SEND - Local offer

Parent and Carers are encouraged to share their views before or during the meeting, schools and settings will provide a template for parent carers and family carers to complete.

Parent Carers and Family Carers can request support from SEND IASS (Information Advice and Support Service) to prepare for Annual Reviews.

SEND IASS

The local authority encourages families, schools and settings to encourage children and young people to attend their Annual Review. This may be for the whole meeting or part of the meeting, as appropriate.

Children and young people can share their views in an imaginative or creative way, think about their one page profile. Children and young people’s views should include their short- and long-term aspirations. From year 9 and upwards, consider what their career path may look like and how they are preparing for adulthood.

How to share your views for your Annual Review

Anyone who works with your child or young person may come to the meeting but most importantly the parents carers the child or young person should have the opportunity to attend the Annual Review. Professionals may include:

School or Education Setting

Annual review meetings for Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans are typically held at the child or young person's educational setting, such as their school or college. Generally, the school SENCo (Special Educational Needs Coordinator) will run or chair the meeting.

School professionals may include:

• Class Teacher
• SENCo
• Headteacher
• TA (Teaching Assistant) 
• Key Worker

SEND Professionals

A Local Authority SEND Officer or Coordinator will try to attend Annual Reviews, the review is able to go ahead if they are not available. Attendance is prioritised for Annual Reviews that are discussing major changes to Education Health and Care plans, if specific advice is required, a change of placement is being discussed or an increase in funding is being requested.

SEND professionals may include:

• Educational Psychology
• Learning Support Advisory Teachers
• Portage (for Early Years children)
• Sensory Inclusion Service
• Early Years Advisory Teachers
• Behaviour Support Advisory Teacher

Health Professionals

Health professionals will likely need to complete a review assessment, write it up and discuss with child or young person, parent carer before the Annual Review meeting. Any professional who contributed to the current Education Health and Care plan, particularly if they set outcomes or have provision written into the EHCP may attend the annual review.

Health professionals may include:

• Speech and Language Therapist
• Occupational Therapists, Physio
• Paediatricians
• Psychologists
• Psychiatrists
• Mental Health Nurses
• Learning Disability Nurses
• Health Visitors
• School Nurses
• Wheelchair Services
• Orthotics
• Specialist Doctors/GPs

Social Care Professionals

A Social Care professional will be asked to attend if they have involvement with the family, or they may complete or review advice before the meeting.

Social Care professionals could include:

• Social Worker allocated to the family
• Early Help practitioner
• Strengthening Families
• Family Solutions worker
• Children with Disabilities Case Worker.

During the Annual Review, ‘live’ changes will be made to you child or young persons Education Health and Care plan. These changes will be based on the updated advice and/or reports that have been shared for the meeting. Discussions will take place about the changes and the plan should be displayed on a screen.

An overview of what the changes will look like are detailed below:

• Strikethrough – suggested text to be deleted e.g. Strikethrough
• Italics – suggested text to be added e.g. Italics   
• Cross out – Cross out any non text based information to be deleted

An example is shown below:

Don’t forget: From Year 9 and upwards an additional section is included to record information on preparing for adulthood, this will include careers advice from Future Focus

Plans will be amended when there is a significant change to the child or young persons details, special educational needs, outcomes or provision. Other areas to update plans are key transition points, to support move from nursery to school, between key stages and secondary school to post 16

• Reception
• Year 2
• Year 5
• Year 10

Any changes will need to be evidenced by professional reports, these can be provided by any professionals working with a child or young person. Such as:

• Class Teacher
• Internal Assessments
• Educational Psychologist
• Learning Support Advisory Teacher
• Behaviour Support Advisory Teacher
• Health professional, such as; Physiotherapist, Occupational Therapist, Speech and Language Therapist
• Social Worker or Social Care Professional

Top Tip: The local authority recommends that changes are made to plans during Year 5 and Year 10, to support transition in Year 6 and Year 11.

Top Tip: In the Year 11 Annual Review there will be a Post 16 Advisor present, they could be from Future Focus or the schools Careers Advisor.

Preparing for Adulthood will be considered in all Annual Reviews and reflected in the Outcomes. However, from Year 9 onwards there will be much more focus on:

• Vocational aspirations
• Prospective post 16 placements
• Independence skills – travel, personal care, organisation, money etc.
• Transition arrangements and how this might look to make the transition to post 16 as smooth as possible
• The type of support that might be needed post 16 – mentor/key person, meet and greet, quiet space, time out.