lack of detail I am appealing Sections B and F, and I’m wondering whether I should request the EP as an expert witness to clarify her recommendations—or whether this could backfire if she aligns with the LA's stance. -
Child's EHCP allegedly states ethnicity - is this needed for an ehcp in section A?
Child's EHCP allegedly states ethnicity - is this needed for an ehcp in section A?
Victoria Dean
22 Mar 2025
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Would ‘broad and balanced curriculum’ in section F mean my son has access to the full curriculum
We have EOTIS Section F states for tutoring included teaching in core education curriculum. He would be in year 7, my concern here is that it’s limited to maths, English and science. He is pda and we have already identified learning needs to be around his interests the one thing he has always continued to access is computing (working towards the curriculum) and cooking. I put in a PB request for computing but “not reasonable required under section F” I will be appealing but I’m just wondering what core curriculum needs to be reworded to so he has access to the full curriculum. Additional where the EP recommendations that were tailored to my son included the use of examples, the LA have stated these are examples so cooking is mentioned twice under learning provision and again under sensory but it won’t be included as “not reasonably required under section F”
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Is the SENCo accountable for amending the EHC plan after an annual review meeting?
We have an upcoming Annual Review meeting scheduled in the next few days and recently received an email from the SENCo outlining the roles and expectations for the review.
The email states:
"As [my son's] SENCo, I will edit the EHCP after the review and make amendments where necessary."
However, based on what we’ve learned from other parents, it is not advisable to rely on the school to make amendments to our son's EHCP
As I understand it, the SENCo's role is to compile a report for the Local Authority (LA) after the Annual Review, leaving the responsibility of making any amendments to the EHCP to the LA.
Shouldn't it be the LA, rather than the SENCo, making changes to my son's EHCP?
Gordon M.
23 Feb 2025
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Since appealing section I and receiving a tribunal date, we have just received an email from our local authority Tribunal Officer, asking what our child's views are on which school she wants to attend and if we wnat to discuss their decision in more detail to get in touch, they want to come to a resolution. Should we engage?
We applied for a specialist school for transition of our daughter to secondary school in September. She has an EHCP with 1:1 in mainstream primary school, but the local secondary school has said they cannot support her needs; we also feel that she would not cope in the large scale setting etc etc. The specialist provision has offered her a place but the local authority has named the mainstream secondary school in the EHCP, hence our appeal. We have requested information, reasons for the decision etc prior to appeal but they would not engage. Now that we are heading towards tribunal they have sent an email asking us for our child's view and if we want to discuss further to come to a resolution. NB. they have only 2 weeks left to submit their evidence pack. This all feels suspicious as we had those discussions in the phase transition meeting with school and the LA, plus all the specialist reports state that our daughter needs to attend a small specialist setting. Not sure to what extent we should reply to this email and engage with the LA now at this stage.
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Can an inaccurate (or out of date) Section B & E be challenged at tribunal?
Support SEND Kids has been contacted by many parents who are frustrated that their child's EHCP contains inaccuracies or includes out of date behaviours. Despite requesting the EHCP be updated at review, the school and/or local authority ignore these requests and continue to submit inaccurate EHCPs to families. At the point of phase transfer (11+/16+) these inaccuracies, in Sections B & E, have a detrimental impact on which schools will consider the child. Can a tribunal insist that a local authority revise/re-draft an EHCP?
