Annual review checklist for SENCOs

How to use this checklist

Only a few annual review dates are fixed by law: the plan must be reviewed within 12 months, invitations and papers go out at least two weeks before the meeting, the school’s report goes out within two weeks after it and the local authority decides within four weeks. Those steps are marked “statutory” below and explained, with the regulations, in the EHCP annual review process. Everything else here is the practice that makes the statutory steps happen on time.

With a caseload of twenty or more education, health and care (EHC) plans, set every meeting date for the year in September, spread them across the terms and run this list on a rolling basis. A SENCO (or SENDCo) who batches invitations and parent forms once a half term saves hours compared with one who handles each review as it comes up.

At the start of the year

• List every pupil with a plan, the date of the plan or last review, and the 12-month due date. The annual review planner gives the due date, a suggested meeting date and the notice dates from either.
• Flag phase-transfer reviews (Year 6, Year 11 and any other move between phases, such as infant to junior) and bring them forward to the autumn term so the amended plan can be issued by 15 February, or 31 March for post-16 moves (regulation 18(3)).
• Flag Year 9 reviews, which must include a focus on preparing for adulthood, and any pupil who will need a post-16 provider invited.
• Check whether any under-fives’ plans should be reviewed more often; the Code suggests every three to six months as good practice (paragraph 9.178), which is not a legal duty.
• Set a provisional meeting date for each review at least three weeks before the due date, so the authority’s four-week decision does not run past the 12-month limit.
• Confirm the authority’s preferred review paperwork, where to send the report, and who its officer is for your school.

Eight weeks before the meeting

• Confirm the meeting date and room, checking it with the parents or young person first, and ask who they would like to attend with them.
• Send a staff feedback form to each class or subject teacher asking for strengths, difficulties, strategies that work, progress against each Section E outcome and concerns.
• Request updated reports from any involved professionals (speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, educational psychology, CAMHS, social care), giving the date you need them by.
• Pull together progress data since the last review: attainment, standardised scores, attendance, suspensions and incidents.
• Pull the delivery log for Section F: sessions planned against sessions delivered, and any period when provision lapsed.

Six weeks before

• Gather the pupil’s views in a way that suits them (conversation, drawing, photos, a one-page profile) and date the record.
• Send the parent or carer views form with a short covering note explaining what the meeting is for and what happens afterwards; see parent and pupil views for annual reviews.
• Read the current plan against reality: is every line of Section F being delivered as written? Note any gaps honestly, with dates.

Four weeks before

• Draft the school’s report: progress against each outcome with evidence, delivery of provision, change in needs since the plan was written, and recommendations for Sections B, E, F and I with reasons.
• Chase any outstanding professional reports and the parent form, once, kindly.
• Prepare the invitation list: parents or young person, the authority’s SEN officer, health and social care representatives, any other professional involved, and for Year 9 onwards any post-16 provider.

At least two weeks before (statutory)

• Send written invitations to everyone on the list. Two weeks is the minimum notice (regulation 20; Code of Practice 9.176). Keep a copy with the date sent.
• Circulate the advice and information gathered, including the school report, parent views, pupil views and professional reports, to all invitees.
• Record who has confirmed. Apologies from the authority are common; the meeting goes ahead anyway, and the report will reach the officer within two weeks.

The week of the meeting

• Reread Section A and the pupil’s views so the meeting opens with them.
• Prepare a simple agenda: welcome and purpose; pupil’s views; parents’ views; progress against each outcome; provision delivered; needs; recommendations; next steps and dates.
• Arrange for someone other than the chair to take notes.
• Check access needs for attendees, including interpreters, and whether the pupil wants to attend all or part of the meeting.

At the meeting

• Record attendees and apologies.
• Work through each Section E outcome with evidence, and agree whether it is achieved, on track or needs changing.
• Agree recommendations for the authority: maintain, amend (with specific wording for any change to B, E, F or I), or cease, and record where views differ.
• Agree the school’s short-term targets for the coming terms.
• Tell the family what happens next and when: report within two weeks, authority decision within four weeks, and what to do if nothing arrives.

Within two weeks after (statutory)

• Finalise the report and send it to everyone who was invited and to the authority (regulation 20). Send it by email so the date is on record, and note the four-week decision date in the covering message.
• File the report, the views and the professional reports on the pupil’s record so the pack exists for next year.
• Update the provision map and termly targets to reflect what was agreed, while continuing to deliver the current Section F until any amended plan is issued.

Within four weeks after

• Diarise the authority’s decision date (four weeks from the meeting) and, if nothing has arrived the day after, chase in writing quoting regulation 20 with the parents copied in. The routine is in logging local authority communication.
• When the decision arrives, check it against the school’s recommendations and tell the parents what it means in plain terms.
• If amendments are proposed, check the amendment notice for every recommended change and respond within the 15-day comment period; diarise eight weeks from the notice for the amended plan.
• Record the date of this review as the start of the next 12-month cycle.

Keeping the cycle going

The reviews that run smoothly are the ones where the evidence was collected during the year, not in the fortnight before. Termly target reviews against the Section E outcomes, a dated log of what provision was actually delivered, and a habit of filing every report when it arrives turn the eight-week checklist into a tidying-up exercise rather than a research project.

Sendiphany tracks each pupil’s review date with reminders, sends staff feedback and parent contribution forms by secure link, keeps termly targets and progress against the plan, and compiles a review pack from what is already recorded.