CHILDREN with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in England will have their rights to support reassessed when they move into secondary school, leaked government plans suggest.

A major system overhaul will see those with Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) — legal documents setting out what extra support they are entitled to — reviewed after primary school from 2029, according to the BBC and the Times.

Every child with identified special educational needs, including those who do not currently have an EHCP, will have an Individual Support Plan (ISP) drawn up by their school, which will have some kind of legal status.

Disability charity Sense said today it is “deeply concerned by proposals to reassess children’s entitlement to support at major transition points, such as the move to secondary school, when stability is critical.”

Head of policy Kate Lawson warned it is not yet clear whether new ISPs will include the same enforceable rights to co-ordinated health and social care support so many disabled children rely on.

Ambitious about Autism chief executive Jolanta Lasota added that any changes to EHCPs “must protect families’ existing legal rights.”

“Rumours of reassessments for autistic children as they move to a new stage of their education will ring alarm bells for many parents, particularly as previous leaks implied children with existing plans would keep them,” she said.

“It is often at these stressful transition points where autistic pupils who have been coping OK before start to struggle.”

The leaks suggest that there will be three layers of support, labelled Targeted, Targeted Plus and Specialist, to reflect different needs.

EHCPs will sit alongside the ISPs and will ultimately be reserved for children with the most complex needs, it is thought.

Some ISPs that feature more complex plans will meet national standards called Specialist Provision Packages, which would be determined by an expert panel.

The plans could be unveiled in full as early when MPs return to Parliament on Monday.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that it is essential parents and schools have confidence in the detail of the reforms.

School leaders’ union NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: “As ever, the devil will be in the detail of how they will be resourced, managed and supported.”