EHCP Evidence: Exactly What to Gather Before You Apply

Updated 4 July 2026 · Legal citations verified against legislation.gov.uk

The single biggest myth about requesting an EHC needs assessment is that you need a mountain of professional reports before you start. You do not. The legal threshold in section 36(8) of the Children and Families Act 2014 asks only whether your child has or may have special educational needs and whether a plan may be necessary. What decides borderline requests is not the thickness of the folder but whether the evidence is specific: dated, counted and tied to what the law tells councils to look at. This guide goes source by source through what to collect and why each item earns its place.

From the school office: the attendance printout

Ask the office for a full attendance record with session codes, not just the headline percentage. It is objective, dated and produced by the school itself, which makes it very hard to discount. It shows patterns a percentage hides: which days are missed, whether absence clusters after weekends and holidays and how much of it is coded as illness. If your child is regularly collected early, ask whether those early departures appear in the record, and note them yourself if they do not.

From the teacher or SENCO: the school's own words

Anything school staff put in writing about your child is evidence. Ask by email, so the answer arrives in writing too:

• A statement of current levels and rate of progress, in plain terms, for example whether your child is working below age-related expectations and by how much.
• Copies of every SEN support plan, review record and provision map, showing what has been tried, since when and with what result.
• Any incident logs, behaviour records or notes home that document specific dated events.

This material is doubly useful. It evidences the needs, and it evidences what the school has already done about them, which the SEND Code of Practice tells councils to examine directly.

From health: proof that professionals are already concerned

You do not need a diagnosis to request an assessment, but you can use everything the health system has generated so far:

• Referral letters to CAMHS, a paediatrician, speech and language therapy or occupational therapy.
• Waiting list confirmations, with the date you joined the list. The wait itself tells the council why it cannot expect a diagnosis before deciding.
• GP notes or letters recording concerns, sleep problems, physical symptoms on school mornings or repeat appointments.

A referral is evidence that a professional considered there may be needs, which is exactly the language of the section 36(8) test.

From home: the diary, the schoolwork and your child's voice

Home evidence is the part parents underrate most, and it is legally protected: regulation 7(b) requires the council to consider the information you provide. Three things are worth preparing:

• A dated 2 week diary. Record frequencies, not feelings: how many mornings involved distress, what happened after school each day, how long homework took, what sleep looked like. Two honest weeks beat six months of vague recollection.
• Examples of schoolwork. A page of writing, a piece of maths, anything that shows the gap between effort and output or between ability and what school days actually allow.
• Your child's own words, written down verbatim. "I sit alone at lunch because the hall hurts my ears" does more than a paragraph of parental summary ever could.

How each item maps to paragraph 9.14 of the Code

Paragraph 9.14 of the SEND Code of Practice 2015 lists what councils should consider when deciding whether to assess. Your bundle covers every head of it:

• Attainment and rate of progress: the teacher's statement of levels, examples of schoolwork.
• Nature, extent and context of the needs: your diary, health referrals, the attendance record.
• The school's relevant and purposeful action and whether it enabled progress: SEN support plans, provision maps, review records.
• Progress made only as a result of additional support: SENCO statements about what happens when support is in place and what happens when it is not.
• Physical, emotional and social development and health needs: GP notes, your diary, your child's own words.

When you write the request, label the evidence against these heads rather than leaving the council to join the dots. The Code also says, at paragraph 9.16, that a council must be prepared to depart from its own criteria where there is a compelling reason, so evidence that does not fit a local checklist still counts.

Private reports: considered, never required

Some families commission a private educational psychology or therapy report. If you have one, send it: regulation 7(b) obliges the council to consider it. But do not delay your request to save up for one, and do not let anyone imply your application is weaker without it. If the council agrees to assess, regulation 6(1) requires it to obtain advice from an educational psychologist and from health and social care itself, and from any person you reasonably request. The assessment is where the professional evidence gets built. Your job at the request stage is only to show that the low threshold is met.

Present it so the frequencies and dates lead

Structure beats volume. Send a short cover list numbering each enclosure, put the evidence in a sensible order and open every description with the number or the date: "Attendance record showing 84% and falling", "Diary, 2 weeks, recording distress on 7 of 10 school mornings". A reader with a heavy caseload should be able to grasp your child's situation from the first line of each item. Your accompanying parental views then tell the story behind the numbers; our guide to writing parental views covers that document, and our guide to the request letter shows where each piece slots in.

One last reassurance. Councils receive a huge volume of requests and the system is stretched, which is exactly why organised, specific evidence stands out. You are not asking for a favour. You are giving the local authority what it needs to apply a legal test, and the test is on your side.

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