Why Student Support Plans Rarely Help

Tips for creating a useful student profile for your child’s school

If you went into a school today and looked into a filing cabinet, I wonder how many student plans you would find in there gathering dust. I suspect it would be quite a few.

I’ve written previously about some of the reasons student plans (sometimes called SSPs or IEPs) often end up being useless.

Here are just a few characteristics of a student plan which are absolutely necessary for it to be at all helpful:

• It must be specific to that student. General strategies which tend to work for children with similar profiles are inadequate. They need to be specific to that student’s daily life in the school, individualized for their unique profile and needs.

• Then make it even more specific. Outline specific daily tasks the student struggles with, or their specific personal struggles at school. Think of a typical day for them and what difficulties they encounter.

• Set goals with the student, not for the student. The plan must focus on helping the student meet their goals for themself, not goals the staff want the student to meet in order to make their jobs easier, or goals the staff feel the student should work towards.

• It must be both specific (again) and practical. When you’re breaking down a typical day for the student, think of small everyday things the adults can do in order to support them and make their day easier (and/or more successful).

• It must be both realistic and practical. Lofty goals are great and it can be helpful to include long-term goals. It’s important to also keep the short-term in mind and to ensure the plans and goals are reasonable and realistic for the staff and student to follow.

• What resources are readily available? What would the staff need to do in order for the plan to be implemented? What can they put into place immediately while waiting for other aspects to fall into place? Are we truly looking at what needs to happen on a day-to-day basis, or are we planning too far ahead?

• Plan for follow-up. There must be a system of checking in with the adults involved to ensure they understand the plan and have the resources necessary to implement it in a timely manner. There should also be measures for determining whether the strategies are actually helping the student, and plans for updating them as the student grows and matures.

I’ve written about effective education planning for students in greater detail in the past, but today I want to focus on student profiles. Helping school staff really understand your child, what their personal struggles are, what works for them, and what they need to be successful.

These can be just as meaningful as an SSP, if not more so, when it comes to providing effective support for a student. When they’re written by someone who truly cares about and understands the child, in a way that helps others see that child through the lens of a loving caregiver, they’re a way to bridge the gap between policy and practice.

Student profiles can be written in a way that is more practical, shorter, and easier to understand than a formal education planning document. IEPs and SSPs are less effective if they are overly academic and full of professional jargon, while lacking actionable, pragmatic tools and strategies.

I’ve created a sample profile here. Please note, this is not based on any student I have supported, it is a fictional amalgamation of many children I’ve met over the years.

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Student Strengths

Passions and interests:

• Animals

• Hockey

• Reading

• Music

• Video games

Strengths:

• Funny

• Very smart, curious

• Compassionate, sensitive

• Loves to help others

• Very good with technology

• Strong in science and English subjects

While I’m only providing a few brief points here, in a real student plan or profile, the idea is to utilize these strengths in order to support the student. The strengths and areas of interest should be considered when developing strategies to engage the student and meet their needs.