EHCP Annual Review - is this normal?

[SweetMary]

Hello and thank you for reading.
As I’m sure many of you know, finalising the EHCP is a battle and extremely draining mentally and emotionally - but I wasn’t expecting a battle for the review.
I spent 2hrs in school going over everything and everyone was happy. It was sent off in November but came back this week with more than a few mistakes or sections missing. I highlighted this politely to the casework and returned the queries with a copy of what was agreed with school and they are basically telling me I’m wrong. One was that my child was going to try playground equipment like trikes - this wasn’t included so I asked why and the response was ‘ it is unclear what area of need this is focusing on and what the short term outcome for this is, therefore this was not included.’ Other things were that they said he was at Nursery when he isn’t, that he bites when he doesn’t but they said they “are happy to speak to the school about these areas”.

Is it going to be like this every year? I don’t think I’m mentally or emotionally strong enough anymore and the LA are winning - I just don’t have any fight left and wondering if I need to get professional support to help deal with this.

Any thoughts kindly received x

[Headfirstintothewild]

If by professional support you mean a solicitor or advocate then you don’t need one for ARs. Provison in EHCPs is taken from evidence so you will need evidence. Unfortunately, LAs don’t always make the amendments discussed at the AR meeting. If you feel the EHCP hasn’t been adequately amended you can appeal.

For future reference, following an AR, the LA must inform you if they are going to amend or not within 4 weeks and if they are issue the amendment notice at the same time, and then finalise within a further 8 weeks.