Guidance for Individual Educational Programmes

The curriculum includes all that is planned for children and young people throughout their education. This includes: 

• opportunities for personal achievement
• interdisciplinary learning
• ethos and life of the school
• curriculum areas and subjects

This guidance provides updated advice for local authorities and practitioners for the use of Individual Educational Programmes (IEP) for children and young people within the additional support for learning planning process. It can also be used to inform partners, children, young people and their parents and carers of when an IEP should be considered, established and used. 

Education authorities may use different names for an Individualised Educational Programme (IEP). These are referred to as ‘plans’ and are sometimes called:

• Individual Support Plans (ISPs)
• Educational Support Plans (ESPs)
• Additional Support Plans (ASPs)

They can be standalone plans or incorporated into other plans for example a Child’s Plan.

An IEP is not a statutory education plan. The only statutory education plan is a Co-ordinated Support Plan (CSP).