The child's voice
What your child says about school, in their own words, including what they say when they are calm rather than only in the worst moments. Where a child cannot or does not want to say much, that is recorded honestly too.
EBSA Support Plans explained
What is an EBSA Support Plan and who can write one?
An EBSA Support Plan is a written record of what is making school hard for one particular child, what has been tried, what helps and what is being asked for next. It is not a legal document and not a diagnosis. Its job is to make a family's experience specific, dated and usable in a meeting.
An EBSA Support Plan may be prepared by a parent or carer, by school, by a professional or by a support service, depending on the circumstances. There is no single profession that owns it. What matters is that it reflects the child accurately and that everyone involved is working from the same picture.
Start the free EBSA SnapshotWhat information can it contain?
Attendance and emotional impact
Whether they attended, arrived late, left early, were collected or stayed all day, alongside the distress before and after. Attendance figures alone hide the cost of getting there.
Triggers and patterns
Days, lessons, transitions, times of day, people and places that come up repeatedly, and where exactly it stops: bedroom, front door, car park, gate, corridor, classroom door.
Masking
Evidence that a child is holding themselves together in school and releasing it at home, including after-school collapse and recovery time.
Sensory and communication needs
Noise, crowding, lighting, uniform, food, smells, and how your child communicates when they are overwhelmed, including when they cannot explain at the time.
What has been tried
Dated, honest and specific, including things that did not work. This prevents the same strategy being suggested again as if it were new.
What helps, even briefly
Small things that made a difference: a person, a route, a space, less notice, more notice, a shorter day, an agreed exit.
Adjustments and support being asked for
What you are asking school or other services to consider, why, and how you would all know whether it helped.
You can see the shape of one in the example EBSA Support Plan.
How parents can share it with school
- Send it before a meeting, not in it, so people have read it.
- Keep the first page short: what is happening, what helps, what you are asking for.
- Bring dates and specifics rather than general descriptions.
- Agree who will do what, and when it will be reviewed.
- Ask for the school's decisions and reasoning in writing.
How the plan can be reviewed over time
- Update the record as things change, rather than starting again.
- Compare periods, so you can see whether a change actually helped.
- Keep earlier versions, so progress and setbacks are both visible.
- Review at the points that matter: after an adjustment, after a difficult stretch, before a meeting, at the start of a term.
A plan that is never reviewed becomes a snapshot of one bad fortnight. A plan that is reviewed shows whether support is working, which is the question schools and services actually need answered.
Where to start on this site
Free EBSA Snapshot
A short set of guided questions that organises what you are already seeing, at no cost.
Start the free SnapshotFull EBSA Support Plan
The complete picture, next steps for home and school, and a plan you can share and review.
See how the full plan worksEBSA Track
Ongoing daily and weekly recording, attendance history and reports, so the record keeps building instead of stopping.
See EBSA Track and pricingBook Simplified Support
The book that sits behind this work, for the wider background reading.
Visit Book Simplified Support
EBSA Simplified Support does not diagnose EBSA, is not a clinical assessment and cannot guarantee a particular educational outcome. Related reading: EBSA assessment and EBSA support for parents.