There were 390,109 children and young people with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans maintained by local authorities as of January 2020. This was before COVID-19 was the only topic on people’s minds, before the country endured three lockdowns and before 8.9 million pupils had their education and lives disrupted in ways we could never have imagined.

Towards the end of 2020, local authorities were already beginning to see an increase in requests for EHC plans as pupils returned to school after the initial COVID-19 impact. We can only expect this to increase further with schools having opened to all pupils before the Easter holidays. We will begin to see the impact of lockdowns on the social, emotional and mental well-being of the children and the effect home-schooling has had on their progression.