[senco-forum] writing ieps

annie williams wrote:
> I am going to hand over the writing of ieps to class teachers and am going to give inset to teachers on Monday. Any suggestions? I do know that ieps are not now statutory and can be monitored through provision mapping but..........
>
> annie
>
>   
Why?
Writing IEPs alone takes away the most valuable part of the process, the 
sharing of ideas, expertise and strategies. Writing IEPs with the SENCo 
allows the SENCo and teacher and TAs to share expertise, knowledge of 
the child from previous years etc and to assess whether a child is 
receiving appropriate provision.
That said if the decision has already been taken and you have Inset on 
Monday here are some practical suggestions!
I took a year to hand over writing of IEPs to staff who had previously 
had very little involvement ... I dont know how long you have and how 
involved your teachers are.Also whether or not you are using IEP writer 
or similar  .If you re using computer based  IEPs the practicalities of 
using the software are the least, not most important part of the 
process. IEP writer is valuable for use as a target bank, but useless if 
teachers re tempted to use targets s they stand. I arrived to IEPs which 
listed resources that were not in school because noone had read laong 
the columns. That said, IEP writer was my lifeline when I started as  a 
clueless SENCo, used well it is  god resource! However I think it is 
crucial to consider each section , not just the targets. ie achievement 
criteria, resources and who is going to do this when.
It my be more helpful to start by identifyimg when and how, before 
getting bogged down in target detail. At my school we try and avoid 
writing targets unless we know we can work on them - this is what makes 
IEPs meaningless.
Teachers will need to consider how they are going to identify targets. 
Do they have the expertise to select finely differentiated phonic 
targets? Are targets going to be linked to whole school or class 
targets? or "what would you most like x to be able to do by xmas -even 
better, what would the *child* like to be able to do by Christmas?