Getting an EHCP for Your Primary School Child: Step-by-Step Timeline

Your eight-year-old daughter struggles through each school day while her classmates sail ahead effortlessly—she takes thirty minutes to complete worksheets that others finish in five, her handwriting remains barely legible despite years of occupational therapy sessions that cost you hundreds of pounds, mathematics word problems leave her confused and tearful even when you’ve explained the same concepts twenty different ways at home, and though the teacher keeps saying she’s making progress and just needs more time to develop, you’ve watched four years pass with your bright child who can recite entire movie scripts verbatim and build intricate fairy houses in the garden now refusing to read aloud in class because other children laugh at her mistakes, leaving you wondering exactly when the school will acknowledge that weekly fifteen-minute interventions with an overstretched teaching assistant clearly aren’t enough and whether there exists some official process to secure proper documented support before your daughter’s love of learning disappears completely beneath the weight of daily academic failures that erode her confidence more thoroughly than any criticism ever could.

The Education, Health and Care Plan provides statutory protection ensuring children with significant special educational needs receive documented support schools must deliver rather than hoping well-intentioned promises translate into consistent help. This legal framework emerged from the Children and Families Act 2014, consolidating previously fragmented systems into integrated planning that addresses educational requirements, health needs, and social care provisions within one binding document supporting children from birth through age twenty-five. The EHCP follows a twenty-week statutory timeline beginning when local authorities receive assessment requests, though recent data reveals only forty-six percent of new plans were issued within this timeframe in 2024, meaning most families endure considerably longer waits than legislation permits while their children struggle without adequate support.

Primary school children represent the largest group receiving new EHCPs, with nearly sixty-three percent of new plans issued for children aged four to ten, reflecting the crucial period when learning difficulties become increasingly apparent as academic demands intensify beyond early foundation skills. Parents pursuing EHCPs during these formative primary years face navigating complex bureaucracy while simultaneously managing their children’s daily struggles, gathering evidence from multiple professionals across education and health sectors, potentially contesting local authority refusals that force exhausting tribunal appeals, and maintaining determined persistence despite feeling overwhelmed by technical requirements that challenge even experienced advocates much less exhausted parents watching their children’s self-esteem crumble under repeated academic failures that schools dismiss as developmental delays requiring patience rather than intervention.

This comprehensive guide demystifies the twenty-week EHCP timeline by explaining precisely what happens at each statutory stage from initial request through final plan issuance, identifying critical deadlines where local authorities make decisions that determine whether your child receives support or faces refusal requiring appeals, detailing evidence that strengthens applications versus documentation that proves unhelpful for assessment purposes, clarifying your rights at every decision point including challenging delays that exceed statutory timeframes, providing practical strategies for working effectively with schools and professionals throughout the process, explaining what to expect during the fifteen-day consultation period when you can request amendments to draft plans.

Most importantly preparing you for potential obstacles families routinely encounter despite clear legal entitlements, because understanding the timeline thoroughly allows you to identify delays early and challenge decisions promptly rather than accepting excuses that contravene statutory guidance established in the SEND Code of Practice governing local authority obligations to children with special educational needs.

• 62.9% — of new EHCPs issued for primary school age children (ages 4-10) in 2024
• 46.4% — of new EHCPs issued within the statutory 20-week timeline in 2024, down from 50.3% in 2023
• 6 — weeks statutory deadline for local authorities to decide whether to proceed with EHCP assessment after receiving request

Week zero to six: submitting your request and awaiting the assessment decision

The twenty-week statutory timeline begins officially when the local authority receives your written request for an EHCP needs assessment, whether submitted by parents, schools, or young people aged sixteen and above. Your request should clearly explain why you believe your child has special educational needs requiring statutory support beyond what schools can provide through ordinary resources, though you’re not legally required to submit evidence at this initial stage. However, comprehensive documentation significantly strengthens applications and often prevents refusals that force expensive tribunal appeals later, so gathering reports from teachers documenting your child’s struggles, assessments from educational psychologists or specialists identifying specific difficulties, evidence of interventions schools have attempted without success, and examples of how your child’s needs impact their daily learning creates compelling cases that local authorities find difficult to refuse without appearing to ignore clear evidence of significant needs requiring statutory intervention.

Within six weeks of receiving your request, the local authority must decide whether to proceed with an EHCP needs assessment or refuse your application, communicating this decision in writing with clear explanations of their reasoning and your appeal rights if they refuse. During these initial six weeks, authorities typically gather basic information from your child’s school about current provision and progress, though they should not delay decisions waiting for additional assessments or reports unless exceptional circumstances warrant extensions.

Many local authorities attempt refusing assessments by claiming schools should try further interventions first or asserting that your child’s needs don’t meet thresholds for statutory assessment, despite government guidance stating that authorities must assess whenever children may require special educational provision through EHCPs, which represents a deliberately low legal threshold designed to ensure comprehensive assessments rather than gatekeeping based on funding concerns or arbitrary policies that contravene statutory duties.

If authorities refuse your assessment request at this six-week decision point, you have two months from the refusal letter date to register an appeal with the SEND Tribunal, though you must first obtain a mediation certificate demonstrating you’ve considered mediation even if you ultimately decline participating in it. Many parents hesitate to appeal immediately, accepting local authority suggestions to wait and try additional school interventions before reapplying later, but tribunal statistics demonstrate overwhelmingly that families requesting assessments typically possess legitimate concerns rather than making premature demands. The remarkably high success rates for families who do appeal refusals—winning the vast majority of cases—reveals that authorities routinely make incorrect decisions requiring tribunal correction rather than exercising reasonable professional judgment about individual children’s needs, meaning persistent immediate appeals often prove more effective than prolonged waiting that delays necessary support while your child continues struggling without adequate help.

Week seven to twelve: gathering professional advice during the assessment process

Once local authorities agree to conduct EHCP needs assessments, they must request advice from various professionals who work with your child, including educational perspectives from schools, psychological assessments from educational psychologists, medical advice from relevant health professionals, and social care input if applicable to your family’s circumstances. Each professional approached for advice has six weeks from the request date to submit their reports to the local authority, meaning this evidence-gathering stage theoretically completes by week twelve of the overall twenty-week timeline. However, many families experience delays during this period when professionals miss deadlines submitting reports, schools claim they need additional observation time before providing comprehensive advice, or health services struggle scheduling assessments due to waiting lists that stretch months beyond the statutory six-week requirement for providing input.

Parents possess specific rights to request that local authorities seek advice from particular professionals whose perspectives would benefit assessment processes, such as private specialists who’ve assessed your child, therapists who understand their specific difficulties, or other experts whose knowledge addresses needs schools haven’t recognized adequately. If authorities agree to your reasonable requests for additional professional input, those individuals must also provide advice within six weeks of being approached, though local authorities sometimes refuse requesting advice from specific professionals by claiming their input isn’t necessary for assessment purposes. During this evidence-gathering stage, you should ensure schools provide comprehensive information about your child’s needs rather than minimizing difficulties or suggesting that appropriate provision already exists through current arrangements, because inadequate school advice often leads to plan refusals or draft EHCPs that drastically underestimate provision requirements based on incomplete understanding of your child’s actual needs throughout their school day.

Many local authorities exceed statutory timelines during this assessment stage by accepting late professional advice without acknowledging delays or by waiting for additional information beyond what’s legally required before making decisions about plan issuance. You can challenge timeline breaches by writing formally to local authority SEND departments documenting specific delays, requesting explanations for why statutory deadlines weren’t met, and demanding that processes proceed to the next decision stage immediately rather than continuing to wait for information that should have been gathered within the twelve-week assessment window. Persistent polite challenges to delays often prove effective because authorities recognize that excessive timeline breaches create potential complaints to the Local Government Ombudsman, who has upheld numerous cases against councils exceeding statutory timeframes and awarded compensation to families whose children suffered injustice through prolonged waits that contravened clear legal obligations to complete assessments within specified periods.

Week thirteen to sixteen: the crucial decision about plan issuance

By week sixteen of the statutory timeline, local authorities must decide whether to issue an EHCP based on evidence gathered during assessment or to refuse issuing plans by concluding that your child’s needs can be met through ordinary school provision without statutory support. This represents the most critical decision point in the entire process because authorities refusing to issue plans force families into tribunal appeals that typically take many additional months resolving, meaning children continue without documented support while adversarial legal processes unfold that could have been avoided through correct initial decisions recognizing legitimate needs. According to parliamentary research on special educational needs, local authorities decided to issue EHCPs in approximately ninety-four percent of completed assessments during 2024, suggesting that most children reaching the assessment stage do indeed possess needs warranting statutory plans despite earlier gatekeeping attempts to prevent assessments from proceeding initially.

If local authorities decide not to issue EHCPs at week sixteen, they must send refusal letters explaining their reasoning and informing you of appeal rights and mediation requirements before tribunal registration. These refusal letters often claim that schools can meet your child’s needs through additional interventions available from ordinary budgets, or assert that assessment evidence doesn’t demonstrate sufficient difficulties warranting statutory provision, despite gathered reports clearly documenting significant struggles requiring specialized support beyond what schools typically provide. You again have two months from the refusal date to register tribunal appeals after obtaining mediation certificates, and tribunal panels find in favor of families appealing refusal decisions in the overwhelming majority of cases, demonstrating that authorities routinely make incorrect decisions at this stage by applying inappropriate thresholds or ignoring clear evidence that children’s needs exceed what schools can address without documented statutory support mandating specific provision.

If authorities decide to issue EHCPs, they should send draft plans to families by the end of week sixteen, providing at least fifteen calendar days before week twenty for you to review drafts, request amendments to vague or inadequate provision, and nominate preferred schools where you want plans naming your child. This fifteen-day consultation period represents your most important opportunity to ensure draft plans specify sufficient provision quantified clearly rather than accepting generic statements that allow schools interpreting requirements minimally based on budget constraints rather than your child’s actual needs.

Many parents accept first-draft plans without requesting amendments because they feel grateful that authorities agreed to issue plans at all and worry that challenging inadequate provision might antagonize professionals, but vague draft plans create ongoing problems during implementation when schools claim current minimal support meets ambiguous plan requirements despite children continuing to struggle without receiving appropriate specialized help.

Week seventeen to twenty: finalizing your child’s plan and beginning implementation

During the final weeks of the statutory timeline, local authorities must consider any amendments you requested to draft plans, consult with your nominated school about whether they can deliver specified provision, and issue final EHCPs by week twenty that incorporate agreed changes and name specific educational placements in Section I. Schools named in EHCPs must admit children unless extremely limited exceptional circumstances apply, meaning plan issuance essentially guarantees placement at your preferred school if it’s appropriate for your child’s needs and wouldn’t incompatibly affect education of other pupils already attending or prove inefficient use of local authority resources. Most mainstream schools named in plans must admit children without arguing that they lack capacity or expertise to deliver provision, though maintained special schools can refuse admission if doing so would be incompatible with efficient education of other pupils with similar needs already on roll.

You receive specific appeal rights when final EHCPs are issued if you disagree with how Section B describes your child’s special educational needs, if Section F provision proves inadequate or insufficiently specific to mandate appropriate support, or if the named school in Section I doesn’t match your preference because authorities refused consulting with your nominated setting.

These appeal rights extend two months from the final plan date, though again you must obtain mediation certificates before registering tribunal appeals even if you decline actually participating in mediation discussions. Many families hesitate appealing final plans because they worry about delaying implementation or damaging relationships with schools and local authorities, but accepting inadequate plans creates long-term problems requiring later amendments through annual review processes that prove considerably more difficult than securing appropriate provision initially through tribunal decisions that legally bind authorities to provide what your child actually needs.

Once final EHCPs are issued, schools must begin implementing specified provision promptly rather than waiting for new academic years or claiming they need time arranging resources and staff training before delivering what plans require. Support organizations including Information, Advice and Support Services commissioned by every local authority can help you understand whether schools are implementing your child’s plan properly or treating it as aspirational guidance they can ignore when inconvenient.

Persistent monitoring during initial implementation weeks proves crucial because inadequate delivery patterns established early often continue throughout the year until annual reviews, meaning children receive far less support than their plans mandate because schools interpret vague provision minimally and parents don’t realize they should challenge insufficient implementation immediately rather than trusting professionals to deliver what legal documents explicitly require.

Preparing strategically before requesting assessment to strengthen your case

Although you can request EHCP assessments at any time without gathering evidence first, thorough preparation before submitting requests significantly strengthens applications and often prevents refusals that force exhausting tribunal appeals delaying support for many additional months while your child continues struggling. Strong evidence includes recent reports from schools documenting your child’s difficulties and detailing interventions attempted without achieving adequate progress, assessments from educational psychologists or other specialists identifying specific learning difficulties or developmental needs requiring specialized teaching, medical evidence from pediatricians or other health professionals about conditions affecting your child’s education, examples of your child’s work demonstrating gaps between their output and age-appropriate expectations, and clear explanations of how current provision fails meeting your child’s needs despite schools’ reasonable efforts trying various approaches.

Particularly compelling evidence demonstrates that schools have already tried differentiated teaching, small group interventions, and other graduated response strategies available from ordinary budgets without your child making sufficient progress to close gaps with peers or achieving outcomes that reflect their underlying abilities. Local authorities often refuse assessments by claiming schools should try additional interventions first, but if you provide evidence showing that repeated interventions over extended periods haven’t produced adequate improvements, authorities find it considerably more difficult justifying refusals based on assertions that further waiting might eventually prove successful. Documentation should also address whether your child’s difficulties stem from special educational needs requiring specialized provision versus other factors like English as additional language, disrupted education, or general developmental delays that schools can address through high-quality teaching without statutory intervention.

Before requesting assessment, consider obtaining private assessments from educational psychologists or specialist teachers if schools haven’t arranged recent evaluations or if you suspect school reports might minimize your child’s difficulties to avoid acknowledging provision failures. Private assessments typically cost between four hundred and one thousand pounds depending on professionals’ expertise and assessment comprehensiveness, but this investment often proves worthwhile by providing independent expert opinions that local authorities cannot easily dismiss as parental anxiety or unrealistic expectations. Some families struggle affording private assessments despite recognizing their value, but charitable organizations sometimes offer reduced-fee assessments for families experiencing financial hardship, and the improved likelihood of successful assessment requests often justifies costs by avoiding prolonged tribunal battles that would require expensive legal representation later if initial applications fail due to insufficient supporting evidence.

Common timeline delays and how to challenge them effectively

Despite clear statutory timelines mandating completion within twenty weeks maximum, many families experience significantly longer waits due to local authority delays that breach legal requirements without valid exceptions justifying timeline extensions. Recent statistics reveal the system’s chronic dysfunction, with over fifty-three percent of new plans exceeding the twenty-week statutory timeframe in 2024, and some families waiting over a year from initial requests to final plan issuance while their children continue struggling without documented support that schools must deliver. Local authorities commonly excuse delays by citing professional staff shortages, overwhelming assessment request volumes, school holidays when evidence gathering proves difficult, or waiting lists for educational psychology assessments that stretch many months beyond the six weeks professionals should need providing advice.

However, the Children and Families Act allows only extremely limited exceptions to statutory timelines, specifically when children or families are away from the area for four weeks or more, when exceptional personal circumstances affect children preventing assessment progress, or when schools or early years settings close for four consecutive weeks or longer. Notably, staff shortages, budget pressures, high demand for assessments, professional waiting lists, or general administrative difficulties do not constitute valid exceptions permitting timeline breaches, meaning local authorities claiming these reasons for delays are acting unlawfully regardless of how sympathetically they explain resource pressures affecting their ability to meet statutory obligations. You should challenge any delays exceeding statutory timeframes by writing formally to SEND departments requesting immediate progression to the next timeline stage, documenting specific dates when deadlines passed without decisions or actions authorities should have completed, and stating explicitly that unlawful delays harm your child by prolonging periods without appropriate support.

If local authorities continue exceeding timelines despite your challenges, you can complain formally through their SEND complaints procedures, escalate to the Local Government Ombudsman who investigates maladministration by councils, or in extreme cases apply for judicial review of unlawful delays though this legal action requires significant costs and complexity warranting specialist legal advice.

Many families feel reluctant pursuing formal complaints against local authorities conducting their children’s assessments because they worry about antagonizing professionals who control plan decisions, but authorities recognize that documented timeline breaches create potential liability and often respond to persistent challenges by expediting delayed processes rather than allowing complaints to progress to ombudsman investigations that might find fault and order compensatory payments for injustice caused by unlawful delays harming children’s education during prolonged waits for statutory support.

Understanding what happens when local authorities refuse assessments or plans

Many local authorities refuse significant proportions of EHCP assessment requests by claiming children’s needs don’t reach thresholds warranting statutory assessment or asserting schools should try additional interventions before authorities consider conducting formal evaluations. Statistics demonstrate considerable variation across regions, with some authorities agreeing to assess over seventy percent of requests while others refuse more than half of applications, suggesting that refusal decisions often reflect local budget pressures and gatekeeping policies rather than consistent application of legal thresholds for when children may require special educational provision through EHCPs. These refusals force families into tribunal appeals that statistics prove succeed overwhelmingly, indicating authorities routinely make incorrect decisions that independent panels must correct through adversarial processes that could be avoided if councils applied legal tests properly during initial consideration of assessment requests.

When local authorities refuse assessment requests at the six-week decision point or refuse issuing plans at week sixteen despite completing assessments, they must provide clear written explanations for their decisions and inform you of rights to appeal through the SEND Tribunal after obtaining mediation certificates. The mediation requirement represents a statutory prerequisite before tribunal registration, though you don’t actually need to participate in mediation discussions—you simply must contact mediation services who will issue certificates confirming you’ve considered mediation even if you decline proceeding with it. Many local authorities strongly encourage families to engage in mediation rather than appealing immediately, suggesting that collaborative discussions might resolve disagreements without tribunal hearings, but mediation lacks power to compel authorities to change decisions and often delays tribunal appeals while your child continues without support during prolonged negotiation attempts that rarely produce outcomes matching what tribunals would order.

Recent tribunal statistics reveal the remarkable success rates families achieve when challenging local authority refusals, with panels finding at least partially in favor of parents in approximately ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of decided cases, demonstrating that authorities make systematically incorrect decisions requiring independent correction rather than exercising reasonable professional judgment about individual children’s circumstances.

This extraordinarily high success rate for families—councils essentially losing every contested case that reaches final tribunal hearings—proves that persistent appeals typically represent appropriate responses to unlawful gatekeeping designed to control costs regardless of children’s legal entitlements, meaning you should not feel guilty about pursuing appeals or worry that you’re making unreasonable demands when challenging refusals that contradict clear evidence of your child’s needs exceeding what schools can provide through ordinary resources without documented statutory support mandating specific provision.

Stop Waiting for School to “Try a Bit More”: Why You Must Take Control of the EHCP Clock Now

If your child is already in Year 3 or 4 and still drowning in tasks their classmates breeze through, the harsh truth is this: simply giving school “more time” is no longer a neutral choice. It is a decision – a decision to let another year pass without the level of support your child is legally entitled to.

The Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) is not a favour from the local authority, and it is not a bonus extra for the most severely affected children. It is a statutory legal document that turns vague promises (“we’ll keep an eye on her”, “we’ll review in a term”, “she’s making slow but steady progress”) into concrete, specified provision that school must deliver. When a child like your daughter has spent four years “trying harder” with tiny interventions and still can’t keep up – despite obvious strengths and effort – the real risk isn’t overreacting. The real risk is waiting.

Every Term You Wait, the Gap Grows – and So Does the Damage to Self-Esteem

Schools often reassure parents with language that keeps everyone calm but changes nothing:

• “She just needs a bit more time.”
• “Lots of children catch up in Key Stage 2.”
• “Let’s give this new intervention a chance.”

But look at your child’s day honestly:

• Is she consistently taking three to four times longer than peers to complete similar work?
• Is she avoiding reading aloud, writing, or certain types of tasks because she’s embarrassed?
• Are you seeing increasing anxiety, tears over homework, stomach aches before school, or “I’m stupid” creeping into her vocabulary?

Those are not “just” academic concerns. They are red flags that repeated failure is beginning to reshape how your child sees herself. Once a bright eight-year-old internalises the belief that she is the “slow one” or the “stupid one”, no amount of praise will fully erase it. An EHCP cannot erase past hurt, but it can stop the daily drip of avoidable failure by bringing proper support into place.

The System Is Slow and Imperfect – Which Is Exactly Why You Can’t Afford to Delay

On paper, the EHCP process must be completed within 20 weeks. In reality, only 46.4% of plans were issued within that timeframe in 2024 – meaning more than half of children waited longer than the law allows. At the same time, 62.9% of new EHCPs went to primary pupils aged 4–10, because this is exactly when learning gaps become obvious and – if ignored – solidify.

If you wait “just one more year”:

• You are not pausing time.
• You are allowing your child’s academic gap to widen while self-esteem and mental health deteriorate.
• You are voluntarily postponing a process that already overruns statutory deadlines for most families.

When you factor in delays, appeals, and the reality that local authorities often miss legal timescales, starting the process now is not aggressive. It is protective.

“But School Says It’s Not Bad Enough Yet” – Why That’s Not the Legal Test

One of the most powerful things you can do as a parent is to stop accepting informal thresholds invented by schools or local authorities.

You do not have to prove that:

• Your child is “the worst in the class”.
• School has exhausted every imaginable intervention.
• Years of extra teaching assistant time have already been tried and failed.

The legal test for an EHCP assessment is deliberately low:

Is it possible that your child may need special educational provision beyond what a mainstream school can provide from its usual resources?

If the answer might be “yes” – and in your daughter’s case, four years of struggle plus minimal progress strongly point that way – then the local authority should assess.

In other words, you do not have to wait until things are catastrophic. The system is designed (in theory) for early identification and support. When school says, “We should try another 6–12 months of in-house interventions first,” what they are really saying is, “We want to delay involving the local authority.” That may suit the system. It does not suit your child.

A Behaviour Chart Won’t Fix Dyslexia. Extra Stickers Won’t Fix Processing Difficulties.

Weekly 15-minute “interventions” with a stretched teaching assistant are often presented as generous support. In practice, they can act like sticking plasters on a broken leg:

• They are too short and too infrequent.
• They are not always delivered by a specialist.
• The impact is rarely measured robustly.
• They do nothing to change the overall demands of a full school day your child still can’t access properly.

Meanwhile, your child watches classmates fly through tasks, internalising one painful message: “Everyone else can do this. I can’t.”

An EHCP doesn’t magically solve everything, but it:

• Names your child’s needs formally.
• Specifies what support must be provided, how often, and by whom.
• Protects that support from disappearing when budgets tighten, staff change, or leadership priorities shift.

It shifts help from fragile goodwill to legal obligation.

You Are Not “Difficult” for Asking – You Are Fulfilling Your Legal Role

Many parents hesitate to request an EHCP assessment because they:

• Don’t want to appear confrontational or “that parent”.
• Worry the school will resent them.
• Fear being told they are overreacting or “anxious”.

But the law does not expect you to be passive. It gives you specific, active rights because the system frequently under-identifies and under-supports children like your daughter:

• You have the right to request an EHCP needs assessment directly from the local authority. You do not require the school’s permission.
• You have the right to a clear yes/no decision within 6 weeks of that request.
• You have the right to appeal refusals – and families win the overwhelming majority of such appeals.
• You have the right to challenge delays and vague promises that aren’t backed by concrete, written provision.

Exercising these rights is not being awkward. It is being the one person in the system whose sole job is to protect your child.

A Simple Reframe: From “I Don’t Want to Push” to “I Can’t Allow Another Lost Year”

Instead of asking yourself:

“Am I making too much fuss by asking for an EHCP?”

Try asking:

“Can I live with watching another twelve months of my child falling further behind, feeling smaller and smaller, while we ‘wait and see’?”

If the honest answer is no, then the path becomes clearer:

• You request the assessment.
• You gather and send evidence.
• You learn the 20-week timeline so you know exactly when each decision should happen.
• You challenge delays and vague refusals, not because you enjoy conflict, but because your child cannot push for herself.

Your daughter is already working harder than most of her classmates just to produce half the output. She doesn’t need another sticker chart. She needs adults who will stop pretending “a bit more time” will magically solve a neurological difficulty – and who are prepared to insist, firmly and calmly, that the system uses the legal tools it was created to provide.

You cannot control how fast the local authority works. You cannot control whether the first answer is “yes” or “no”.

But you can control whether you start the clock now or let another school year slip away in a haze of “maybe next term”. The most powerful, high-impact step you can take for your child today is very simple:

Stop waiting. Put your concerns in writing. Trigger the 6-week decision. Turn your worry into a legal timeline.

Finding support services to help you navigate the timeline successfully

Navigating the EHCP timeline alone proves unnecessarily difficult when excellent support services exist helping families understand their rights, strengthen applications, challenge unlawful decisions, and prepare for potential tribunal appeals if local authorities refuse assessments or issue inadequate plans. Every local authority must commission Information, Advice and Support Services providing free impartial guidance to families about special educational needs processes including EHCP applications, timeline requirements, and appeal procedures. These services can explain the system’s complexity, review your evidence identifying strengths and weaknesses before you submit assessment requests, attend meetings with you to ensure your voice is heard properly, help you understand draft plans and request appropriate amendments during consultation periods, and support tribunal preparation if appeals become necessary—all at no cost regardless of your financial circumstances or immigration status.

Additionally, national organizations provide valuable resources and advice lines helping parents understand EHCP processes and their legal rights when authorities breach statutory obligations. The Independent Provider of Special Education Advice offers free legal guidance and sometimes represents families in tribunal appeals without charge, particularly for complex cases involving significant legal issues affecting many children beyond individual circumstances. Online parent communities also provide invaluable practical support sharing experiences about specific local authorities’ practices, strategies for challenging delays or inadequate provision, template letters for requesting assessments or amendments, and emotional encouragement throughout often lengthy and frustrating journeys toward securing appropriate documented support. These peer support networks shouldn’t replace professional legal advice for complex situations, but they offer crucial solidarity recognizing that pursuing EHCPs often feels isolating and overwhelming when authorities create obstacles or schools fail implementing provision properly despite clear plan requirements.

For families facing tribunal appeals after assessment or plan refusals, specialist SEND solicitors can provide legal representation though costs often reach several thousand pounds for full tribunal preparation and hearing attendance, creating access to justice problems for families without means to afford private legal fees. However, some solicitors offer initial free consultations to assess case merits, and legal aid remains available in extremely limited circumstances where human rights issues arise or judicial review becomes necessary to challenge unlawful local authority conduct. Understanding your rights thoroughly and gathering strong evidence before assessment requests often proves the most effective strategy for avoiding tribunal appeals altogether, because comprehensive applications supported by clear documentation of your child’s needs and school’s unsuccessful intervention attempts make assessment refusals considerably more difficult for local authorities to justify without appearing to ignore obvious evidence that children require statutory support beyond ordinary school provision.

The Education, Health and Care Plan timeline follows a statutory twenty-week process beginning when local authorities receive assessment requests and concluding with final plan issuance, though recent government data reveals only forty-six percent of new plans were issued within this legal timeframe during 2024, meaning most families endure considerably longer waits than legislation permits while their children struggle without adequate documented support that schools must deliver. The timeline includes critical decision points at week six when authorities decide whether to proceed with assessments or refuse applications, week twelve by which professionals should submit advice informing assessment decisions, week sixteen when authorities determine whether to issue plans or refuse based on gathered evidence, and the consultation period between weeks sixteen and twenty when families can request amendments to draft plans before final versions are issued naming specific schools in Section I. Primary school children aged four to ten receive nearly sixty-three percent of new EHCPs issued annually, reflecting the crucial period when learning difficulties become increasingly apparent as academic demands intensify beyond early foundation skills, and families pursuing plans during these formative years face navigating complex bureaucracy while simultaneously managing their children’s daily struggles and gathering comprehensive evidence from multiple professionals across education and health sectors.

Preparing thoroughly before requesting assessments by documenting your child’s difficulties and school’s unsuccessful intervention attempts significantly strengthens applications compared to bare assertions that struggles exist, while understanding your rights at each timeline stage allows you to identify delays early and challenge decisions promptly rather than accepting excuses that contravene statutory guidance established in the SEND Code of Practice governing local authority obligations. Many local authorities exceed statutory timelines through unlawful delays caused by staff shortages, overwhelming demand, or professional waiting lists—none of which constitute valid exceptions permitting timeline breaches—and you can challenge these delays by writing formally to SEND departments documenting specific missed deadlines and requesting immediate progression to the next stage, escalating to formal complaints or ombudsman investigations if authorities continue unlawful conduct that harms your child by prolonging periods without appropriate support.

Recent tribunal statistics demonstrate that families appealing assessment refusals or inadequate plans succeed in approximately ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of decided cases, proving that persistent advocacy represents appropriate response to systematic gatekeeping problems rather than unreasonable demands, and free support services including Information, Advice and Support Services commissioned by every local authority provide invaluable guidance helping you navigate the timeline successfully, challenge unlawful decisions, and secure appropriate documented provision ensuring your primary school child receives specialized support addressing their special educational needs properly throughout their crucial formative learning years when early intervention makes the greatest difference to long-term educational outcomes and emotional wellbeing.