Top Tips for Annual Reviews
- Sarah
- 6 days ago
- 6 min read
Annual Reviews must happen at least every year that you have an EHCP. They can happen more frequently if an early annual review is called and can happen twice within 12 months if your child is in a Phase Transfer year. It is best practice for a child under the age of 5 to have an annual review every 6 months. See more on this here:
The purpose of an Annual Review is to keep the EHCP up to date. The priorities should be Sections B, F and I, and for those with additional health or social care needs, these Sections must also be a focus. In addition, the annual review is your opportunity to keep Section A (the parents’ and child’s section) up to date. Being confident in the annual review process and how to use it to best effect can make all the difference. As ever, this is about using both SEND law and strategy. These are our top tips on how to use the annual review process to ensure your child’s EHCP is updated to remain fit for purpose.
Don’t wait until the Annual Review to think about your child’s EHCP. As a parent it is imperative to keep a close eye on:
Whether the identification of your child’s needs in Section B remains fully up to date – remember all special educational needs (difficulties) must be identified in Section B.
how the provision specified and quantified in Section F is being delivered.
What impact the delivery of Section F provision is having on your child’s progress across all areas.
Use your observations to inform your contribution to your child’s annual review meeting. And, if you have concerns about the delivery of provision or your child’s progress, don’t wait until the annual review, book a meeting with your child’s SENDCo to discuss this.
Make a note of the date the annual review meeting is due. This must be held within a year of the last annual review meeting, unless your child is in phase transfer or under 5. It is the responsibility of the SENDCo to arrange the Annual Review meeting, but it is not unheard of for Annual Review meetings to be forgotten. If your Annual Review meeting is due in 6 weeks or less, and you have not been notified of the date and time by your child’s SENDCo, ask them for a meeting date and don’t take no for an answer!
Attend the meeting! We see more EHCPs than we would care to count where Annual Reviews have come and gone with no attendance and no updates made. When approaching phase transfer, your child is at a significant disadvantage if their EHCP has not been effectively updated each year, insufficient provision being in place, resulting in their needs not being met. This can have catastrophic impact on the success of a child’s attendance, progress and achievement.
Make sure that you go through Sections A, B and F of your child’s EHCP before the annual review meeting and annotate all of the changes needed. Our webinar will help you to do this. If you child has medical or social care needs, you will also need to make sure these sections are accurate and up to date. Amend the EHCP before the AR meeting. Send your amended EHCP, annotated with the changes that are needed, to your SENDCo before the Annual Review meeting and take a few printed copies to the meeting with you just in case! Ask the SENDCo to submit this to the LA with the school’s annual review report, as your parental report and send a copy to your child’s EHCP Case Officer just in case it gets forgotten. When you send it to the case officer, title it – Name of Child – Parents' Annual Review Report – Date of Annual Review Meeting.
Remember:
the EHCP is written for your child and not to fit with what the school can provide. Watch out for a SENDCo that is suggesting making changes to the EHCP so that it suits the school and challenge this as unlawful.
a poorly worded EHCP is a gift to any school, the funding can be spent anywhere and on anyone within the school if it’s not specifically worded for your child.
If you prepare beforehand, you will be empowered to lead the meeting with evidence of the changes needed to keep your child’s EHCP up to date and enforceable.
An Annual Review meeting must not overly focus on Outcomes, at the expense of keeping Sections B and F up to date. Outcomes will be achieved when the provision is appropriate, so keep the focus of the meeting on B and F (along with the health and/or social care sections if these are key to your child).
Ask the SENDCo to send you a copy of the Annual Review report and all associated paperwork that is submitted to the LA following the Annual Review meeting and chase them for this if you do not receive it. It is imperative that you know what has been sent to the LA as they will use this to make decisions about changes to your child’s EHCP. If there is key information, reports or evidence missing, send it to the LA yourself and copy in the school SENDCo.
Work hard to establish a positive relationship with all key staff at your child's school. Establishing a collaborative approach is always favourable, but if this is not possible in your child’s school, do be prepared to be assertive. Always request that minutes are taken, and that these are forwarded to you following the meeting. Set out your priorities and objectives at the beginning, and don’t allow the focus to be primarily on what is going well or the Outcomes. Do not attend alone – take a friend or family member with you.
If you believe that the current placement cannot meet need, but they are very confident that things are going well, bide your time. Remember that Section F must detail all of the provision needed to meet a child’s special educational needs, this provision must be legally specified and quantified, and the school must be providing all of the provision in order to be meeting a child's needs. If there are deficits in Section F, language is vague and unlawful or the school is not providing all of the provision, this is evidence that the school is not currently ‘meeting your child’s needs’. Go through F and make sure that they are undertaking this responsibility.
If we have helped you to prepare for an Annual Review by providing Annual Review support or an EHCP check, this will focus on Sections B and F. In preparation for the annual review meeting, you must ensure that updates and amendments are made to Section A – the parents’ and child’s section.
Following the Annual Review meeting, the LA will make a decision about whether to make changes to the EHCP. Whether they decide to make changes or not, you have a right of appeal following the culmination of every annual review. If you are not happy with the changes (or lack of changes) the LA make to your child’s EHCP, be prepared to appeal. If you are not happy with the school named in the final EHCP following an annual review, again, you need to be prepared to appeal.
If your LA decide to make changes following an annual review, they must send you a draft EHCP detailing the proposed changes and give you 15 days to comment on this. Cross reference this draft with the changes that you identified as necessary for the Annual Review meeting and if they have not been made, request that they are included when you respond to the LA within the 15-day time limit. If you need help to check the draft EHCP following an annual review is fit for purpose, we can check it for you. Contact EHCPcheck@empoweringSENDfamilies.co.uk for further information.
The links in this blog will provide you with our resources to empower you to undertake the Annual Review process as a parent.
We can also provide full support for an Annual Review that includes:
checking your EHCP prior to the Annual Review meeting and preparing a report of the changes that are needed for you to submit as your parent report.
attending Annual Review meeting with you, ensuring that the meeting is used to full advantage to improve your child’s EHCP.
checking the draft EHCP following annual review and advising on next steps.
For further details, email: annualreviews@empoweringsendfamilies.co.uk
