IEP: Individual Education Program

When you have a child with special needs, you suddenly come across a whole world of new words, terms and acronyms to get your head around.

Yesterday I met with the school SENCO, to discuss my son's IEP.

Or...In plain English.....

I met with the member of staff at school who is responsible for children with special needs. We get together every few months to create an Individual Education plan for my son, which is basically a list of targets that the school would like him to work on.

We have to decide together on three targets. His last targets were:

1. To participate more in partner time on the carpet: He has improved in this but said that a lot of the time, the other kids don't want to talk to him, so he still needs a little help here.

2. To improve in column addition: He is almost there, but has trouble remembering to carry numbers.

3. To improve handwriting, especially finger spaces: BIG improvement on this one!

After we discussed his improvements, we then had to decide on three new targets. In the end, we decided on:

1. To learn times tables 2s, 5s and 10s off by heart.

2. To try and keep letters of a uniform size when writing.

3. To remember to collect all appropriate equipment after school on Friday. He has to remember his coat, hat, bag, PE kit and homework, plus any letters home. The teacher is going to give him a checklist for this.

She then asked my son how he felt about school. he said he was happy at school and liked it. I said that I felt his maths had really improved. he has been on a new program called "rapid maths", which seems to be helping him a lot.

We then all signed the IEP and will have the next review in February.