Requesting a particular nursery, school or college

You have a right to request that a particular type of education setting is named in your child's EHC plan.

The types of settings you have a right to request are listed in section 38(3) of the Children and Families Act (CFA) 2014. These are:

• a maintained school or nursery (mainstream or special)
• an Academy (mainstream or special)
• a further education or sixth form college
• a non-maintained special school
• a section 41 school. These are independent schools or independent specialist colleges which have been approved by the Secretary of State and published in a separate list available to all parents and young people. You can find the Independent special schools and post-16 institutions list on the GOV.UK website.

The CFA says that if you have requested one of the types of settings listed above, we must name this in your child's final EHC plan, unless one of the following exceptions apply:

• the setting is unsuitable for your child's age, ability, aptitude or Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). This means that provision there is considered to not meet your child's needs,
• attendance of your child there would be incompatible with the efficient education of the other children with whom your child would be educated. This means that your child's attendance at the setting would impact negatively on the education of the other children already placed there, or
• it would be incompatible with the efficient use of resources. This means that there is another suitable setting which is better value for money.

After your request and before naming a setting, we must consult:

• the governing body, proprietor or principal of the school or other setting that you have requested
• the governing body, proprietor or principal of any school or other setting we are considering having named in the EHC plan, and
• if any of those settings are maintained by another council, we must also consult that council.

This is set out in section 39(2) CFA 2014.

When we consult, we ask them whether they can meet your child's needs in their setting. We send them your child's draft EHC plan and all the supporting information we have gathered as part of the Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment (EHCNA) or annual review.

We must give them 15 days to respond. If the setting or other council does not respond, we do not have to wait to make a decision about naming a school or college. We must still follow the legal timelines for the EHC Needs Assessment or Annual Review process.

When making the final decision about which setting to name in your child's EHC plan, we must consider your views alongside the response from the setting. If we decide not to name the setting you have requested, this will be because we believe one of the exceptions given within the CFA applies. We will write to tell you about our decision when we issue your child's final EHC plan.

You may ask us to consider an independent setting which is not on the section 41 approved list, including:

• a non-maintained early years provision
• independent school
• independent specialist college
• other post-16 providers

If you request an independent setting, we must consider your request. However, we are not under the same duty to name the setting you have asked for.

When making our decision, we must consider yours and your child's views, wishes and feelings. This is set out in section 19 of the CFA and includes where your child wants to be educated.

We also need to consider the general principle that pupils (which are usually those under the age of 19) are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents, so far as that is compatible with:

• the provision of efficient instruction and training, and
• the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure.

This general principle is set out in section 9 of the Education Act 1996.

As independent schools are not legally obliged to admit children with EHC plans, we will need evidence that a place has been offered before we can consider naming it in your child's EHC plan.

If you cannot find a school or college you would like to ask us to name in your child's EHC plan and do not make a request for a particular setting to be named, we must:

• name a school or college we consider appropriate (this will usually be the closest school that can meet your child's needs), or
• name a type of school or college we consider appropriate.

If you asked for a setting which is one of those types of settings listed in the CFA, and this setting is named in section I of your child's EHC plan then that setting must admit your child.

If we have named a different setting in section I, then that named setting has a duty to admit your child even if you do not agree with our choice of setting.

Some EHC plans do name just the type of setting a child or young person is to attend, for example 'mainstream', or 'special'. This might happen if:

• we believe the setting requested by you or the young person should not be named, because either the setting is unsuitable for your child's age, ability, aptitude or SEND or attendance of your child there would be incompatible with the efficient education of the other children with whom your child would be educated. These are the relevant exceptions given within the CFA.

and/or

• neither you, the young person, or we have identified an appropriate setting to be named

If this happens, we will work with you to find and name a setting for your child as quickly as we can. Once a setting is found for them to attend, we will amend your child's EHC plan to name it.

In the meantime, we must make sure your child gets all of the provision specified in section F and the responsible health service will still need to arrange any health care provision in section G of the EHC plan.

If your child is of compulsory school age, we must also make sure they receive suitable alternative provision whilst they remain out of education.

Most children with additional needs and disabilities will be able to have their educational needs met at one of Surrey's mainstream settings. A small number of children and young people who have an EHC plan may need a more specialist type of placement.

You can find out more information about the different types of setting and where they are on the education provision for children and moving from school to college.

We understand that choosing an education setting for your child is very important and we may not always make the decision you were hoping for. When this happens, we are keen to work together with you, your child and other professionals to discuss how best to support your child going forward.

When we write to you to tell you about our decision, we will invite you to a Way Forward meeting. The meeting is voluntary and working together in this way does not impact your legal right to appeal.

More information on making SEND appeals can be found on the GOV.UK website.

You can also visit our appeals and mediation web page.