SEN and Year 7: what to do before September (without an EHCP)

My older son moved to secondary school with an EHCP. The transition was complicated in its own ways, but there was at least a process — a named pathway, a caseworker, a legal framework with dates attached. My younger son has just come to the end of Year 7 without one. Same family, very different experience of the same system.

This article is what I've picked up along the way — and, in some cases, remembered from my time as a mainstream secondary teacher.

Most schools' SEND pathways begin with identification. The process assumes your child arrives at secondary, something becomes apparent, a concern is raised, and the graduated approach kicks in. That works reasonably well for children whose needs only become visible under secondary pressure. It works much less well for children who arrive with established diagnoses, professional reports, and a support history from primary — because the school's pathway simply doesn't have a lane for them.

Research published by FFT Education Datalab in April 2026 found that 19% of pupils identified with SEN support in Year 6 ceased to be identified as having SEN when they moved to secondary school — a rate far higher than for any other year group. Some of those children will have genuinely made progress. But not all of them.

The picture is starker still when you look at engagement. Research by ImpactEd Group, tracking over 80,000 pupils across England, found that more than one in four pupils begin to disengage from school during Year 7 — with levels of enjoyment, trust and sense of belonging dropping sharply between the autumn and spring terms, and never fully recovering through secondary. They call it the 'engagement cliff edge.' For children with SEN, the stakes at this transition point are particularly high.

Helen Buzdugan, who advocates for better SEND support for families, puts it plainly: transition planning happens between professionals, with parents and carers largely excluded. There is no formal mechanism for parents and carers to be involved. And yet parents and carers are typically the only consistent thread running through a child's life — and the ones who know what's actually going on. A child who tells their primary school their transition day was fine may go home and cry. Schools see what the mask allows them to see — the child who presents as coping. Parents and carers see what comes off with it at home.

This article is for two groups: parents and carers who are arriving with documentation, and parents and carers who are arriving with a hunch. The advice differs in places, but the core principle is the same. Don't wait for the school to find your child. Put your child in front of them first.

After every conversation: three minutes and an email

Before anything else — this is the habit that runs underneath everything else in this article.

After every meeting, phone call, or conversation with a teacher or SENCO: send a brief email. It doesn't need to be formal. Something like: "Thanks for chatting today — just to confirm, we agreed that [X] will be in place from [date]." Three minutes. It creates the record that protects your child, and - if things are working well - it protects the school too.

Secondary schools are large. Things fall through gaps — not through malice, but because verbal commitments made in busy corridors or five-minute appointments don't always make it into anyone's written record. Getting into the habit of the brief follow-up email, from the first conversation you have with the secondary school, is the single most useful thing you can do.

At Parents Evening specifically: ask each subject teacher individually whether your child's needs are being met in their lessons and in their assessments — whether that's assistive technology, extra processing time, or whatever else is relevant to your child. Write down what they say at the time. The SEND team and the subject teachers are not automatically working from the same information.

Start earlier than you think

If your child has SEN — diagnosed or suspected — contact the secondary school's SENCO in writing in the first week back after the May half term of Year 6. That's earlier than feels natural, and earlier than most guidance suggests. Do it anyway.

Before you make contact, find the school's SEN Information Report. Every school is required to publish one on their website. It sets out what their SEND pathway looks like, what transition arrangements they offer, and who to contact. Reading it before you email means you can ask more specific questions.

Your first email doesn't need to be long. It needs to do three things: introduce your child and their needs briefly; ask for a named contact in the SEND team; and request something specific — a pre-transition visit, a meeting, or at minimum confirmation that the school has received the information you're about to send.

Copy in your child's primary school SENCO. Information flows better when both schools are in the thread.

If you don't hear back, chase in the second or third week of June. Secondary SENCOs are heavily occupied with GCSE and A Level exam access arrangements until mid-June — it's one of the busiest periods in the SEND calendar — so a mid-June follow-up is well-timed. Once they've replied, offer to send over any professional reports you hold. Mid-June onwards is a reasonable point to do that — before the summer break closes everything down.

Send the paperwork yourself — and keep proof

Before your child leaves primary school, make sure you have everything you need in your own hands. Ask for copies of any professional reports the school holds, SEN support plans, and records of any interventions the school has put in place to support your child. If the school has used additional support — reading interventions, small group work, specialist sessions — ask them to record what was put in place on headed paper. That documentation is yours — and useful.

The reason it's worth gathering this yourself is that the official transfer system doesn't work the way most parents expect.

There's a system for transferring pupil records from primary to secondary called the Common Transfer File, or CTF. What it actually transfers is structured data — that your child is on the SEN register, what category of need is recorded, their attendance history and assessment results. It does not transfer documents. Professional reports — EP assessments, OT reports, dyslexia assessments, NHS letters — are supposed to follow separately, addressed to the secondary SENCO. Whether they arrive, when they arrive, and whether anyone reads them before September is a different matter.

The timing of the CTF itself varies. In some areas it goes before the end of the summer term; in others, the default is the first day back in September. In some schools, the CTF is only sent early if parents actively consent to early transfer — the default is September. One parent on Mumsnet discovered their child's SEN documentation — diagnostic reports, assessment records — had come home in their school bag at the end of Year 6, not been sent to the secondary school at all. It isn't always malicious. It's just how the system operates.

(If your child has been home educated, the CTF process doesn't apply — you'll be starting from scratch with whatever documentation you hold, including any reports you've commissioned privately or records of provision you've put in place yourself.)

All of which means: if your child has professional reports, send them yourself, directly to the secondary SENCO, before the summer. Don't rely on the system to transfer them, because the system doesn't transfer them — it transfers a flag that says SEN support is in place.

It's worth sharing professional reports with the school — the SEND Code of Practice directs schools to draw on advice from external professionals in identifying and meeting a child's needs, and the school should at the very least be taking them into account when planning provision. Whether sharing a report creates an enforceable obligation to implement its specific recommendations is not straightforward. In EHCP tribunal proceedings, external professional reports carry significant weight. Outside of that context, the legal position is contested. If you are in dispute with a school about this, IPSEA or SOS!SEN can advise.

Email is fine. Attach the documents, name them clearly, and ask the school to confirm receipt. Keep that confirmation.

If you don't have formal reports but you have other documentation — a SEN support plan from primary, a letter from a specialist teacher, notes from a paediatrician — send those too. Any professional observation of your child's needs is worth sharing.

If you don't have reports yet: that's also fine. You can write a brief summary of your child's needs yourself — what they find hard, what helps, what a bad day looks like, what a good day looks like. Some schools provide a 'pupil passport' template for this. If yours doesn't, write your own. A few paragraphs from a parent or carer who knows their child well is more useful than nothing.

Understand what the SEN support plan is — and what it isn't

Most secondary schools issue a document recording your child's needs, barriers, and — in theory — the provisions in place to address them. It goes by different names: Personalised Learning Plan (PLP), My Plan, One Plan, Individual Education Plan (IEP), Pupil Support Plan. Whatever it's called at your child's school, the same questions apply.

Good practice guidance for secondary schools suggests a support plan should be in place within six weeks of entry for a pupil who arrives with an identified SEN. That's a useful benchmark: if you're approaching the end of October and nothing has materialised in writing, it's reasonable to ask.

When the plan arrives, read it carefully. Check four things:

Does it reflect the professional evidence? If your child has a processing speed assessment, does the plan mention processing speed? If they have a dyslexia diagnosis, is that named? If the plan lists only vague barriers ('finds reading difficult', 'benefits from structured support'), it may not be drawing on the reports you've provided.

Does it include provisions for assessments? Many plans describe classroom strategies but say nothing about what happens when the child sits a timed test. This matters — and it matters more than parents and carers typically realise, for reasons I'll come to below.

Does it have a review date? The SEND Code of Practice 2015 sets out an Assess-Plan-Do-Review cycle that schools are required to follow. Reviews should happen at least three times a year. Check whether your child's plan has a review date, and put that date in your own diary.

Does it include your views — and your child's? Most plans have a section for parent, carer and pupil input. If yours arrived without those sections completed, fill them in and send them back. Your observations about your child are part of the evidence base.

Reasonable adjustments: in lessons, not just in exams

The advice in this section differs depending on whether your child has a formal diagnosis — but the underlying principle is the same: adjustments your child needs in exams they almost certainly need in lessons too, and the two things aren't separate.

Under the Equality Act 2010, if your child has a formal diagnosis of a condition that meets the disability threshold — dyslexia, autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, and many others can all qualify — the school has a duty to make reasonable adjustments. That duty is anticipatory: schools should not wait until a problem arises before considering what adjustments a disabled child needs. It applies in lessons and in internal assessments, not only in public examinations, and it applies from the moment your child starts at the school.

In practice, schools often frame adjustments as something that comes after their own evidence-gathering. This framing is understandable — schools are large institutions managing many pupils — but it is not the same as the legal position. The SEND Code of Practice is clear that high quality teaching, differentiated for individual pupils, is the first step in responding to pupils who have or may have SEN. The Education Endowment Foundation puts it plainly: good teaching for pupils with SEND is good teaching for all. The ask is not for special favours. It is for what good teaching already looks like.

If your child doesn't have a formal diagnosis, ask the school to use whatever assessments they have available to establish things like processing speed or writing speed — such as a timed writing task or processing speed screen. Schools may not be able to diagnose, but they can gather evidence of need from their own observations and in-house assessments. Ask the SENCO directly what assessments the school can carry out to establish your child's needs. And if your child was receiving SEN support at primary school, that history is itself evidence of need — you can use it to make the case for adjustments while the school builds its own picture.

If you believe your child is being placed at a substantial disadvantage, the Equality Act is the relevant framework, and it applies now. If you need advice, IPSEA and SOS!SEN both publish free guidance and offer helplines.

This is also why early June is a useful moment to raise reasonable adjustments with a secondary SENCO, if you haven't already. By mid-June the GCSE and A Level exam season is winding down, SENCOs are beginning to look ahead, and there's a window — before the summer break closes everything down — to have a meaningful conversation about what Year 7 provision will look like in September.

Things your child might find useful

The standard transition day is one visit, with a large group, in a busy school. For many children with SEN it's not enough — and schools that do this well know it. Most won't offer additional support automatically. You have to ask.

Some things worth requesting before September:

An out-of-hours visit. A visit to the school after hours or during a low-traffic period — so your child can walk the corridors, find their locker, locate the toilets, and identify the SEND base without navigating a crowd at the same time. One secondary teacher describes inviting new Year 7 pupils with SEN for extra induction visits where they took photographs of key spaces — entrance, SEND department, main areas — to look at over the summer. They were careful not to photograph staff, who might not be there in September.

A map of the school. A building with fifteen or twenty rooms across multiple floors is genuinely hard to hold in working memory. A physical map your child can carry, annotate, and refer to is a simple thing that makes a real difference. Ask whether the school produces one for new pupils — and if not, ask whether one can be made available.

A visit focused on end-of-day routines. How does your child get home? Where do they wait? Which exit? Where do buses stop? These are the moments that fall apart fastest for anxious children because they happen under time pressure at the end of a long day. A supported practice run — walking the route, locating the bus stop, knowing where to go if something goes wrong — is worth requesting specifically.

A meeting with the SENCO before term starts. Not a phone call. An actual meeting, ideally with your child present, so the SENCO is a known face before the first day.

A named point of contact for things that feel catastrophic. For children who carry anxiety about getting into trouble — who go into every lesson worried a random sanction might come their way — it's worth asking whether the SENCO can be the first point of contact when something goes wrong. This is particularly relevant for autistic children, for whom the anticipatory anxiety can be as disabling as the sanction itself. It also sidesteps the practical problem of a child with working memory or processing difficulties being expected to accurately record the details of a sanction with a teacher who may not understand why that's hard.

A social story or transition booklet. Some schools produce these for children who find change hard. If the school doesn't do this routinely, ask whether one can be made for your child — or whether you can produce one together, using photographs from the extra visits.

Not every school will say yes to all of these. But many will say yes to some, particularly if you ask in writing in June rather than waiting until August.

A note on the curriculum

Secondary school covers content that primary school doesn't — and some of it lands hard for children who are emotionally younger than their age, or who process the world differently. RE, English, PSHE and History will all touch on death, loss, conflict and moral complexity across Year 7 and beyond. Drama may involve physical proximity and improvisation. Science covers reproduction. This isn't a reason to avoid secondary school — it's a reason to flag it with the SENCO in advance, so subject teachers know to forewarn your child before a topic that might be difficult, or to check in with them if they notice a reaction.What good looks like — and how to lock it in

Good secondary SEND provision does exist, and when it's working, the difference is tangible. A piece of assistive technology available every day. A pass that lets a child leave a lesson without having to ask. A priority lunch pass that means they're not overwhelmed before they've eaten. These are low-cost, high-impact adjustments that can make a secondary school genuinely navigable for a child with sensory or processing needs.

When something is working, say so — in writing, to the SENCO — and ask for it to be formally documented. "Thank you for arranging the lunch pass — could we make sure this is recorded on [child's] plan as a permanent provision, renewed automatically each term?" That question might feel like you're being demanding. It isn't. It's making sure that when people change, go on leave, or simply forget, the provision doesn't disappear with them.

A note on the system

None of this should be necessary. A child arriving at secondary school with a diagnosis, professional reports, and a support history from primary should, in theory, find those records waiting for them in a system that already knows what they need. That's not usually what happens.

Helen Buzdugan, who advocates for better SEND support for families, describes it clearly: the 'handover' mindset treats children as being passed between systems, when in fact they are living a continuous life. Their family is the only consistent thread. Transition planning sits with the professionals, but parents and carers are the ones who sit with a child late at night when the anxious thoughts come flooding in, and who pick up the pieces when things go wrong.

The reasons are structural rather than personal. Secondary schools are larger, SEND teams are stretched, and the handover from primary is inconsistently managed across the country. Individual SENCOs and teachers are often doing their best within systems that don't give them enough time or resource to do it properly.

That's cold comfort if your child is the one going without support. But it does mean that persistence — consistent, written, specific, polite persistence — is genuinely effective. The parents and carers who get the best outcomes in this system are generally not the ones who shout loudest. They're the ones who write things down, follow up, read the guidance, and keep asking the right questions.

You don't need to be a SEND specialist to do that. You just need to know where to start.

And if your child is already in Year 7 and some of this didn't happen before September — it's not too late to ask.

If your child has an EHCP, some of this article will apply and some won't — the EHCP process has its own transition requirements. A separate Compendium article on EHCP transitions is available [link placeholder].

For free advice on SEN rights and the law: IPSEA and SOS!SEN.

Sources and further reading

A note on how this article was written: I used AI assistance to help me stay on track — not easy when you have four children, a full teaching load, and attentional difficulties of your own. Claude helped me organise my thoughts, keep the research in order, and stop me disappearing down too many interesting tangents. The ideas, the professional experience, the lived experience, and the opinions are mine. The brutal adherence to evidence-based research is definitely all me. This article has been on my to-do list for three years and I've returned to it about four times. Claude helped me finally get it finished.