School admissions for children with an Education Health and Care Plan

Find out what to do and who to contact regarding schools admissions, if your child or young person is moving in or out of Surrey with an EHC plan, this includes moving elsewhere in England or abroad.

It is possible for you to request a school outside Surrey  that is an academy or maintained by another local authority. This may be appropriate if your child lives on the border to a neighbouring local authority.

Before you do so, we would first advise you to first read the following webpages:

• Requesting a particular nursery, school or college 
• Find and research a school.

Your request can be considered by us,  through your Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Case Officer at your Annual Review or when for your child or young person receives their draft EHC plan.

Please note,  we are not responsible for allocating places within schools outside of Surrey which are maintained by another local authority, however, we will make an application to that school and local authority on your child's behalf.

You must also carefully consider how your child will get to and from school. If we consider your request for a specific school which is not the nearest appropriate school to your child's home address, it will normally be your responsibility to ensure your child gets to school.

We expect all children to be educated in their normal chronological year group, but on a very few occasions there are exceptions to this.

If you would like to request that your child is educated outside their normal age group (PDF), you should discuss this with your child's Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Case Officer in the first instance.

If your child has an EHC plan and is currently in Year 2 or Year 6 in an all-through primary mainstream or maintained specialist school, your child will remain at their current school unless a change of placement has been agreed following the most recent annual review.

The exception to this is Year 6 students attending school for specific learning difficulties (SpLD) and moderate learning difficulties (MLD), previously referred to by us as Learning and Additional Needs (LAN) schools , where your child's placement will be reviewed at secondary transition to ensure your child is accessing the most appropriate and closest school to your home address.

If your child has an EHC plan, and you wish for them to:

• change mainstream schools, or
• change from mainstream to special school,

you should discuss any concerns with your child's class teacher, Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) or current head teacher in the first instance.

You may wish to involve your SEND Case officer who can help arrange an interim review of your EHC plan, to try to sort out any issues of concern and/or to consider a referral to external specialist support services.

We will need to be satisfied that a special school is appropriate to meet your child or young person’s needs and that they can no longer be met through mainstream provision and is an efficient use of resources.

If you are thinking about changing your child's school, you should consider this decision very carefully, bearing in mind that other schools may be full, and that the upheaval may be disruptive to your child's progress.