EHCP annual review: a practical checklist for SENCOs and school leaders
Annual reviews are one of the few moments when a school can pause and check whether the EHCP still matches reality.
If the paperwork is messy, the meeting usually becomes messy too. The best annual reviews are built on evidence gathered before anyone sits down together.
What an annual review should do
An EHCP annual review should answer a few simple questions:
- Is the plan still accurate?
- Is the current support helping?
- What has changed since the last review?
- What should happen next?
That sounds straightforward. In practice, schools often have information scattered across email, tracking sheets, intervention notes, and someone’s notebook. The job is to pull that together early enough for it to be useful.
Before the meeting: what to have ready
Use this as a working checklist.
Pupil progress and evidence
Gather recent information that shows how the child is doing now.
- recent assessment data
- intervention logs
- SEN support notes
- behaviour or attendance patterns if relevant
- work samples where useful
- pupil voice notes
- parent or carer comments
- therapist or outside agency updates, if you have them
Do not overcomplicate it. You are not building a filing cabinet. You are building a clear picture.
The current EHCP
Read the plan properly before the meeting, not five minutes before it starts.
Check:
- Sections B, F and I for accuracy
- whether outcomes are still realistic
- whether provision is being delivered as written
- whether there are gaps between what is in the plan and what is happening in school
If the plan says one thing and practice says another, that should be spotted before the review, not after.
Who needs to attend
The right people depend on the child, but the usual group includes:
- parent or carer
- SENCO
- class teacher or form tutor
- teaching assistant if they know the child well
- relevant outside professionals
- local authority representative where appropriate
If too many people attend without a clear reason, the meeting gets slower and less useful.
During the meeting: keep it specific
A good annual review does not drift into vague reassurance.
Useful questions include:
- What has improved since the last review?
- What still creates difficulty day to day?
- Which provision has made the biggest difference?
- Are there any barriers we are still not solving?
- Does the EHCP need updating?
Keep the discussion tied to evidence. If someone says support is working, ask how we know. If someone says a target is not right, ask what should replace it.
After the meeting: this is where schools often lose momentum
The meeting is only half the job. What happens afterwards matters just as much.
Within a few days, the school should know:
- what actions were agreed
- who is responsible for each action
- what needs to be updated in the plan
- when the next check-in will happen
- what needs to go to the local authority
A simple action log is enough if it is kept up to date.
Common mistakes
Here are the ones that come up again and again.
1. Evidence arrives too late
If the documents only appear on the morning of the review, the meeting becomes reactive instead of useful.
2. The same information gets copied three times
This is where admin starts to take over. Schools often type the same notes into a tracker, then a report, then an email. Capture once, reuse sensibly.
3. The plan is treated as a formality
If the review is just a box to tick, it will not help the child.
4. No one owns the follow-up
A meeting without named actions usually means the same issues will still be there next term.
A useful way to think about it
The annual review is not just compliance. It is a decision point.
A good review should help a school decide:
- what to keep
- what to change
- what to stop
- what needs outside support
- what needs a clearer target
That is why the process matters. It is not only about paperwork. It is about making sure the plan still reflects the child in front of you.
In practice
A system like MeritDocs can keep the current plan, review notes, and action list in one live record so the follow-up does not get lost after the meeting.
Final thought
If you want annual reviews to feel calmer, the answer is usually not a longer meeting. It is better preparation, clearer evidence, and less duplicated admin.
That is where the work gets easier for everyone.