IEPWriter 3

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As the teacher responsible for writing the IEPs for sixty plus secondary pupils with a Statement and at School Action Plus, I wanted to create a system for the school that was easy for staff to use, less costly in time and paper than the previous system and most importantly, produced simple, relevant, understandable targets and strategies for the pupil, in a format that was easy for them to read. With the single user version of IEPWriter 3, I have been able to go some way towards achieving this.

I have used a previous version of the IEPWriter and found the problem was that I was not able to put the IEPs into a Word document so that staff could print the IEPs themselves. The SEN Department had to provide a whole set of IEPS to each department to be stored centrally (15 departments in total) along with a further set for staff to use to photocopy the IEPs they needed. The IEPWriter 3 produces IEPs using either one of the built-in IEP designs, or through Microsoft Word Documents using one of the supplied document templates. Word Templates are easy to change and I was able to create one, which was 'pupil friendly' and also informative for staff and parents. Changing the font used for the IEP, the size of the characters used for the targets and associated text, as well as the spacing of the targets down the form was easily done and the finished product was clear and professional.

When Word is used with IEPWriter 3, the design of the IEP can be modified to suit the school or local authority requirements. Supplementary pages can be added to provide a review sheet and/or additional information such as the student's Strengths and Weaknesses, Long term Aims, Proposed Support, Agencies Involved, Test Results. I intend to investigate the usefulness of this next September along with using the Review Sheet. At the moment, we write on the old IEP as we talk it through with the pupil, commenting on the achievement of targets and discussing possible new ones. I am considering the possibility of review sheets being e-mailed to the pupils for them to look over before their IEP Review appointment.

I copied the file containing all the IEPs into the Staff SEN Information file and distributed a memo to all teachers and support assistants, explaining where to find the IEPs along with a list of the names of the pupils with an IEP. Staff were then able to print off the IEPs they needed. Storing the IEPs in SIMS would have been costly for the school and it would also have taken longer for staff to access and print off each IEP. Instead, I put the IEPs into Year Group files containing each form group and staff have found this very straightforward to use.

It is easy to modify the text of the target into wording used by the student rather than a target set by the teacher or the IEPWriter. The phrases can be modified to match the exact needs of the pupil. The Find button, or Edit Find Target Menu can be used to locate a target containing a specific keyword. These were particularly useful and timesaving. NC and P Level Codes have been assigned to many of the Literacy and Maths targets in IEPWriter 3. They can be changed and adapted by the user where required. The targets and strategies are useful and of sufficient variety to provide a basis for creating an individual education plan.

I found the IEPWriter 3 to be beneficial in all the ways I was hoping it would be and having used it in just one round of IEP writing, I think I have only scratched the surface of its benefits.

Karen Emerson
Learning Support Co-ordinator
St Thomas More RC College