Quick answer: An EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan) is a legal document for children and young people aged 0–25 whose special educational needs can't be met by the support ordinarily available in their school or college. Issued by the local authority after a statutory assessment, it describes the child's needs and, crucially, the provision that must legally be delivered to meet them. The full process from request to final plan should take no more than 20 weeks.
More than half a million children and young people in England now have an EHCP, and the number has risen every year since plans replaced "statements" in 2014, yet the system remains one of the most confusing things a parent or a new teaching assistant will ever meet. Here's what a plan actually is, how the process works week by week, what the lettered sections mean, and what the document does (and doesn't) guarantee.
Who needs an EHCP, and who doesn't?
Most children with special educational needs don't have, and don't need, an EHCP. The SEND Code of Practice sets out a graduated approach: schools first provide SEN support from their own resources, adapted teaching, interventions, support staff time, reviewed in cycles of assess, plan, do, review. An EHCP becomes relevant when a child's needs are greater than SEN support can meet: the plan brings local-authority-funded provision, legal enforceability, and continuity from nursery through to age 25 in further education.
The legal framework is the Children and Families Act 2014, which also gives parents and young people (from 16) the right to request an assessment themselves, a school's agreement helps but is not required.
How does the EHCP process work?
The statutory timeline is fixed:
| Stage | What happens | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Request | Parent, young person (16+) or school asks the local authority for an EHC needs assessment | Week 0 |
| 2. Decision to assess | LA decides whether to carry out the assessment | Within 6 weeks |
| 3. Assessment | LA gathers advice: educational psychologist, school, health, social care, parents' and child's views | Weeks 6–16 |
| 4. Decision to issue | LA decides whether to issue a plan; if not, it must explain why | Within 16 weeks |
| 5. Draft plan | Family receives the draft, has at least 15 days to comment and name a preferred school | Weeks 16–18 |
| 6. Final plan | Final EHCP issued | Within 20 weeks of the original request |
Every "no" along the way, refusal to assess, refusal to issue, or disagreement with the plan's contents or named school, carries a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal, and a large majority of appeals historically succeed at least in part, so a refusal is the start of a process, not the end of one.
What do sections A to K of an EHCP mean?
An EHCP is organised into lettered sections, and knowing which ones carry legal weight is the single most useful thing to understand:
- A, the child's and family's views, interests and aspirations
- B, the child's special educational needs
- C / D, health and social care needs related to their SEN
- E, the outcomes the plan is working towards
- F, the special educational provision required: the legally enforceable heart of the plan
- G / H, health and social care provision
- I, the school or institution named
- J, personal budget details, where one is agreed
- K, the professional advice gathered during assessment
Section F is where precision matters: provision should be specific and quantified (what support, how often, delivered by whom) because the local authority has an absolute legal duty to deliver what Section F says. Vague wording, "access to adult support", "regular interventions", is the most common weakness families and schools challenge. Once a school is named in Section I, it must admit the child.
What happens after the plan is issued?
The plan is reviewed at least annually (every six months for under-5s) at an annual review meeting involving the family, school and local authority, which can amend, maintain or, with evidence, cease the plan. In the classroom, day-to-day delivery of Section F usually runs through the SENCO and the support staff who work with the child most: teaching assistants deliver many of the interventions an EHCP specifies, record progress against Section E outcomes, and contribute evidence to reviews. Our guides to becoming an SEN teaching assistant and behaviour management for TAs cover that side of the partnership in detail.
What does this mean if you work (or want to work) in schools?
EHCP literacy is now a core employability skill for school support staff: interviews routinely ask how you'd deliver plan provision, and the number of pupils with plans keeps rising. The recognised qualifications all cover supporting pupils with SEND as an assessed area, the Level 3 Certificate in Supporting Teaching and Learning covers SEND support within the whole TA role, the Level 3 Teaching Assistant course is the standard route into paid TA work, and HLTA Level 4 prepares you to lead provision and liaise with SENCOs directly. All are studied online around work on a monthly subscription, with a 7-day free trial so you can read the SEND units before committing.
For parents, the best free support is your local SENDIASS (SEND Information, Advice and Support Service), every local authority area has one, and they advise independently on requests, drafts and appeals.
Author: Lift College Editorial