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What is an appeal?
Sometimes children and young people need more help in school or college with their education so that they can learn.
An appeal is when you tell the council that you disagree with decisions made about the support you need in education.
What can I appeal about?
For example, in an appeal, you can write and talk about:
- why you feel you need more help to learn
- what sort of help would make things better for you
- a school or college that you want to go to
Your parent can also make an appeal on your behalf.
You can only appeal about certain decisions to do with your education.
- If you have an EHCP but the local authority thinks you no longer need it
- If the local authority refuses to assess your special educational needs
- If the local authority assesses you but decide not to make an EHCP
- If the local authority makes an EHCP for you but you disagree with what it says
- If the local authority doesn’t agree to the school or college you want to go to
What is a tribunal?
A tribunal is a meeting where people can talk about the decisions they are unhappy about.
There will be a judge who doesn’t take sides, but checks that important rules, laws have been followed correctly when decisions were made.
If they find that the law was not followed correctly then the tribunal can make an order to make changes or put things right.
A tribunal order can be about:
- What support you need to learn
- The school or college that you go to
If the judge doesn’t agree with your appeal, no tribunal order will be made.
Important dates
The local authority must write to you to tell you its decision about your education. It must also tell you in the letter that if you do not agree with its decision you can appeal to the SEND Tribunal.
You will have 2 months to make an appeal. The 2 months start from the date when the local authority told you about its final decision in a letter.
When you send in your appeal, the tribunal will write to you with more dates and instructions of what you and the local authority need to do next.
What happens next?
You can ask your local authority to meet with you to talk about why you disagree with the decision they have made. A mediator can also be at the meeting. A mediator is a person who will run the meeting, listen to your ideas and make sure everyone understands what you need. If the local authority still disagrees with what you want, you can fill in a form and send it to the tribunal.
The tribunal will ask for more information and the local authority may change their mind about their decision before the tribunal hold a meeting to discuss it.
If you do have to go to a tribunal meeting, called a hearing there will be a group of three people who are the tribunal panel. You and other people will be able to tell the tribunal panel important information about the appeal. This is called evidence. The evidence will help the tribunal panel to make a decision about the appeal.
The tribunal hearing can sometimes take all day, or a few hours. At the hearing
- the tribunal will set a timetable for the day,
- everyone will have a chance to talk about their side of the story
- everyone will also have a chance to ask each other questions about the appeal
The tribunal panel must:
- read very carefully all the information about the appeal that has been sent to them, and listen very carefully to what everyone at the hearing has to say
- write to you or your parent 1- 2 weeks after the hearing to tell you what the tribunal decided.