Ability 

A Change from ILP's to IEP's

Our Ability Pillar of REAL sets out the following:

• Individual Student Plans and Profiles are written and revised yearly.
• Therapy maximises student opportunities by providing support linked to ability
• Play, Life and Social Skill abilities are assessed using checklists.
• Assessment data is collected on schedule to review student learning outcomes
• Staff use the ‘Abilities Based Learning and Education Support’ (ABLES) data and recommendations for IEP and Learning Group development
• An assessment and reporting system is used for recording assessments data, writing reports and keeping SSG minutes.

According to the Australian Alliance for Inclusive Education an IEP is about access and equity to education and should consider the “reasonable adjustments” that need to be made to provide students with access to teaching, learning and the schooling experience generally. (link)

Yarrabah establishes, reviews and revises Individual Plans and Profiles during term 1, each year for each child. At the very beginning of term 1 families and carers were invited to speak with the classroom teacher. At this SSG you spoke about the experiences and educational considerations you felt were important for the teacher to know. This conversation was your first SSG meeting. There will be three more SSG meetings throughout this year. 

Developing Goals:

Teachers and Co-educators, Therapist and Specialists have been getting to know you child over the past 6 weeks. Each educator has been immersing your child in experiences across most of the Victorian curriculum based on our two year curriculum overview.  These curriculum experiences are helping your educator form realistic and achievable goals and strategies that will be presented to you as a draft very soon. You will receive an invitation to review these proposed goals prior to them being presented as a final version.

Prior Knowledge:

Previous information about your child includes minutes of past SSG meetings, teachers to teacher meetings the year before, past cognitive assessments, school reports, ABLES assessments, formal assessments from across the curriculum, teacher judgments across the curriculum, sensory profiles, communication data and life skills data. The teachers have drawn on this data to prepare recommended goals for your child that will assist them in accessing and engaging in the curriculum.

Goals in the IEP:

The IEP identifies only three areas your child will be working on in order to better access the breadth of curriculum throughout the year. The teachers and therapist have collectively worked to develop SMART goals. Goals have been created to support the student in the following areas:

• Communication - an area of focus in communication identified directly to Speaking and Listening within the English learning area.
• Life Skills - an area of focus in their life skills that has been identified within the Health and Physical Education learning area
• An area of focus within the Personal and Social capabilities that relates to social, personal  or interpersonal skills.

Recap:

So the IEP goals will not be the only focus for your child throughout the year. The IEP is a set of core goals and strategies the educators will be using to adjust and enable your child to access the broader curriculum within their level. 

We will be providing another overview of the IEP within the final IEP document sent to you on the final week of term 1.

For more information about the IEP, please contact the Principal