Check Your Draft EHCP for Problems Using AI

The draft of your child’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) has arrived. After months of waiting, you’ve got a thick document, at least 15 days to respond, and a question nobody warned you about: is this actually good enough? Not whether it mentions your child’s needs, but whether the wording is specific enough to enforce. That distinction is everything, and it’s easy to miss when you’re reading it alone at the kitchen table. Check the draft line by line with the free SEND Parents Help assistant, and it’ll flag every vague phrase, find needs with no matching provision, and help you write your response before the deadline.

Start with this prompt

Get your draft into text, open the assistant, paste this in, and fill in the brackets. It sets up the section-by-section audit the LA will need to respond to.

I’ve received a draft EHCP for my child, who is [age] and has [diagnosis or main difficulties]. I’ll paste it section by section, starting with Section B and then Section F. For Section F, give me a table of every vague phrase, such as “access to”, “regular”, “as appropriate” or “opportunities for”, with a specific and quantified rewrite for each one stating the type of support, how often, how long, and who delivers it. Then check every need in Section B against Section F and list any need that has no matching provision. Here’s the first section: [paste]

The assistant asks questions before it drafts, so work in shorter chunks for more careful answers. New to ChatGPT? Our two-minute setup guide gets you a free account. If your draft is on paper or in a PDF, our free document tools page pulls the text out in your browser, with nothing uploaded, ready to paste in. Once the audit is done, ask the assistant to turn it into a response letter to the LA, and compare it against IPSEA’s model letter for responding to a draft EHCP.

What to check in the draft

The magic words for every rewrite are specified and quantified. As you work through each section with the assistant, push every soft phrase towards numbers:

• Section F provision must be specific and quantified, not vague. “Regular speech therapy” commits the LA to nothing. “Weekly 45-minute direct speech and language therapy sessions delivered by a qualified Speech and Language Therapist” can be checked, counted, and enforced. Do the same for support hours and interventions: name the type, sessions per week, minutes per session, and who delivers it.
• Every need and recommendation should appear as provision. Cross-check that each need in Section B has matching provision in Section F, and that anything an educational psychologist or other professional recommended made it in rather than being quietly dropped.
• Outcomes must be measurable. Vague outcomes can’t be tracked, so ask for ones you can actually tell have been met.
• Name the placement in Section I. Section I is deliberately blank in a draft, which is your invitation to name the school you want. The LA must consult the school you name.

If the draft weakens the provision the reports call for, raise it now rather than after you sign off. If a finalised plan still isn’t delivered, you can complain to the school or council with AI help. If the wording itself is too vague to enforce, our guide to appealing an EHCP decision covers your options.

A few key facts

• You have at least 15 days to respond. Regulation 13 of the SEND Regulations 2014 gives you a minimum of 15 days to comment, ask for a meeting, or request a school.
• Section F is legally binding. Under section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014, the local authority (LA) must deliver everything specified in Section F, unless you’ve made your own suitable alternative arrangements for that provision.
• Once your young person reaches the end of compulsory school age (the last Friday in June of Year 11), the right to respond transfers to them, so work through it together where you can.

If the draft hasn’t arrived yet, start with our guide to what an EHCP is and whether your child needs one.

Check it yourself before you act

AI can be confidently wrong, and you decide what’s true about your child. Before you send your response:

• Read the audited draft back as yourself. Does Section B describe the child you live with, covering sensory needs, anxiety, toileting, sleep, and communication where relevant, not just academics?
• Watch for out-of-date information. Drafts sometimes recycle old reports that no longer describe your child.
• Swap your child’s full name for initials before pasting into ChatGPT. The audit works the same and you share less.
• Nothing you write at this stage waives your rights. You can agree most of the draft, challenge the rest, and still appeal the final plan.

Getting help

You don’t have to do this alone:

• IPSEA offers free legal advice on EHCPs, including what to do when you receive your draft plan.
• Your local SENDIASS provides free, impartial support and can go through the draft with you.
• The SEND Parents Help assistant covers draft EHCPs in depth, so keep asking it questions until you know what to send back.

Sources and further reading

Legislation and official guidance

• Children and Families Act 2014, section 37 (content of EHCPs)
• Children and Families Act 2014, section 42 (duty to secure Section F provision)
• SEND Regulations 2014, regulation 13 (draft plans and the 15-day response period)
• SEND Code of Practice (statutory guidance on EHCPs, including the requirement for provision to be detailed and specific)