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Guest Author: Isabelle Wolfe

Isabelle Wolfe is teacher of French and Head of Grade at the International School of Aberdeen in Scotland. @Isawolfe04 (X) Isabelle Wolfe (Linkedin)

All students have a right to education as per the United Nations Sustainable Goals. Goal 4 aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all.” Inclusive education is also framed by law in most countries. In Scotland, this falls under the umbrella of GIRFEC and more specifically regarding education, the Education (Additional Support for Learning) Act 2004 clearly stipulates that all children and young people have the right to get the support they need to reach their full learning potential.

IEP (Individual Education Plan) are developed usually by the SST (Student Support Team) in order to identify the strategies and classroom accommodations to help the students who need such intervention.  More often than not, these plans are very detailed, exhaustive and clear. 

Throughout the year, in most schools, students who have an IEP are discussed at regular meetings at the same time every week on the same day by the same team, usually consisting of the learning support teachers and the teachers of the students and in some cases with the heads of year and members of the leadership team such as the assistant principal. However, the student is rarely present at these IEP meetings.  

We should reflect on the effect size SST meetings have on student achievement. How can we make sure that IEP have an impact on students learning once they are written out at the beginning of the year and shared with the student subject teachers.

Very often after the initial IEP is written out, student support meetings do not consistenetly have at the forefront students voice but in an organic way teachers perpectives take centre stage. 

How can we consequently ensure that students agency, advocacy and voice are meaningful in SST meetings?

These three steps can a way forward to reach this objective.

1. Prioritise student voice in the means of participation during SST meetings

In order to embed student voices in IEPs, students should actively take part in SST meetings. Applying the concept of UDL, it is up to the students to decide the degree of participation they want to take in terms of engagement, representation and expression.

Some students might not want to participate, but will be happy to sit at the meeting and observe what is being said.

A few students might choose to record a video or audio message following some prompts that the SST or the teachers would have prepared. Many applications such Mote or Screencastify can help. Options such as voice typing can also be used. These messages can then be played during the SSt meetings.

Another means of participating could be a presentation, again with the choices of format, slideshow, pictures, mind maps, drawing, graphic organizers. Students can use papers or templates available on media such as Canva.

Other students will be also happy to come and participate actively in a more formal meeting.

Students should have the choice on how to present their voices.

2. Privilege student voice in the location and settings of the SST meetings

Deciding how to take part is crucial but where to take part could also be another aspect of allowing students who might be over stimulated by some environments to be comfortable. Giving the choice to the student of the location of the meeting is recognising that their voice is respected and that they are owning this meeting as much as the other attendees do.

Most of the SST meetings take place in meeting rooms that the student has never been in and that could be intimidating.

Some students can decide if they would rather have a meeting in their regular classrooms, or in the principal’s office with their choice of seating, in a sensory room if the school has one or in the common room.

3. Emphasize student voice during the SST meeting

Once the means of participation and the location have been decided, the next step is to ensure that the student voice is predominant during the SST meeting. There are a couple of key elements to make these meetIngs meaningful : 

a) The creation of an agenda

Creating an agenda with the student prior to the meeting is essential. A clear agenda should be prepared upstream between the student and the student support team before meeting with subject teachers or head of year. Workload for subject teachers mean that meetings can be difficult to plan as well as finding a common time to meet can be tricky. In this case, the head of year or the principal/assistant principal can act as a relay for the subject teachers. There should be a person who is designated as the note taker and can share them effectively with the student’s teachers following the SST meeting.. Collaborative teacher efficacy, as defined by Hattie, has a very high effect size and is strongly linked to students achievements. 

b) The norms of collaboration

If meetings do not have norms of collaborations and an adherence to time, it will be very likely teachers voices and perspective will take over. It is crucial to have clear guidelines on how to hold the meeting, the student should be heard and understood before notes are taken. Before starting the meeting, make sure you also have established with the student a way for them to show you if they are being overloaded for information and need a break or a pause. 

Once the meetings have taken place with the student at the centre, it is crucial to make sure a momentum is achieved by ensuring follow-up and schedule regular meetings throughout the semester.

4. Follow up

The first item on the agenda of the firstIEP meeting is to write with the student a concise document, ideally half a page for each subject so that each subject teacher knows exactly what the student has expressed works or does not work for their specific subject as well as the general strategies designed by the learning support department. 

IEP are very comprehensive record of the students information, usually 6 or 7 pages long but not always contain relevant information for specific subject teachers. For example a student with dyscalculia will have very specific accommodation in mathematics but these strategies are not directly impactful when the student is in a language acquisition class. Also text accommodation can widely vary, a student might not need to type for reading comprehension tests but will for essays. Again very often all of these accommodations are centered for all subjects in one table that can be dense for individual subject teacher.

Creating a clear, concise and short document for each subject will be easier to refer to for the teacher as well as being more relevant to what the student has voiced works for them. In this respect, the first iEP student meeting should not be too early in the year in order to establish relationship and familiarity.

Revisiting this one page document that has been put together with the student at an IEP meeting should then be discussed at student-led parent conferences and at other scheduled SST meetings.

In conclusion, by making student voice the centre of any IEP, SST meetings, parent teacher meetings and regular follow up will give ownership to the students and not only engagement.