I need to write this carefully, because it's the most important thing I've written on this blog. Not because it has a happy ending — it does, eventually — but because the road to that ending was three years long, and I want to be honest about every part of it. The exhaustion. The walls. The moments where I genuinely considered stopping. And the strange, deflating feeling as I drove back home wondering why winning didn't feel the way I thought it would.
Where It Actually Started: Nursery, 2023
C's behaviour at nursery began escalating in 2023 — rapidly, and in a way that was impossible to ignore. Something was happening that went beyond typical toddler behaviour. We could see it. The nursery could see it. But when we raised our concerns with the local council about beginning the EHCP process, we were advised to wait until he started school.
We followed that advice. It set us back before we'd even begun.
I want to say that clearly for any parent reading this in a similar position: if your child is showing significant needs at nursery — regardless of what anyone tells you — you can request an EHC needs assessment from your local authority at any point. We didn't know that. We do now. Don't make the same mistake we did.
Reception Year: An Hour a Day
When C started school, the picture became undeniable. The school couldn't support him adequately due to dangers he was putting himself and others in, and as we began the EHCP process in reception year, his timetable was reduced to just one hour a day after multiple suspensions in the first two weeks.
One hour. For a year.
While we were navigating forms, assessments, meetings and appeals, our son was spending the vast majority of his days at home. Not because he wasn't ready to learn. Because the system that was supposed to support him wasn't ready for him.
This is the reality that doesn't make it into the glossy government summaries of SEND support. This is what "navigating the system" actually looks like at ground level.
Ninety-Four Schools
Over the following years, we did what the system expected us to do. We researched. We wrote reports. We gathered evidence. We joined waiting lists. We contacted school after school across Surrey, building a picture of what might be possible for Cooper.
We contacted 94 schools in total. Every single one told us they could not meet his needs.
Ninety-four. I want that number to sit with you for a moment, because I think it tells you everything about the state of provision for children with complex PDA profiles. This was not a family failing to be realistic or explore options. This was a child whose specific combination of needs — and particularly the PDA profile, where the very sight of an institutional school environment could send him into fight or flight — meant that the standard menu of provision in Surrey simply did not contain anything suitable.
The system was not built for him. And no one in the system seemed to feel responsible for that.
Three Hearings. No Lawyer. Just Us.
We reached tribunal without advocacy support. No solicitor, no specialist charity representative — just two exhausted parents who had taught themselves enough about education law to stand in front of a judge and argue for their son.
Hearing one: Council was barred from attending due to procedural failings on their part.
Hearing two: They didn't turn up at all.
Hearing three: Because of the previous no-shows, we had more time with the judge than is typical. It became something closer to a conversation — a discussion of options, of what was realistic, of what the evidence actually showed. That time, which was only possible because of the councils failures to engage with the process, turned out to be crucial.
I don't say any of this to be dramatic. I say it because if you are facing tribunal and you are terrified, I want you to know that we were too. And we did it anyway. Without lawyers. Without a safety net. With nothing except the evidence we had gathered ourselves and the absolute certainty that we knew our son better than anyone else in that room.
The School We'd Been Told About — and the EHCP That Was Out of Date
After the second hearing, the judge was open to our preferred school — a mainstream setting that had been recommended to us as genuinely different from the institutional environments that sent Cooper into crisis. The judge agreed that we could submit his EHCP to the school for their consideration.
They came back and said they couldn't meet his needs.
Another wall. Another no. And at this point, I could have accepted it. A judge had agreed to the submission. The school had declined. There was a logical next step that involved accepting this outcome and regrouping.
I didn't accept it. I asked for a phone call. My instinct was urging me to discuss this further with them and am I glad I did.
That conversation was where everything changed. Because within minutes of speaking to someone rather than exchanging documents, we discovered something that had been sitting, invisible, at the heart of this entire impasse: C's EHCP they had received, still had old material included in it. The document the school had read did not accurately reflect who he was now — how he had changed, how his needs had evolved, what kind of environment he actually required. They had made a decision based on a portrait that was no longer accurate.
Once we understood that, everything shifted. The "no" to a proper assessment became a yes. The yes became a visit. The visit became a conversation. And the conversation became an offer.
Winning — and the Feeling That Came With It
We presented the school's offer to the court. It was accepted. C had his place.
I remember standing in the school corridor afterwards, holding the hand of a SEN teacher who had played a significant part in making this happen, squeezing it tightly — with gratitude, yes, but also with something I hadn't expected: a wave of deflation so profound it nearly knocked me off my feet.
Three years. Three hearings. Ninety-four schools. Hundreds of emails. Reports written at midnight. Evidence gathered while also parenting a child who needed us to show up every single day. We'd done it.
And I felt completely empty.
I've thought about that feeling a lot since. I think it was the crash that comes after years of sustained adrenaline. I think it was also the sudden, unavoidable awareness that winning the place was not the end — it was the beginning of a new set of challenges. The transition. The first day. The relationship-building. All still ahead.
And perhaps most honestly: I think it was grief. Grief for the years we'd lost. For the hour-a-day timetable. For the 94 schools that said no. For the family we might have been if the system had worked the way it was supposed to.
What We Would Tell You If You're Still in This
Start the EHCP process as early as you possibly can. If your child is at nursery and you have concerns, request the assessment now. Don't wait for school. Don't wait to be advised to. The earlier you begin, the more time you have.
Document absolutely everything. Every email. Every phone call (follow it up in writing). Every meeting. Every verbal promise. The out-of-date EHCP that nearly cost us this placement only came to light because we were in a live conversation rather than exchanging letters. But the evidence that supported us in that conversation existed because we had kept records of everything for three years.
Don't let a document speak for your child. An EHCP is a snapshot. Children change. If the paperwork no longer reflects who your child is, push for it to be updated — and if an institution makes a decision based on outdated information, challenge that. Ask to speak to a person. Persist.
You don't need a lawyer to go to tribunal. We didn't have one. What you need is your evidence, your knowledge of your child, and the willingness to keep turning up even when the other side doesn't.
And when the walls go up — when the 94th school says no, when the local authority doesn't appear, when you sit in a corridor wondering why winning feels like grief — remember that the deflation is not failure. It's what comes after an enormous fight. Give yourself time to feel it. And then, when you're ready, keep going.
C deserved his place. So does your child. Don't let anyone — any document, any system, any letter — convince you otherwise.