My daughter is 12 (year7) she is diagnosed as severely dyslexic with additional SpLD she is currently working at 3 years behind. She has reports from Ed Psych, Occ Therapist, Speech and Lang, Physiotherapist and an external SpLD specialist. She has not had an EHCP and I believe that she should have one. I have been told that now she has moved to secondary school that the process will start again and that the EHCP should have been done whilst at Primary school. Is this correct? Do we now need the Secondary school to do more assessments, more reports to then find out she is even further behind? It is apparent she needs to go to a specialist school that can cater for her needs.

IPSEA says:

It’s not clear whether an EHC needs assessment was started whilst your daughter was at primary school, however, you can make the request at any point now and IPSEA has a model letter which you can use to make the request:

https://www.ipsea.org.uk/what-you-need-to-know/model-letters/model-letter-1

Remember that the school aren’t obliged to get new information before a request for an EHC needs assessment can be made:  from what you’ve said, the information you have is likely to be sufficient to meet the legal threshold for carrying out an EHC needs assessment.

Once a request for an EHC needs assessment has been made, the LA has 6 weeks to decide whether or not to assess.  If they do assess but after conducting an assessment decide that an EHC Plan isn’t necessary, they have to notify you within 16 weeks of the date of request.  (You would have a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal at either of these stages.)  If the LA decide to issue an EHC Plan, you have to receive that final EHC Plan within 20 weeks of the date of the request.

If the LA decide to assess, then whether or not new information and advice was necessary would depend on whether you, the LA and the person who provided the current advice agreed that it was still “sufficient” for the purpose of an EHC needs assessment.  If the reports you have are out of date or your daughter’s needs might have changed, new assessments might be important.  Bear in mind the LA will be working to a statutory deadline so these shouldn’t drag on.

In the meantime, the school still has a duty to use its best endeavours to secure the special educational provision your daughter needs.  The reports and assessments you have should inform this SEN Support.  You can find out more about SEN Support in Chaper 6 of the SEN and Disability Code of Practice 2015:

https://www.ipsea.org.uk/file-manager/SENlaw/send_code_of_practice_january_2015.pdf