Choosing a School for a Child With SEND

Choosing a school for SEND works completely differently for one reason: whether your child has an Education, Health and Care plan. With a plan, you have a legal right to request a named school and the council can only refuse on three specific grounds. Without one, you are in the ordinary admissions round like everyone else, and your position comes from what the school publishes rather than from the law.

This page sets out both routes, the three refusal grounds and what beats them, the deadlines the council has to meet, what to actually ask on a school visit, and what to do when the plan names a school you did not ask for.

First work out which route you are on

Around one child in five in England is recorded as having special educational needs, and the large majority of them receive SEN support from their school without any plan at all. A much smaller group has an EHC plan, a legal document maintained by the local authority that specifies the child's needs, the provision that must be made, and the school that must make it.

The distinction is not about severity in the abstract. It is about whether the support the child needs goes beyond what a mainstream school can be expected to provide from its own resources. That is what triggers the statutory route, and only the statutory route carries a right to name a school.

If your child does not have an EHC plan

You apply in the normal admissions round, on the normal deadlines, and the school's published oversubscription criteria decide the outcome. SEN does not create a priority category in itself. What you can do is find out, before you rank your preferences, whether the school is actually any good at this.

Every mainstream school in England has to publish a SEN Information Report on its website, updated annually. It is the most under-read document in school admissions and it is genuinely revealing. Look for what it says about how needs are identified, how many teaching assistants there are and how they are deployed, what specialist staff the school buys in, how it involves parents, and what it says about children who need adjustments to access the curriculum. A report that is three years old and made of generic paragraphs tells you something.

Read it alongside the council's Local Offer, which every local authority must publish, setting out the provision it expects to be available across its area.

If your child has an EHC plan: the right to name a school

This is where the law gives you real weight. Under section 39 of the Children and Families Act 2014, if you request a particular school the local authority must name it in the plan unless it can show one of three things:

• the school is unsuitable for the child's age, ability, aptitude or special educational needs;
• attendance would be incompatible with the efficient education of others;
• attendance would be incompatible with the efficient use of resources.

Two points about that third ground get argued constantly and are worth understanding before you write your request. It is not a cost comparison. A council saying its preferred school is cheaper has not made out the ground; it has to show that placing your child at your school would be incompatible with the efficient use of resources, which is a higher bar and requires evidence. And where the council itself has caused the difference, for example by failing to consult a nearer school in time, that weakens its position rather than strengthening it.

Note also which schools this right covers: maintained mainstream and special schools, academies and free schools, non-maintained special schools, further education colleges, and independent special schools approved by the Secretary of State under section 41. For any other independent school the council only has to have regard to your preference, which is a weaker duty and a different argument.

The timetable, and why 15 February matters

A request for an EHC needs assessment must be answered within six weeks, and the whole process from request to a final plan being issued must complete within 20 weeks. Where a child is moving phase, into Reception, into Year 3 at a junior school, or into Year 7, the council must issue the final amended plan naming the new school by 15 February of the year of transfer. Transfers to post-16 institutions run to 31 March instead.

These dates matter more than any other part of the process, because your right of appeal only opens when a final plan is issued. A council that is late has, in effect, delayed your access to the tribunal. If 15 February passes without a final plan, put the breach in writing that week, referring to the date, and ask when the plan will be issued.

What to ask when you visit

School visits for SEND are a different exercise from ordinary open evenings, and the useful questions are specific rather than general. Take Section F of the plan, or the list of what your child needs, and ask about each item directly.

Who delivers the provision, and when? Not whether the school has a speech and language therapist, but how many sessions, delivered by whom, in what room, at what point in the timetable, and what the child misses to attend.

How many children here have an EHC plan, and what are their primary needs? A school with fifteen plans has systems. A school with one has goodwill, which is not the same thing.

What happens on a bad day? Ask them to describe, concretely, what happens when a child cannot access the classroom. The answer tells you whether the plan is a corridor or a room and a person.

How much of the day would my child spend outside the classroom? A high figure is not automatically wrong, but it should be a deliberate choice with a reason, not the default.

Who would I speak to, and how quickly? Ask for the actual mechanism, not the SENCO's job title.

Visit at least twice if you can, and try to see a normal lesson rather than an open evening. Ask to speak to a parent of a child with similar needs; a school confident in its provision will usually arrange it.

Mainstream or special: the question that is asked backwards

Parents are often pushed to decide between mainstream and special as though it were a permanent identity. It is not. The legal starting point where parents want mainstream is a presumption in favour of it, subject to compatibility with the efficient education of others. The practical question is narrower and better: can this specific school deliver what Section F says, reliably, without the child being educated in a corridor?

Some children thrive in mainstream with the right provision and would be under-stretched in a special school. Some are exhausted by mainstream and flourish the moment the environment fits. Plenty move between the two as they grow. Ask what the placement gives the child this year, and keep the annual review as the point where you revisit it, rather than treating the first choice as final.

If the plan names the wrong school

You appeal to the First-tier Tribunal, Special Educational Needs and Disability. The deadline is two months from the date of the decision, and the appeal has to be against a final plan rather than a draft.

The one procedural quirk worth knowing: for most appeals you have to contact a mediation adviser first and obtain a mediation certificate. If your appeal is only about the school named in Section I, or about the type of school, you do not need to consider mediation and you do not need a certificate. You can go straight to the tribunal. Appeals that also challenge Sections B or F do need the certificate.

Before you appeal, get the evidence in order: the school's own view in writing that it can meet need, any consultation response the council relied on, and independent professional reports if you have them. Free, independent advice is available from your local SENDIASS service, and IPSEA publishes detailed guidance on each type of appeal.

Frequently asked questions

Can I choose the school my child with SEND goes to?

If your child has an Education, Health and Care plan, you have a legal right to request a particular school, and the council must name it unless one of three statutory grounds applies. Without an EHC plan there is no special route: you apply through the ordinary admissions process, in the usual round, with the same oversubscription criteria as everybody else.

On what grounds can a council refuse the school I asked for?

Three, and only three. That the school is unsuitable for your child's age, ability, aptitude or special educational needs. That your child attending would be incompatible with the efficient education of other children. Or that it would be incompatible with the efficient use of resources. Cost alone is not enough: the council has to show incompatibility, not just that its own preferred placement is cheaper.

Can I name an independent special school?

You have the same statutory right to request an independent special school or college only if it is approved by the Secretary of State under section 41 and appears on the published list. For any other independent school the council must have regard to your preference but is not under the section 39 duty, which is a materially weaker position.

What is the 15 February deadline?

For children moving phase, into Reception, into Year 3 at a junior school or into Year 7, the council must issue a final amended EHC plan naming the new school by 15 February in the year of transfer. Post-16 transfers run to 31 March. Missing it is unlawful, and a plan that is late is one you cannot appeal until it is issued, which is why the deadline matters so much in practice.

Do I have to try mediation before appealing?

For most appeals yes, and you need a mediation certificate to lodge one. There is one exception that matters here: if your appeal is only about the school named in Section I, or the type of school, you do not need to consider mediation and you do not need a certificate. You still have to appeal within two months of the decision.

Is mainstream or special school better for a child with SEND?

There is no general answer, and treating it as a permanent decision is the most common mistake. The law starts from a presumption of mainstream where parents want it and it is compatible with the efficient education of others. What actually decides it is whether the specific school can deliver the provision in Section F of the plan, day in and day out, without the child spending the day out of class. Children move in both directions, and a placement that suits Year 4 may not suit Year 9.

Where to go next

Start with the council's Local Offer and the SEN Information Report of every school on your list, then visit twice and ask about Section F item by item. Keep the dates: six weeks, twenty weeks, 15 February, two months. Our guides to school admissions in England and the rest of the Schools Insight library cover the ordinary admissions round, and the Schools Insight homepage has the full set.