Although not statutory, the Individual Education Plan (IEP) remains the most widely accepted way of breaking down a student’s long term targets into incremental steps; easily sharing their plans and progress with parents/carers and professionals; and providing clear evidence of the “assess, plan, do, review” (APDR) cycle outlined in the SEND Code of Practice 0-25.
Despite this, the format undoubtedly brings a set of challenges for Sendcos working in secondary settings.
Problem one: Too many teachers
For instance, IEPs are at their most valuable when they are collaboratively produced by staff that know the student well and when they are “live”: regularly updated and ever-evolving, taken alongside the student’s learning.
But how do you achieve that when students have a different teacher for every subject, plus support staff, and working collaboratively across multiple departments is a logistical nightmare?
What’s the solution?
When you are formatting your IEPs, bear in mind that they need to be used by teachers, who may have little or no SEND-specific training, and that they should be useful and practical tools in lesson planning and delivery.
What might this look like? Separate targets into two groups: those that can be addressed in the classroom (both academic and relating to soft skills, such as independent learning skills, peer relationships etc) and those that will be addressed by another specialist or provision.
Include a list of strategies and examples of how each target could be approached in a lesson. This makes it easier to address the targets throughout the day in a range of contexts and with a variety of people, while also supporting the student to not only develop the new skill, but also be able to apply it in a range of settings.
Problem two: Getting the right feedback
Perhaps the biggest challenge in secondary schools is getting the high-quality feedback you need to review and rewrite the IEP ready for the next term.
What’s the solution?
At my own school, we set aside an all-staff briefing (which is around 20 minutes long) at the beginning of each term to talk about why IEPs are valuable, to ensure that everyone knows where to find them and how to use them, and to make staff aware of any key changes and priorities. We then set aside a similar timeslot towards the end of term where we print and hand out the IEPs for staff to write their feedback on (successes, examples and anecdotes, as well as ongoing concerns and ideas for going forward) as well as discussing and sharing good practice together. We are then able to collate the evidence for each IEP and use it to inform the next term’s version.
IEPs are so synonymous with SEND that they run the risk of residing solely in the domain of the Sendco. Much of what makes them work in a mainstream secondary setting is actually moving them out of this niche and into the context of the school as a whole, raising the profile of SEND, upskilling teachers and bringing inclusion in the classrooms where it belongs.
At their worst, an IEP isn’t worth the paper it is written on but, when we get them right, they are a tool for better inclusion, a way for teachers to plan for greater diversity, and the catalyst for staff to collaborate on how to better support the pupils that need us the most.
Nicole Dempsey is assistant principal at Dixons Trinity Academy in Bradford
