Different schools call it different things: Individual Education Plan, IEP, SEN Support Plan, Pupil Passport, Individual Learning Plan. The substance is the same. It is a written agreement between the school and the family about what will be done differently for one particular child, and how everyone will know whether it worked.
What does a good plan contain?
- —A short profile of two or three sentences on how your child learns best, drawn from the assessment, with strengths first.
- —Three or four targets, not fifteen! Each one specific, measurable and achievable within a term.
- —The provision attached to each target: who does what, how often, for how long, and where. For example, “twenty minutes of structured phonics, four times a week, with the learning support assistant” is provision. “Support in class” is not.
- —Classroom adjustments, meaning the everyday things: seating, typed work, printed notes instead of copying from the board, extra time in tests, instructions given one at a time.
- —The review date, and who attends.
- —What home will do, kept short and realistic. A plan that assigns parents an hour of daily intervention will not survive February.
What does a useful target look like?
- “Ana will become more confident in written work.”
- “Tom will improve his concentration.”
- “Support with literacy as needed.”
- “Ana will plan a paragraph using a three-box writing frame, independently, in four out of five pieces of work by the end of term.”
- “Tom will start written tasks within two minutes of instruction in 80% of lessons, using a written checklist on his desk.”
What is your role?
You are a full participant, not a recipient. Read the draft before the meeting rather than at it. Ask for anything vague to be made specific: the question “How will we know this has happened?” does most of the work. And ask what happens if a target is not met. The answer should be a change of approach, not more of the same.
Keep every version. A folder of dated plans and reviews is the clearest possible record of your child's needs and of the school's response. It is also exactly the documentation required later if access arrangements are needed for examinations.
Where does the assessment fit in?
A school can write an IEP without a psychological report, based on teacher observation. It will usually be a weaker plan, because it is working from symptoms rather than causes. For example, “struggles with comprehension” can mean a decoding problem, a vocabulary problem, a working-memory problem or an attention problem, and each requires entirely different provision. A psychoeducational assessment tells the SEN team which of the four it is.
An IEP is a promise with dates on it. If you can read your child's plan and say exactly what will happen next Tuesday and how you will know whether it worked, it is a good plan.