How Best Chance works
There are four parts to it: you answer a few questions, you get a finding you can read, you decide whether to keep it, and you take one next step. This page goes through each part, and says plainly which of them work today.
The check is free. It does not ask for your child’s name, and nothing you enter is sent to a school or council. If you stop partway, what you answered stops being available half an hour later.
The four parts
The same four parts run behind every check on this site. The parts that need an account are marked, so you can see what works today.
You answer a few questions
One question at a time, each with a set list of answers. There’s no box to type into, so nothing you write can end up somewhere you did not expect.
You get a finding
What your answers point to, and why it matters. What’s confirmed, and what’s still unknown. Any timescale that applies. And the published guidance behind it, with the date it was last checked.
You decide whether to keep itComing soon
Keeping a finding means making an account, and accounts are not open yet. Today this step shows you exactly what would be carried across: which check you did, and how many answers are behind it.
You take one next step
Every finding ends with one thing to do, in plain words. You decide whether to do it. Nothing is sent, submitted or filed on your behalf, and this site never contacts a school or council for you.
Where this website stops and an account begins
The public part of Best Chance is deliberately small. It recognises the problem, gives you a finding, and hands over what you’ve already told it. Anything that has to be kept over time belongs behind an account.
On this website
You run a check
A short set of questions, answered in your browser, with no account and no email address.
You read the finding
Including what’s still unknown, and the guidance it rests on.
You carry it across
A link that works for ten minutes hands the check over. The page it lands on shows the name of the check and the number of answers behind it, and nothing else.
In an account
One place for the caseComing soon
Your child, the evidence and the dates together, without retyping what you’ve already answered here.
What was promised, and what arrivedComing soon
Tracking the difference between the support that was agreed and the support that’s happening.
Letters prepared for you to sendComing soon
Drafted, shown to you to change, and sent by you. That part is still to come.
The checks you can run now
Each one asks about a different problem and ends with a different finding. They all follow the same four parts.
- The main checkStart here if you’re not sure how to describe what’s happening.
- EHC plan strengthHow clearly a plan describes the needs and the support that answers them.
- Provision deliveryWhat was agreed, against what’s actually happening.
- Deadlines and delayWhere you are in the process and which timescale applies.
- Their responseWhether a reply actually answered what you asked.
What it costs
The check is free, and you get the finding before anything is asked of you. Paid plans are for the account side. The figures are not settled: the pricing page carries them as awaiting confirmation, and nothing on this site takes a payment.
What happens to what you type
Your answers are held against a random session id for half an hour, never put in the web address, and never stored in this browser. Closing the tab takes the rest with it.
Start where you are
You do not need the right words, and you do not need the paperwork to hand. A few questions is enough to get a finding you can read.