You said, we did - Timing of requests for education health and care needs assessments

The SEND Service is continuously looking at ways to improve collaborative working with schools, parents and other partners. As you will be aware making a request for an EHC needs assessment is a legal right and you are free to do so at any time.

However, following feedback that consultations (week 16-17 of the 20 week process) were falling in periods of schools closure, such as the summer holidays and other two-week holidays, we have created a calendar which indicates ‘good’ (colour coded in green) submission weeks that will avoid this happening for you.

View the calendar for 2023-2024 (PDF).

The calendar also takes into consideration external advice givers such as Educational Psychologists, who need to complete an assessment (week 6-12 of the 20 week process) of the child or young person in context and speak to school staff, as they know them well.

If this assessment period falls in the summer holidays when schools are closed, it significantly impacts on the quality of the assessment which has implications for the child, family and school.

In addition to the calendar, we have also created a spreadsheet which indicates when the assessment period would typically fall (week 6-12) as well as the consultation period based on each submission week. This spreadsheet also indicates when any of these key dates falls during a period of school closure, for two weeks or more.

View the spreadsheet (CSV).

It’s important to reiterate this is just guidance and you are free to submit a request at any time.