The annual review email arrives, and somewhere in the house is a year of reports you’re meant to turn into a view on whether the plan is working. Skimming it the night before is what happens when the job is bigger than your time.
What most parents and carers want from the meeting is simple: to go in knowing what should have happened this year, what didn’t, and what to ask for next. Not to sit across the table nodding at things you haven’t had a chance to check. The free SEND Parents Help assistant can do the comparison for you beforehand: paste in Section F and the year’s reports, and it’ll map what the plan promised against what the reports show, flag anything that looks undelivered, and draft your parent contribution. You turn up with the gaps already named. If you’re still getting your head around plans, start with what an EHCP is and whether your child needs one.
Start with this prompt
Gather the year’s paperwork, open the assistant, paste this in, and fill in the brackets. It sets up the whole comparison in one go.
I’m preparing for my child’s EHCP annual review. My child is [age] and their main needs are [brief summary]. Here is Section F of the current plan: [paste Section F]. Here are this year’s reports: [paste the reports, or upload them]. Please give me: 1) a list of what Section F requires versus what the reports show is actually happening, flagging anything that looks undelivered or watered down, 2) any signs that my child’s needs have changed since the plan was written, 3) a draft parent contribution of about one page that I can edit, and 4) a list of questions and points to raise at the review meeting.
One tap opens the assistant with this prompt ready. Edit the parts in [square brackets] once you are there. Prefer to do it by hand? Copy it and paste it in yourself.
Open the assistant with this promptThe assistant asks questions before it drafts, so a rough start is fine. New to ChatGPT? Our two-minute setup guide gets you a free account. If your reports are on paper or in PDFs, our free Doc Tools page pulls the text out in your browser, with nothing uploaded, ready to paste in.
What to bring to the review
- Gather evidence of progress against outcomes. Pull together the last 12 months: school progress reports, therapy updates, Educational Psychologist input, and your own notes, alongside Section B (needs) and Section F (provision).
- Name what’s working and what isn’t. Section F is legally binding and the LA must deliver every word of it, unless you’ve made your own suitable alternative arrangements for that provision, so put what it promises next to what the reports show. If something is missing, check whether it happened and just wasn’t written up before you raise it.
- Propose specific changes to provision. If needs have changed, say so plainly and ask for it to be recorded. If therapy genuinely isn’t happening, that’s a legal problem, not a budget question, and you can raise a complaint with the school or council using AI. If you want to check what the current draft says provision should look like, our guide to checking a draft EHCP with AI works for amended plans too.
- Request amendments in writing. Disagreements should go in the meeting record, because the written report is what the LA acts on. Send your one-page parent contribution to the school beforehand so it’s circulated with the other reports.
A few key facts
- Your Local Authority (LA) must review the EHCP at least every 12 months under section 44 of the Children and Families Act 2014.
- You must get at least 2 weeks’ notice, and all reports must be circulated at least 2 weeks before the meeting, under regulation 20 of the SEND Regulations 2014. If they haven’t arrived, you can ask for the meeting to be postponed.
- If your child is changing school phase, the amended final plan must be issued by 15 February for a primary-to-secondary transfer, or 31 March for moves into post-16, under regulation 18.
- In 2024, around 70,900 plans nationally were overdue a review, according to the Department for Education’s EHCP statistics. Missed deadlines are common but never lawful.
The clock after the meeting is set by the SEND Regulations 2014 and it binds the LA, not you. The school sends its report to you and the LA within 2 weeks. The LA then has 4 weeks to tell you in writing whether it will keep, amend, or cease the plan, and any amended final plan must follow within 8 more weeks: a maximum of 12 weeks from meeting to final plan. If the decision letter hasn’t arrived 4 weeks after the meeting, chase it in writing and ask the assistant to help you draft the letter. If the LA ceases the plan or amends it in ways you disagree with, you can appeal to the SEND Tribunal within 2 months of the decision letter, or 1 month from a mediation certificate, whichever is later; our guide to appealing an EHCP decision walks through the process.
Check it yourself before the meeting
The assistant makes preparation faster, but a few things still need your own eyes:
- Quotes from Section F. Check any wording the assistant attributes to the plan against the actual document before you cite it.
- Dates and deadlines. Count the 2-week and 4-week windows from your own calendar, using the real meeting date.
- What actually happened. The reports may say sessions were delivered. You know whether your child came home talking about them.
- Your contribution. Read the final draft aloud. It should sound like you, with your examples, not a template.
If your child is in Year 9 or above, the review must also cover preparing for adulthood, and from 16 your young person holds the rights in the process themselves, so involve them where you can. If the LA uses the review to refuse to maintain the plan, see what to do when the LA refuses to assess or amend, and for appeals that go further, what to expect at the SEND Tribunal sets out the process.
Getting help
- IPSEA publishes template letters and a checklist for annual reviews, including when the LA misses deadlines.
- Your local SENDIASS can help you prepare and may attend with you. Find yours through the Council for Disabled Children’s IASS Network.
- Contact, the charity for families with disabled children, runs a free helpline and plain-English guidance on EHCP reviews.