EDUCATIONAL ADVICE: NOTES ON COMPLETION OF AN EDUCATION,
HEALTH AND CARE ASSESSMENT
This guidance aims to assist educational specialists in the production of their advice
as a contribution towards an EHC Needs Assessment or transfer from a statement to
a plan of a child or young person’s education, health and care needs. Educational
specialists might include; ASD specialists, behaviour specialist, qualified teacher of
the visually impaired or qualified teacher of the hearing impaired. This guidance
should also be followed by Speech and Language Therapists as speech and
language therapy is almost always considered to be special educational provision for
a child or young person with communication difficulties.
The purpose of the EHC Needs Assessment is to gain a holistic picture of the
child/young person. However, the advice from professionals should be evidence
based and remain within their area of expertise. The purpose of the educational
advice should be to identify the child or young person’s special educational needs
(SEN) within the specialist’s area of expertise and make recommendations regarding
outcomes and provision. Related health and social care needs will be obtained
separately by professionals with expertise in these areas.
The commissioned service must normally respond within a maximum of 6 weeks
from the date of receiving the request for advice letter as specified in the SEND
Code of Practice. Please use the provided template to provide your advice and fill in
the required fields as fully as possible.
Assessment of special educational needs (SEN)
The assessment should follow a ‘tell us once’ approach so that families do not have
to repeat the same information to different agencies. Therefore, whenever possible,
information regarding the child or young person’s background should be obtained
from existing information.
Likewise, the child/young person’s or family views will usually be obtained from the
‘Preparing for Your Assessment’ Booklet or One Page Profile and therefore it will not
be necessary to obtain information regarding the child/young person’s or family
views unless specifically requested to do so or when pertinent to specialist
assessments.
Assessments of special educational need will be for the individual specialist to
determine according to their professional codes or area of expertise. However,
assessments should identify the child or young person’s strengths as well as their
areas of difficulty. Furthermore, needs that relate to a child or young person’s
disability rather than SEN should be explicit. SEN may include health and social care
needs that are treated as special educational provision because they educate or
train the child or young person. However, in this instance the recommendations for
provision should come from the relevant health or social care specialist.
Descriptions of special educational needs should specify the child or young person’s
learning difficulties rather than any development objectives or recommended
provision which should be reflected in the subsequent sections.
Outcomes
It should be noted that attendance will be required at an Outcomes meeting (or
Transfer review) as part of the statutory assessment. One purpose of this meeting
will be to devise long term person centred outcomes, in conjunction with the child
and parents/carers. Any outcomes devised should then form part of the advice.
Recommendations for special educational provision should be focussed on the child
or young person achieving the agreed outcomes. If an Educational specialist
considers that additional outcomes, not identified at the Outcomes meeting should
be specified then it is entirely appropriate to do so. However, it should be made
explicit which outcomes are being recommended on the basis of the practitioner’s
professional judgement and which were devised at the Outcomes meeting.
Moreover, it would be best practice for these proposed outcomes to have been
raised and discussed at the Outcomes meeting. Guidance regarding outcomes is
enclosed separately.
The special educational provision required by the child or young person

Provision must be detailed and specific and should normally be quantified, for
example, in terms of the type, hours and frequency of support and level of
expertise.

Provision must be specified for each and every outcome identified. It should
be clear how the provision will support achievement of the outcomes.

Where health or social care provision educates or trains a child or young
person, it should be noted. However, this should only be included if supported
through the evidence of a specialist with the relevant expertise and
recommendations for provision should be made by the appropriate specialist
e.g. speech and language therapy.

There should be clarity as to how advice and information gathered has
informed the provision specified.

In some cases, flexibility will be required to meet the changing needs of the
child or young person. In these instances the reasons for this should be
explicit.

Recommendations should specify:
o any appropriate facilities and equipment, staffing arrangements and
curriculum
o any appropriate modifications to the application of the National Curriculum,
where relevant
o any appropriate exclusions from the application of the National Curriculum
or the course being studied in a post-16 setting, in detail, and the provision
which it is proposed to substitute for any such exclusions in order to
maintain a balanced and broadly based curriculum

There should be no recommendations regarding type of school or educational
setting. Whilst this can be discussed, if appropriate, there should be no
content which in any way biases or hinders the LA’s discretion in making
decisions regarding the type of school or setting in which the child is
educated.
Please make sure that your report is signed and dated