Gathering parent and pupil views for an EHCP annual review

Why the views are not an add-on

Section 19 of the Children and Families Act 2014 requires local authorities to have regard to the views, wishes and feelings of the child, young person and parents, and to the importance of their participating as fully as possible in decisions. The SEND Code of Practice carries that into the review of an education, health and care (EHC) plan: the review must be undertaken in partnership with the child and parents or the young person and take account of their views (paragraphs 9.166 to 9.168), and whoever arranges the meeting must seek advice and information from everyone invited and circulate it at least two weeks before the meeting (9.176; SEND Regulations 2014, regulation 20).

For the SENCO (or SENDCo), the practical point is that views gathered properly make the meeting shorter and the report stronger. Views gathered on the day, or not at all, make the review a conversation about the school rather than the pupil. For the statutory steps around the meeting, see the EHCP annual review process.

Timing: six weeks out, two weeks to return

Send the parent form about six weeks before the meeting and ask for it back within two weeks. That leaves time to follow up once, include the views in the papers that go out two weeks before the meeting, and still hold the meeting inside the 12-month limit. The annual review planner gives the send-by dates from the plan date. Gather the pupil’s views in the same window so both sets reflect the same term; the annual review checklist places them in the wider sequence.

Date everything. Undated views cannot be compared with last year’s, and that comparison is often the most useful evidence of progress a review has.

Parent and carer views: what to ask

Keep the form short and in plain English. Do not ask parents to comment on the plan section by section; most families do not think in Section E terms, and the school can do the mapping. Six questions cover what the review needs:

1. What is going well for your child at the moment, at school and at home?
2. What is your child finding difficult?
3. What support is making a difference, and is there anything that is not working?
4. What are your hopes for your child over the next year, and in the longer term?
5. Has anything changed at home, with health, or with other services that we should know about?
6. Is there anything you would like to discuss at the meeting?

Offer alternatives to a written form: a phone call with a note of what was said read back to the parent, a meeting with an interpreter, or a voice message. Record how the views were gathered so the method can be repeated next year and so the authority knows the views are the parent’s own.

Consent to share

Parents’ views will be circulated to the authority, to health and social care representatives and to other invitees. Say so on the form and ask for explicit agreement to share. If a parent declines, their views can still inform the school’s thinking but should not be reproduced in the papers; record that views were given but not shared, and invite the parent to give them in person at the meeting. State plainly who will see the form and where it will be stored; the form holds special category data about the pupil and the school is the data controller for it.

Pupil views: methods by age and need

The right method is the one the pupil can use honestly. Options that work in schools:

• A conversation with a trusted adult using three prompts: what I am good at, what I find hard, what helps me. Record it in the pupil’s words.
• A one-page profile: what people like and admire about me, what is important to me, how best to support me.
• Drawing, photographs or a short video for pupils who find talking difficult, with a short written note of what the pupil indicated.
• Symbol-supported or yes/no formats for pupils who use alternative communication, prepared with the speech and language therapist where one is involved.
• For pupils in Year 9 and above, a short written form or a recorded conversation about what they want after school, which also feeds the preparing-for-adulthood focus the review must have from Year 9 (Code of Practice 9.183).

Separate the pupil’s views from the adult’s interpretation. “Sam said he hates reading in front of the class” is a view. “Sam has low confidence in literacy” is an interpretation, and belongs in the school report.

Using the views in the meeting and the report

Open the meeting with the pupil’s views, read in their words or presented by the pupil if they want to attend. Then the parents’ views. Only then move to the school’s evidence. Starting this way sets what the meeting is for, and in practice it changes which recommendations get made.

In the written report, quote the views and show where they influenced the recommendations: a hope expressed by a parent might become a revised outcome in Section E; a difficulty named by the pupil might reveal a gap in Section F. Where a view was not acted on, say why. Any proposed change to Section A should use the family’s words, not the school’s summary of them.

Accessibility and fairness

• Translate forms or offer interpreted calls where English is not the family’s first language.
• Offer the form in a format the parent can use: paper, an online form, or a call.
• Where parents are separated, seek views from both where both hold parental responsibility, and record each separately.
• For looked-after children, involve the carer and the social worker, and make sure the virtual school knows the review date.
• Give a named contact and a date by which views are needed, and follow up once, kindly.

Doing this at scale

With a caseload of 25 plans, individual emails and paper forms cost a surprising number of hours and are easy to lose. A fixed form, sent on a fixed timetable and filed on the pupil’s record when it comes back, is the difference between a review season that is tiring and one that is unmanageable. Sendiphany sends parent contribution forms and staff feedback forms by secure, time-limited link, records whether the parent agreed to sharing, and keeps each response dated on the pupil’s record ready for the review pack.