SEN Journey: Annual Review

The LA must give advance notification to parents when they are proposing to cease to maintain an EHCP. This is in the form of  a written notice. It must consult with parents before ceasing an EHCP and advise the date at which they intend to cease maintaining it. This means that support does NOT stop following the issuing of this notice. Parents and schools are able to respond to the LA with their their feedback if they do not agree with the proposed date and are able to appeal to SENDIST. The support in the EHCP must be provided until the appeal is concluded.
In order for the Annual Review to be valid, professionals and schools must send any reports or documents they rely on in the Annual Review meeting to ALL those attending the meeting two weeks before the meeting takes place.
No. The LA cannot reduce the provision after the Annual Review, the current EHCP remains in force until it is formally amended. Until the LA completes the process of issuing a draft, consulting with parents and issuing a final amended EHCP, they have to continue supplying all the support in that EHCP.
The LA must arrange a statutory review of the EHCP at least once every 12 months. But you can ask for an early review at any time as long as you have good reason. If you believe it is urgent to do so - needs and provision are not accurate as they currently are for example - then you should ask the LA to conduct a review as soon as possible. This should be led by the LA but you should advise the school first.  
Yes you can ask for an early statutory review of an EHCP but you should have a good reason for doing so. Reasons for doing that would be:
  • that Section B is no longer accurate -  education, health or social care needs have changed
  • Section F therefore is no longer accurate and not meeting those changed needs.
  • a child or young person is at risk of exclusion or has been excluded and urgent review of needs and provision is required
 
The annual review must take place within 12 months of the last review, or of the date the EHC plan was first issued.  The appeal doesn't impact this happening. It could be an opportunity for some matters to be resolved that you are appealing - and the annual review can and should include elements of the Plan which aren't being appealed and/or can't be appealed, e.g. section E. If the LA issues a new draft amended EHC plan after the annual review, this can be wrapped into the appeal, and you can request to treat the draft amended EHCP as the working document in the current appeal, rather than having to register a new appeal.