Drafting your child's Education, Health and Care Plan

Section A - expectations and aspirations

• Julie wants to be able to “read books like my big sister”.

Section B - vision impairment and special educational needs

• Julie has Retinopathy of Prematurity. This is a condition that occurs in babies born very prematurely where abnormal blood vessels develop at the back of the eye. This is a significant visual impairment which can result in reduced visual acuity (clarity of vision).
• Julie has Congenital Nystagmus. This causes rapid, involuntary eye movements and reduced visual acuity, causing her vision to fluctuate according to levels of fatigue, anxiety or illness.
• Julie’s distance visual acuities were last assessed as 6/18 with both eyes open. This means that what someone with normal vision can see at 18 metres, Julie would need to be at six metres to see with the same degree of clarity.
• Julie’s near visual acuity is also reduced meaning that she requires large-print reading materials in N18 (this means near vision print size 18). 
• Julie has no other additional special educational needs or disabilities.

Section F - provision

• Julie must have one hour of QTVI support per week for direct teaching and liaison with her class teacher/teaching assistant (TA).
• Julie must have 15 minutes daily directed time with a TA for reading and phonics activities.
• INSET for whole school staff must be provided by a QTVI from the Sensory Support Team in the summer term before Julie starts school in September.
• Julie needs to be seated towards the front of class in a central position and close to the action to visually access whole class teaching.
• All printed materials must be presented to Julie in N18 (this means near vision print size 18) on white A4 paper.
• All resources must be sourced and modified by the school TA and specialist TA from the Sensory Support Service in advance of the lesson and presented to Julie at the same time as her peers receive their resources.
• Julie must have access to her specialist equipment in all lessons including her sloping board, Dycem (non-slip mat) and black felt tip pen.

Section E - outcomes

• By the end of the reception year, Julie will be able to:
  • Blend sounds to read all Phase 3 tricky words, for example, fizz, chip, sheep, light.
  • Decode and read accurately 25 of the 54 words from the reception high frequency words list.

• By the end of the spring term, Julie will be able to:
  • Accurately recognise and name all letters in the alphabet and their associated sounds.
  • Blend sounds to read all Phase 1 CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, for example, pin, tap, sit.
  • Decode and read accurately 15 of the 54 words from the reception high frequency words list.

This section must:

• Describe in detail all of your child’s special educational needs (which would have been identified during the assessment). These may include health and social care provision if that provision supports your child’s education. For example:
  • Habilitation support from a qualified Habilitation Specialist to give your child increased independence around the school and the opportunity to mix more with fellow pupils.
  • Medical intervention, if your child would struggle to maintain concentration in class without it.

• Be written in plain English.
• Describe where your child is ‘right now’.
• Include a description of the current functioning of your child, i.e. what they can/can’t do.

Top tips

• When you get to see the draft of the plan, check that your child’s areas of need are organised together in the same part of the plan to avoid repetition.
• Apply this simple test: could someone who didn’t know your child pick up the document and easily find out what their priority areas of educational development are?

Why is Section E important?

The EHCP describes the outcomes that your child wants to achieve and what needs to be put in place to ensure that happens. Section E tells us whether or not the plan is working!

This section must include outcomes that are SMART:

S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Achievable
R = Realistic
T = Time bound

When writing outcomes for the EHCP, they must be measurable so you can see if your child has achieved what was set out in the plan. Here’s an example of an EHCP with a set of agreed outcomes under Section E.

The EHCP should be reviewed at least once a year at an annual review, with Section E being a key focus. If your child isn’t achieving the outcomes that were set out in the plan, then the plan needs to be looked at again and amended accordingly.

Top tip

• An EHCP should detail the range of outcomes for your child that cover not only education but also health and social care.

Post-16 education, health and social care outcomes

The EHCP outcomes for young people focus on four areas that will help them prepare for adulthood:

• Higher education/employment
• Independent living
• Participating in society
• Being as healthy as possible 

The EHCP should give details of what the young person hopes for in terms of employment and provide careers guidance to help the young person achieve those outcomes. 

This section must:

• Quantify and specify the provision needed to meet the special educational needs of your child. The provision should be described in a way that leaves no room for doubt about:
  • What support is to be provided
  • By whom
  • How the support will be delivered
  • Frequency of support (daily, weekly, monthly, termly, yearly)
• Detail facilities, equipment, staffing and modifications to, or exclusions from, the curriculum.
• Include any health and social care that ‘seeks to train or educate’. For example, if habilitation training will help in your child’s education or training, then this can be put into the education parts of the plan, making the support legally binding.

This section must:

• Give the name and type of school, maintained nursery school, post-16 institution or other institution. It will also state the type of institution, i.e. whether it’s in a specialist setting, independent setting etc. 
• The child’s school will not be named in the draft plan; it will only be named in Section I once the plan has been finalised.