How do we evidence the impact of SEN Support for an EHCP request?

Evidence SEN Support impact with your Assess-Plan-Do-Review records: show each cycle's provision, the outcomes set, the baseline, and proof the child still hasn't made expected progress despite purposeful action. That paper trail, not a stack of work samples or a diagnosis, is the thing the council weighs.

Know the test the council applies

The test sits in section 36(8) of the Children and Families Act 2014: the council must assess where the child has or may have special educational needs and it may be necessary for provision to be made through a plan. “May be necessary” is a low bar, not “is necessary”. The central evidential question sits in the SEND Code of Practice 2015 at paragraph 9.14: has the child failed to make expected progress despite the school taking relevant and purposeful action to identify, assess and meet their needs? Your file has to answer that on paper.

Pull the right documents together

SEN Support runs as a four-part Assess-Plan-Do-Review cycle, the graduated approach, repeated regularly so impact can be judged over time (SEND Code 2015, paragraphs 6.44-6.56). The cycle record is your primary evidence. For each round, attach:

1. The assessment. What you found, and the baseline you measured the child against - a reading age, a standardised score, an attendance or behaviour figure, a speech and language measure.
2. The plan. The specific outcome you aimed for that cycle, written so an outsider can see whether it was met.
3. The provision (the “do”). What you actually put in - the intervention, who ran it, how often, for how long. Name it precisely, not as “extra support”.
4. The review. The post-cycle data against the same baseline, and the gap that remains. The gap is the point.

Across the cycles, the file should show the council the four things paragraph 9.14 tells it to weigh: attainment, rate of progress, the action already taken, and whether progress only came from substantial, sustained extra help. If the only gains are intervention-dependent, say so plainly - a child who slips back the moment support is withdrawn is the clearest sign that purposeful action has not closed the gap.

If the council pushes back

Two pushbacks are common, and both are answerable. First, a council cannot lawfully require a minimum number of cycles or a minimum period on SEN Support before it will assess, and an assessment can be requested even where SEN Support is not yet in place; IPSEA is clear that the council cannot add conditions the law does not contain. Second, where a council applies its own local criteria, SEND Code 9.16 says it must be prepared to depart from them where there is a compelling reason, so a thin record is not an automatic bar if other evidence points to possible unmet need. If the request is refused, the parent has a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal, and a well-kept cycle file is the document that wins those appeals. See what to do if an EHCP application is refused, and the EHCP refused: what next? guide.

One thing to watch but not to act on yet: the 2026 Schools White Paper and the Education for All Bill propose a new Individual Support Plan duty on every school and would narrow EHCPs to the most complex needs over the next decade. None of it changes the evidence test before September 2030, and current plans are protected, so build your file under today's law. The SEN Support and EHC needs assessment glossary entries set out the wider statutory picture, and the cycle data the council weighs is the same data your own tracking produces, so how to measure the impact of TA support feeds the review half of every record you attach.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.