SEN Statement Templates and Parental Representations in Northern Ireland

When the Education Authority agrees to conduct a statutory assessment, you will quickly receive a formal invitation to submit Parental Representations. The clock starts almost immediately: you have approximately 22 days to complete Appendix A1 and Appendix A2. For many parents, these forms are the most daunting part of the entire process — not because the questions are difficult, but because the stakes are high and there is no official guidance on how to write them well.

What Appendix A1 and A2 Actually Are

Appendix A1 (Parental Representations) is your opportunity to tell the EA, in your own words, about your child's difficulties and why current school provision is not sufficient. It asks about your child's early development, health history, daily challenges at home, and your views on their educational needs. Despite the bureaucratic label, this is not a clinical form — it is a personal account.

Appendix A2 (Parental Evidence) allows you to attach supporting documents: medical reports, private therapy assessments, educational psychology reports you have commissioned independently, CAMHS correspondence, school incident logs, and any other professional documentation that evidences the child's needs.

Both forms are submitted to the EA's Educational Psychology Service and feeding into the broader multi-disciplinary advice-gathering process. The EA's EP will write their own report, but your Appendix A submission is read alongside it.

How to Write Appendix A1 Effectively

The most important advice for Appendix A1 comes from SENAC: describe your child on their worst day.

The EA will assess your child in a structured test environment where many children perform better than they do in uncontrolled settings. If your child masks at school and decompresses at home, the assessment may not capture the full picture. Your Appendix A1 fills the gap.

Be concrete and specific. "My child struggles with social interaction" tells the EA very little. "My child cannot sustain a conversation with more than one person at a time, becomes overwhelmed in groups of more than three, and has not been able to eat in the school dining hall this year due to sensory overload from noise levels" tells the EA something actionable.

Cover these areas clearly:

Early years and developmental history. When were milestones reached? Were there early concerns? What assessments or interventions happened in the pre-school years?

Communication and language. How does your child communicate? What are the barriers? Does speech and language therapy make a difference? What does a communication breakdown look like at home?

Daily living skills. What can and cannot your child do independently? Dressing, personal care, managing transitions — how much adult support is required?

Behaviour and emotional regulation. What triggers difficult behaviour? What de-escalation works? What doesn't? What do meltdowns or shutdowns look like and how frequently do they occur?

Home impact of school difficulties. What time does homework take? What does the child come home like after a difficult school day? What impact has the inadequate provision had on the family as a whole?

What the school cannot do without more support. Be direct: "The school cannot safely manage [specific scenario] without one-to-one support." This is the language the EA needs to hear.

The Proposed Statement and the 15-Day Window

If the statutory assessment results in a decision to issue a Statement, the EA sends you a Proposed Statement — a draft. This arrives with copies of all professional reports gathered during the assessment. You have exactly 15 days to submit written representations challenging anything in the draft.

This is your most important intervention point before the Statement becomes final and legally binding. Use it to:

Check Part 2 against every professional report. Every difficulty and diagnosis identified in any report — EP, CAMHS, SLT, OT — must appear in Part 2. If something is missing, write formally requesting it is added.

Scrutinise every line of Part 3. Look for vague phrases like "access to," "opportunities for," "regular input," "as appropriate," or "on a flexible basis." None of these are enforceable. Write to the EA specifying exact replacements: hours per week, frequency, adult-to-child ratio, and the qualifications of the person delivering the provision.

Request a formal meeting. Within the 15-day window, formally invoke your right to meet with the named EA officer to discuss the draft. Use this meeting to negotiate specific wording before the Statement is finalised.

State your preferred school. This is the point at which you formally request that a specific school is named in Part 4.

After the 15 Days

Once the 15-day window closes and the EA issues a Final Statement, the contents become legally binding. Amendments after this point require either an agreement with the EA, a formal review, or a SENDIST appeal. This is why using the 15-day window fully is so critical — you have far more leverage before finalisation than after.

The Northern Ireland SEN Statement Blueprint includes template letters for the parental assessment request, a structured Appendix A1 framework with prompts, and a draft challenge letter for vague Part 3 wording — all built around the EA's actual NI processes.

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