Individual Education Plans – IEP’s:
Pupils at School Action, School Action Plus or with a Statement of Special Educational Needs will have an Individual Education Plan (IEP).
The IEP is a document for teaching staff to plan the education for children with special educational needs. It is a planning, teaching and reviewing tool, which identifies a pupil’s immediate learning needs, and the special arrangements that need to be put in place to enable the pupil’s needs to be met.
An IEP should:
- Increase learning opportunities
- Develop and nurture support
- Identify key skills
- Trigger specific action
- Detail specific responsibilities
- Provide a clear timetable.
IEP’s provide:
- A focus for collaborative effort where a number of people help to work towards a specific goal.
- An opportunity to share common goals for the pupil through target setting
An effective IEP should be accessible, flexible and easy to understand, but with the following characteristics where appropriate:
- Be brief and action based
- Identify specific areas of difficulty
- Specify a learning programme
- Set specific and relevant targets
- Provide criteria to measure success
- Present achievable goals
- Specify support and resources
- Indicate how parents are involved
- Include contributions from pupils
- Detail medical needs
- Be linked with existing assessment
- Identify success criteria
- Be clear and easy to use
- Tie in with established routines
- Set clear monitoring dates
- Set date for next review
SMART Targets
Targets stated on an IEP should always be SMART. Meaning that they need to be Specific...Measurable...Achievable...Relevant...Timed
IEP’s should be reviewed at least twice every year, although often reviews will be held termly or more often, depending on a child’s needs.
Reviews of IEP’s should not be confused with the Annual Review of a Statement of special educational needs, although the current IEP will be part of that review.
