Home Education and EHCP
Choosing home education doesn’t close the door to formal support for children with SEN. That’s worth saying plainly, because a lot of parents don’t know it, and some assume that leaving the school system means leaving the support system too.
It doesn’t. You can apply for an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) as a home educator, and if a plan is granted, it opens up access to funding for therapies and other provision in the same way it would for a school-placed child.
The process starts with the local authority. Your LA’s website will list a SEND contact — you write to them stating that you believe your child may have SEN requiring provision beyond what is ordinarily available. That triggers the assessment process. You should receive a response within six weeks.
In practice, EHCPs are harder to obtain for home-educated children than for those in school. It’s worth knowing that before you start, rather than discovering it halfway through. Funding is limited and local authorities don’t always make the process straightforward. Go in prepared.
What an EHCP means in a home-ed context
Being granted an EHCP means the Local Authority has a legal responsibility to ensure the provisions laid out in the plan are met. In practice, this means funding therapies, providing support and working alongside you to monitor a child’s progress. It does not mean handing over your child’s education to the LA: it is about seeking support to provide the education you feel meets the child’s needs best, as per the law governing home education.
Building a case
The most useful thing you can do before you apply is document what you’re seeing. Not in a clinical way — just a record of patterns, triggers, what helps, what doesn’t, and what you’ve already tried. If a local authority is going to push back, detailed notes of the support you’ve already put in place make that harder. An example of the kind of thing that helps: issues identified: can only sustain focus for five minutes without 1:1 prompting, avoids writing tasks unless physically supported, becomes dysregulated after sensory overload with a thirty to sixty minute recovery. Support tried: visual timetables — reduced anxiety slightly but unable to transition independently. Reduced workload — still unable to complete tasks without adult support. 1:1 teaching — progress only when fully scaffolded. That level of specificity, across multiple observations over time, is more useful than a general description.
The GP is technically not a required step, but practically it helps. A referral letter adds weight to an assessment application and can open doors to speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, and sometimes additional funding. Go prepared with a list of what you’ve noticed — behaviours and patterns, not just educational flags. Daily life as well as learning.
All correspondence with the LA should be in writing. Not because it’s legally required, but because a documented trail is useful if the process becomes complicated.
An application for either the assessment or subsequent funding might be rejected, and unfortunately, this is not an infrequent outcome. You have the right to appeal to the SEND Tribunal and there are no charges to do so. The tribunal can reverse decisions, require the LA to conduct an assessment, and both issue and amend EHC plans. IPSEA has an in-depth explanation of the process here.
IPSEA and Sendiass are the two most reliable sources of practical and legal support for this process. If your application stalls or the LA pushes back, both organisations can help you understand your options and navigate individual cases.
Further reading: Home Education & SEN: what the system can’t give that home-ed can.
