What is an EHCP?

An education, health and care plan (EHCP) is a legal document for children and Young people aged 0-25 with special educational needs, whose needs cannot be met by standard mainstream school provision.

It identifies the child’s or Young person’s special education, social care and health needs, and looks at how education, health and care can work together to support them and sets measurable goals to work towards.

Impact on schools

Mainstream schools struggle to meet the needs outlined in EHCPs due to restricted budgets or believing that they lack specialist training or resources, and often feel that trying to stretch finances to meet the needs of Disabled pupils negatively impacts the non-disabled pupils.

This is causing Special Schools to become overrun, as mainstream schools are refusing children due to the added cost.

Attitudes towards support

Mainstream schools often have negative attitudes towards providing support and say they cannot meet the child’s needs as the unreasonable budget allocations will impact other children or they do not believe that they have the specialist knowledge required.

Local authorities can then force a school to accept the child and support their needs, but this may cause bad experiences due to the school’s negativity towards SEN support.

Barriers within an EHCP

An EHC needs assessment should be completed within 20 weeks once requested. Parents only have 15 days allocated to look over the draft, which is often written in lengthy, complex language.

As alternative formats are not offered upfront, this prevents Disabled parents from being able to review the draft in that timeframe.

Low-level SEN Support 

There is a push to avoid EHCPs as early intervention with low-level SEN support is less costly in time and money. Every school is expected to spend the first £6,000 in low-level SEN support per child out of the nominal SEN budget.

The school does not have to disclose if they spend the SEN funding on supporting the child or in other areas.

Pressure on family 

An EHCP should detail what a child or Young person needs to thrive. However, this is not guaranteed, and parents often have to fight to get schools to meet basic needs.

Sometimes, parents feel pressure to remove their child from school due to the lack of support offered by schools, putting pressure on families to give up work and attempt home-education.