SEND support does not end at 16: an EHC plan can continue to age 25 if your child stays in education or training, and colleges must still provide SEN support for those without a plan. SEND stands for special educational needs and disabilities, and an EHC plan is the legal document setting out a young person's needs and the support they must get. Nothing is switched off the day your child moves on from Year 11.
The two routes after 16
Which route your child is on depends on whether they have an EHC plan.
- With an EHC plan. The council can keep the plan going until the end of the academic year in which your child turns 25, as long as they stay in education or training and the outcomes written into the plan still need meeting. This applies whether they go to a sixth form, a college or a 16-to-19 setting.
- Without an EHC plan. Your child still gets SEN support. A college follows the same graduated approach schools use, assess, plan, do and review, with a named person responsible for SEND. The college also has to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010.
Why ‘up to 25’ is not a guarantee
Section 46 of the Children and Families Act 2014 says the council may continue a plan up to the end of the academic year of the young person's 25th birthday. That word may matters: it is a power the council can use, not an automatic right tied to age. The Department for Education's own guidance confirms there is no automatic cut-off and no automatic entitlement to a plan that runs all the way to 25.
A council can lawfully end a plan earlier under section 45 of the Act, but only if it is no longer responsible for the young person or it decides the plan is no longer necessary, for example because the outcomes have been met. Age on its own is never a lawful reason to stop a plan. Ending a plan is a formal decision, and you can challenge it. When a council can cease to maintain a plan sets out the grounds and the appeal route.
Two transition mechanics parents miss
First, the timing. The annual review that moves your child to a post-16 setting, known as the phase-transfer review, has to be completed by 31 March of the year they move. That deadline is what secures the named college or sixth form in the plan in good time, so chase it if the review is slipping. You can read more about keeping an EHCP at college.
Second, who holds the rights. At the end of compulsory school age, the August after your child turns 16, most rights and duties under the plan pass to the young person themselves, not to you. In practice many young people are happy for a parent to keep helping, but the legal decisions, such as agreeing to changes or appealing, become theirs.
What about the 2026 reforms?
You may have read about SEND reform in 2026. The Schools White Paper of February 2026 proposes new Individual Support Plans, but it states that no changes to EHCP support begin before September 2030, and that existing plan holders in mainstream keep their plan until at least age 16. The law described above is what applies to your child today.
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.