A good chat with our Career’s Officer, Learning Mentor, Further Education Advisor, PSHCE Co-ordinator, Listening Ear, General Good Egg…
It was continuing a conversation we began about6 months ago, and it ties into SIMS, our new progress checks, communication, webness and my role as a tutor. What a tangled web we weave.
Individual Learning Plans are according to the campaign for learning:
“Your plan is a way for you to set personal targets and record achievements. It helps you to
keep on track towards where you want to be in your life and your work.”
Our goal is to take all the progress data, and in particular the targets set by subject teachers, then:
- condense and simplify targets
- give ownership to the students
- receive input from tutors and parents
- communicate and update the plan as a living document
(Like most things on this blog I just made that bit up, but it sounds a bit like what we want it to do – also like many things no-one at school has a clear responsibility for ILPs, in particular I’d value some input from people who have a better understanding of Assessment for Learning, ie. what makes a good atarget, how many targets should we set?)
Where was I? – my thoughts were interrupted by a power cut!
The problem is:
- Half termly progress checks generate about 10 targets for each pupil, plus identify areas where effort or performance may have decreased. These targets are in SIMS.
- In addition once a year, parents & pupils meet with tutors to discuss progress. This meeting is usually recorded on paper – but only where action is needed.
- Also, pupils have space in their planners to record targets.
- Also, individual subject staff often set short term targets for pupils.
- Also, some students have pupil support programmes, or individual education plans as a result of a particular learning need or behavioural issue.
How do we combine, simplify and communicate these as a learning plan?
As ever, I can only see bits of solutions.
- A great(ish) piece of software which we already use to write IEPs called IEP Writer, which works alongside SIMS.
- The oportunity the Internet provides to share plans with pupils, parents and staff – and allows pupils to access and update their own plans. A few companies offer software and the services to enable this. One case study I found.
- We could use a SIMS marksheet to record maybe 3 refined targets as part of our academic review meeting – but once a year probably isn’t enough to make best use of a learning plan? And it needs a staff memebr to enter the targets, and students can’t yet access them easily – do they just copy them into their planner?
Oh,dear, more questions than answers – we did reach some conclusions during our chat! And a possible way forward.. honestly 