Get help with your child's progress

If the school or college thinks your child needs more help, they may ask us to do an assessment for an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. This is called an Education, Health and Care Needs assessment.

Ask for an assessment

Ask the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) at your child’s nursery, school, or college if you think your child needs an assessment. (The SENCO is a teacher who is trained to identify children with special educational needs and make sure the children get all the help they need.)
You can work together with your child's school and they will complete a local authority request on your behalf.

Alternatively, you can ask the Special Educational Needs Assessment Service (SENA) directly to assess your child by completing our request and consent forms below and emailing them to senaservice@leics.gov.uk

Please note: The consent form will have to be downloaded and hand signed by a person with parental responsibilities, then scanned and emailed together with the request form.

Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment (EHCNA) process

1. After you apply for an assessment, you will receive an acknowledgement that the application has been logged.
2. SENA will review your application and decide whether an assessment is needed:
   • Assessment is agreed: We'll make consistent needs-based decisions on provision to best support the assessed, and eligible needs that have been identified, communicating these effectively. This stage of the process is managed by a Case Manager, who will be in contact to introduce themselves and discuss the next steps with you - this person is not expected to change until your first final has been issued.
   • Refusal to assess: We'll write to you to explain our decision, which gives you the right to appeal. Depending on the reasons, we'll either offer to meet you to discuss what your child needs, discuss what other help your child needs and put it in place, or discuss your child’s SEND Support Plan with their school, nursery, or college if we think you haven’t been listened to. We may also arrange a meeting in the nursery, school, or college.
3. After the assessment, SENA will consider the information gathered about the child’s needs and progress and decide if a plan should be written. You'll be informed by letter or email of the assessment outcome, once all key information is received and reviewed.
   • EHCP is issued: you will be sent a copy, known as a ‘draft’. You will have 15 days to review this draft and offer your feedback, after which point the plan will be ‘finalised’. Once it becomes a legal document, that must be upheld.
   • Refusal to issue a plan: We'll write to you to tell you our decision and how you can appeal. You can also request a meeting with SENA to discuss their decision and get information on how your child can be better supported.

SEND assessment pathway infographic    PDF,  157 kbOpens new window

How we decide if your child needs an assessment

SENA will:

• Contact your child’s nursery, school, or college to find out more about your child
• Look at your child’s Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Support Plan, if they have one
• Consider information provided by the child, parents / carers, and other professionals
• Decide whether to carry out an EHCNA
• Write to you to tell you whether or not we’re going to do an assessment

Decisions are made based on the guidance in the Special Needs Code of Practice

One-page profile

You’ll be asked to create a one-page profile as part of the assessment.

Someone to help you

You can get someone to help you during the assessment. They are called an ‘independent supporter’.