Individual Education Plans Implementing Effective Practice

Janet Tod, Francis Castle, Mike Blamires

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134100897
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

First Published in 1998. This book is part of a series of books on individual education plans (IEPs), each focused on a specific aspect of special educational needs (SEN) and intended to support effective practices in mainstream schools working to make their provision inclusive. This book has attempted to put forward a case for IEPs as part of a school's 'inclusive and effective practice' for the diversity of its pupils and the requirements of the 1994 Code of Practice. Further DfEE guidance on IEPs is planned to support the revised Code and it is the authors' intention that this book will support schools in developing and evaluating any improvements they make to their existing IEP procedures.

Individual Education Plans

What is an Individual Education Plan?

The term IEP refers to both a process and a document. The document serves two key purposes:

• educational: The IEP communicates the targets to be met and the anticipated learning outcomes to all involved in its delivery. The document triggers action. For example, for a parent of a child with a language delay this might simply be a diary in which they record their child’s response to ten minutes daily additional input focused around a few targeted key subject words. This action, agreed with the SENCO, aims to support their child in developing understanding and usage of subject related topic words. By recording their child’s response in a diary they monitor their part in the IEP and are able to provide summary information when it is reviewed. The same individual pupil would experience the class or subject teacher’s action. Action might also be taken by a specialist from an outside agency such as a speech therapist. Each person involved in the delivery of the IEP is responsible for their own action and reports back summary information to the SENCO at times of review. Such a system reduces the detail that has to be written on the IEP. Action underpins the Individual Education Plan.
• accountability: The IEP acts as a summary document which provides evidence and evaluates the additional provision that has been allocated to the individual pupil. The IEP document is thus central to in-school and LEA review meetings. Schools need also to review their IEP documents so that school effectiveness in relation to SEN can be evaluated and areas highlighted for school development, budgeting and resource allocation.

Why do pupils need an Individual Education Plan?

Figure 2 illustrates the function of IEPs at Stages 2 and 3 of the 1994 Code. The DfEE in the 1998 SEN Action Plan state that: ‘”we propose to remove the current stage 1, thereby reducing the school-based elements in the Code from three to two-Support Plus, corresponding largely with the current stage 2 and Support Plus, similarly corresponding with the current stage 3’ In addition there will be consultation on the alternative term ‘stages’ to denote the elements of the framework. Clearly the function of IEPs is to allocate provision that is ‘extra or different’ to that at Stage 1. The IEP is not a compensatory device which makes up for lack of appropriate provision at Stage 1. The IEP forms part of the positive action planning process central to the Code and should signal the need for additional educational effort.

Figure 3 illustrates some of the perceptions of IEPs by teachers which have influenced IEPs’ development.

The Advisory Centre for Education (ACE 1997) has noted that schools need to balance individual planning for pupils with SEN with whole-school planning to secure good standards of literacy, numeracy and behaviour, particularly when the school has a suitable number of pupils who are underachieving and where many have SEN. Head teachers and the SENCOs should ensure that IEPs are effective, manageable, and easily understood by parents, pupils, and staff.

Individual needs may be considered to have arisen from factors within the individual, their family, the school curriculum, the school environment, their socio-economic

Figure 2

Figure 3

OHP 1

environment or a combination of all these factors. The IEP procedure was developed in recognition of the fact that some pupils with SEN needed to have educational effort clearly focused towards meeting a few clearly defined targets irrespective of the complexities of attributed causation. The IEP was designed to be additional to and not instead of other SEN provision provided by the school.

at the core of the Code’s endorsement of the IEP lies a simple idea: if an institution or group of people gather their efforts round one or more straightforward objectives and review, after a specified time, whether these objectives have been achieved the desired change is more likely to take place.

(SCAA 1995)

In the case of Stage 3 IEPs, this includes additional outside agencies. Figure 4 represents the different educational components of an IEP for a pupil with difficulties in reading. The grid represents a concept of an IEP rather than a grid to be filled. On the right is the curriculum described in ‘key skills’ to ensure that targets are curriculum linked. At the top are the pupil’s needs based on the idea of ‘different or extra’ (this is a relative concept depending on teacher expertise at Stage 1). These needs are translated into targets. The left-hand side of the grid directs attention to the roles and responsibilities of all those involved in meeting the targets.

Many schools recognise that IEPs have been helpful in:

• providing a vehicle for the development of collaboration and involvement with parents, and a mechanism for enabling pupils to become more involved in their own learning plans
• directing teacher attention towards the setting, and resetting of clear, educationally relevant targets
• involving staff in the development and implementation of strategies to meet those targets, thereby improving and sharing classroom practice
• harnessing available resources to meet those strategies
• increasing the emphasis on the monitoring of pupil response to teaching
• providing clearer evidence as to the effectiveness of additional SEN provision.

How are schools developing their response to IEP procedures?

Schools and LEAs have made considerable efforts to comply with the IEP procedures described in the Code. However the pressures on SENCOs has been well documented and there is a clear need to develop systems and strategies to reduce this pressure while still adhering to the principles of provision embodied in the IEP procedures. The initial emphasis was on developing the IEP format, based presumably on the hope that if the paperwork could be solved then the process would follow. This has been gradually replaced by concerns for developing strategies which support the actual delivery, monitoring and evaluation of the IEP.

In many schools a large proportion of the SENCO’s time is given to writing and reviewing IEPs, often at the expense of enabling the SENCO to work with individual pupils. Some SENCOs, however have found that the training in the writing and reviewing

Figure 4

of an IEP is a highly effective way of providing in-school SEN training for other teachers and support staff.

(OFSTED 1997 6:68)

Schools have responded in various ways which include:

Phased introduction

Many schools seem to have been going through a similar process in implementing IEPs at whole-school level. This could be summarised in a series of steps:

Step 1:	An IEP format is initially designed in order to meet perceived legislated requirements. This is either a pilot or becomes implemented (sometimes published formats are customised or LEA models are used).
Step 2:	The format is reviewed in the light of experience gained at Stage 1 (this usually involves a simplification) and taking into consideration how class/subject teachers, parents and pupils can become active participants in the procedure.
Step 3:	Schools examine how IT might serve to lessen the burden of the repetitive paperwork involved in IEP recording. They also look at systems to help monitor IEPs.
Step 4:	Concern becomes focused on the actual educational effectiveness of the procedure. Enthusiasm for responding to the challenge of IEPs has been tempered by the recognition that the monitoring and evaluation of the educational effectiveness of IEPs is based upon developing practice in whole-school procedures in assessment and planning.

Schools may recognise which step they are on. Many are already at step 4. Some primary schools feel that they have IEPs fully in place and have received praise from OFSTED. Other schools have found it difficult to make a difference between Stage 2 (‘different’ and ‘extra’) and Stage 3 (‘different’, ‘extra’ and ‘specialist’). In some areas of the country there is little outside specialist support available so that Stage 3 in effect does not exist.

Some schools have decided to report on pupil progress three times per year (two short reports, one more detailed). By this process the res...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• How to use this book
• Introduction
• Well, that about wraps it up for IEPs … or does it?
• Individual Education Plans
• References
• Appendices