SEN to ALN Transition in Wales: What It Means for Home Educators

In August 2025, Wales completed the most significant overhaul of its special educational needs framework in a generation. Statements of SEN — the documents that had defined state support for children with significant learning needs since the 1980s — no longer exist in Wales. Every family that was navigating the old SEN system, whether mid-assessment or already in possession of a Statement, has now been transitioned to the new framework under the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 (ALNET).

If you are planning to withdraw your child from a Welsh school and your child has any history of SEN support, this transition directly affects how the withdrawal process works and what protections remain in place.

What Changed in August 2025

The ALNET framework was introduced by the Welsh Government in stages from 2021 onwards. The phased transition period ran through to August 2025, at which point the transition was declared complete. From that date:

• Statements of Special Educational Needs ceased to exist in Wales. No child in Wales holds a Statement of SEN.
• Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) are an England-only document. They have never existed in Wales, but confusion between the two systems has been widespread. EHCPs do not apply in Wales and never have.
• Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are now the statutory planning document for children and young people aged 0–25 with Additional Learning Needs that require specialist provision.

Children who previously had Statements were assessed during the transition period. The majority were either issued with an IDP (where their needs continued to meet the threshold for specialist provision) or moved to school-based support plans (where needs could be met through universal and targeted provision without a statutory document).

If your child had a Statement of SEN before August 2025 and you were not notified about the outcome of the transition, you should contact the LA to establish what, if anything, is currently in place. A child with significant needs should not have fallen through the transition without a documented outcome.

Why the England/Wales Confusion Matters for Withdrawal

This is a practical problem, not an academic one. A large proportion of the guidance available online about withdrawing a child with special educational needs from school was written for England. English guidance references:

• EHCPs (which do not exist in Wales)
• SEND Code of Practice (England and Wales used to share this; Wales now has its own ALN Code)
• Ofsted inspection frameworks (Ofsted does not operate in Wales; Estyn is the inspection body in Wales)
• Local authority duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 (an England-only statute in this context)

If you use a withdrawal letter or guide that references any of these and submit it to a Welsh school or local authority, it signals immediately that you are working from English guidance. For a family with a child who has ALN, this can invite closer LA scrutiny at exactly the moment you want the process to be straightforward.

The correct Welsh references are:

• The Education (Pupil Registration) (Wales) Regulations 2010
• The Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 (ALNET)
• The ALN Code for Wales (2021, updated 2023)
• Individual Development Plan (IDP) — not Statement, not EHCP

What the New ALN System Means for Home Education

Under the old SEN framework, a child with a Statement retained entitlement to the provision in the Statement regardless of educational setting — in theory. In practice, the interaction between Statements and home education was poorly defined.

Under ALNET, the position is more clearly articulated. If a local authority maintains an IDP for a home-educated child, it must satisfy itself that the Additional Learning Provision specified in the IDP is being delivered. If the parent cannot deliver specific elements of the provision — specialist input from a speech and language therapist, for example, or intensive literacy intervention requiring specialist training — the local authority must consider how to secure that provision. This creates a funding obligation that the old system did not make as explicit.

The threshold for an LA-maintained IDP in a home education context is that the child has ALN requiring specialist provision that goes beyond what the parent can deliver at home through their own resources. This is assessed by the LA after deregistration, through the IDP transfer process.

The Transition Left Some Families in Limbo

One of the unintended consequences of the 2025 transition deadline is that some families found themselves in bureaucratic limbo. A child who was mid-assessment under the old SEN framework, with a Statement under appeal, or whose school-maintained support plan had not yet been formally reviewed, may have arrived at the transition deadline with an unclear status.

Families in this situation who are now planning to withdraw need to establish the current status of their child's provision before deregistering. The reason is straightforward: once you deregister, the school's records become the basis for the LA's assessment of whether an LA-maintained IDP is needed. If the records show a child with complex unmet needs, the LA is more likely to engage actively. If the records show a child whose needs have been formally reviewed and who is receiving appropriate provision, the transition to home education is simpler to manage.

What Has Not Changed

The fundamental legal position for home-educating families in Wales remains unchanged by the ALN transition:

• You do not need the LA's permission to home educate (unless withdrawing from a special school — see the post on withdrawing from a special school in Wales).
• You do not need to follow the Curriculum for Wales.
• You are not required to employ qualified teachers.
• Home education provision is not assessed against Curriculum for Wales benchmarks.
• The legal standard remains an "efficient, full-time education suitable to the child's age, ability, aptitude, and any special educational needs" under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996.

The ALN transition affects the administrative mechanics — what documents exist, how provision responsibilities transfer, what the LA's ongoing duties are. It does not affect the fundamental legal framework that protects your right to educate your child at home.

Acting Now in the Post-Transition Environment

If your child has ALN and you are planning to withdraw, the window between the August 2025 transition completion and the full implementation of the mandatory CNIS register (expected when the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill receives Royal Assent, anticipated mid-2026) is actually a relatively clear period in which the deregistration process follows established rules. The post-Royal-Assent environment will introduce new registration requirements and potentially new layers of administrative process.

For families in the ALN space specifically, getting the withdrawal right now — with correct Welsh legal references and a clear understanding of the IDP transfer process — is important. The Wales Legal Withdrawal Blueprint covers the post-transition legal framework in full, including the IDP transfer mechanics, the LA's statutory duties regarding ALP in home education contexts, and how to handle the transition from school-based provision to home-based provision for children with ALN.

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