EHCP annual reviews: getting your evidence ready

An annual review is a meeting (or a series of conversations) where everyone involved with your child looks at the EHCP together: whether the outcomes are still the right ones, whether the support in place is working, and what should change. Parents, the child or young person, and professionals such as the class teacher, SENCO or CAMHS worker are normally asked to give their views beforehand.

The plan is only as good as the evidence behind it. Reviews go better when people arrive with concrete, dated examples rather than general impressions — and the local authority then uses the outcome of the review to decide whether to keep, change or cease the plan.

For exact legal timescales and your right of appeal, we recommend IPSEA's annual review guidance at ipsea.org.uk — they are the UK's leading SEND legal charity. This page is practical guidance, not legal advice.

Panels and review meetings respond to specifics. Before the review, it helps to have notes that capture, for each example:

• The date and the setting — where it happened (home, classroom, break, travel).
• What you observed — what the child actually did or said, described factually.
• The impact — what it meant for their learning, wellbeing or participation.
• What support was tried — and what happened as a result.
• Whether it helped — what worked, and what did not, without blaming anyone.

Notice what is missing: diagnostic language. "Dysregulated" or "has ADHD" tells a reviewer less than "on 14 October, at break, he left the classroom after five minutes of group work; with a quiet exit pass he stayed for the full session." Needs-led, observed facts are harder to argue with, and kinder to the child.

• Ask the school for its view of progress against each outcome in the plan.
• Collect any reports from speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, CAMHS or educational psychology that are dated since the last review.
• Read through your own notes, diaries or app records and pick out the clearest three to five examples across home and school.
• Check whether the current outcomes still describe your child as they are now, not as they were a year ago.

The child or young person's views must be sought as part of the review — and they carry real weight. Depending on their age and communication style, this might be a conversation, a one-page profile, drawings, or short quotes you've recorded with their permission. Where they can, ask what is going well, what is hard, and what they would change about their support.

Recording their agreement or disagreement with things like sharing information, or using their records as evidence, keeps their consent visible — dated and reviewed, not assumed.

• Start from the outcomes in the plan, one at a time, and ask: is this still right, and is the support achieving it?
• Bring your dated examples and read two or three of the strongest aloud — the ones that show both what helped and what didn't.
• Ask each professional present what they have observed, and note who said what so you can follow up afterwards.
• Agree specific changes: new outcomes, new provision, who is responsible, and how you'll know it's working by next year.

Ask when you will receive the written outcome and the amended plan, and keep a copy of everything you submitted. Reviews are annual, but you don't have to wait a year to flag a significant change — new evidence can be gathered at any time and shared with the school, and you can request an early review if circumstances change substantially.

The most useful thing you can do between reviews is keep recording. A pattern that takes months to see is very hard to reconstruct from memory the week before a meeting.

NeuroPathway Ecosystem is built around exactly this evidence loop — record, try support, review the outcome, share:

• Observations are recorded with the date, context, observed need, impact, support provided and outcome — the structure above, ready-made.
• Parent-approved sharing lets school, CAMHS or GP staff you invite see the child's profile and submit their own observations — but only you approve what enters the shared record, and only if you've recorded the matching consent.
• Optional AI help can tidy a free-text note into neutral, evidence-focused wording — as a draft for you to review, with the original kept alongside it. Nothing is sent to the AI unless you ask.
• Consent records keep every sharing decision, and the child's own agreement, as a dated history that can't be quietly overwritten.

Everything is needs-led and observational. NeuroPathway does not diagnose, and no AI draft is used without a person checking it.

Three ready-made templates that match the structure of this guide. They are free to download, print and fill in — no account needed:

• Evidence log spreadsheet (.xlsx)

  One row per dated observation — setting, what you saw, impact, support tried, and whether it helped. Includes a review preparation checklist on the second tab.

• My views — one-page profile (printable)

  Captures the child's own views for the review: what is going well, what is hard, what helps, and what they would change — with a space to record their agreement to share.

• Annual review meeting notes (printable)

  A structured note sheet for the meeting itself: who attended, each outcome discussed, the examples you shared, and the changes agreed with named responsibilities.

The printable templates open in your browser — use your browser's print function to print them or save them as PDF. If you use NeuroPathway, the evidence log mirrors exactly what the app records, so you can copy your saved observations straight in.