Individual Support Plans: What SENCOs and school leaders need to know

April 13, 2026

---

If you’ve been following the SEND reform consultation, you’ll know that Individual Support Plans (ISPs) are one of the key changes heading towards every school in England.

Your school will have a statutory duty to produce, maintain and share an ISP for every child with identified SEND. The government has confirmed ISPs will be formally introduced through an updated SEND Code of Practice during Phase 1 of the reforms (2026–2028), ahead of the fuller legislative changes still to come.

In this blog, we explore what an ISP will include and answer common questions asked by school leaders, SENCos and teachers about the new document set to change how SEND support is organised across England.

 

Why are ISPs being introduced?

The government’s SEND reform consultation outlines 13 key changes to how pupils with SEND will be supported.

ISPs are one of the most significant, designed to tackle two of the problems that have historically plagued the system: inconsistent SEND records across schools and the loss of support that too many children experience at transition points.

Right now, SEND records are inconsistent and fragmented. Information about a pupil’s needs often doesn’t travel with them when they move between year groups, schools or education phases, and children regularly lose ground at transition points simply because their new setting doesn’t know who they are or what works for them.

There’s also huge variation in how schools currently record SEN support. Some use one-page profiles, some use IEPs, some use provision maps. The result is a system that feels postcode dependent. This stilted system is exhausting for families who have to re-explain their child’s needs every time something changes, ineffective for pupils, and frustrating for school staff who find themselves revisiting strategies that a previous setting had already worked out.

ISPs are designed to remedy this inconsistency, introducing a standardised, digital record that stays with the pupil, is developed with parents and updates as needs change.

 

Who gets an ISP?

The current two-tier SEND system of SEN Support and EHCPs will be replaced by a new four-tier system.

Every child or young person with SEND who’s receiving the new layers of support for SEND Targeted, Targeted Plus or Specialist support will have an ISP.

A formal diagnosis isn’t required, if a child has identified barriers to learning and is receiving support, an ISP is needed.

For children in the Specialist layer who hold an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), the ISP sits alongside it. The EHCP continues to set out statutory entitlements for complex provision. The ISP describes what’s happening day to day in school.

ISPs and EHCPs work together rather than one replacing the other.

What an ISP needs to include

ISPs won’t be a free-format document schools can design themselves. The intention is standardisation, so that a child’s ISP means the same thing regardless of which school produced it.

Based on the consultation (which may change when the consultation closes and it is confirmed), each ISP will need to cover:

• The child’s identified barriers to learning
• The provision being put in place to address those barriers
• Reasonable adjustments being made to the environment, curriculum or routines
• Intended outcomes that can be reviewed over time

For children receiving Targeted support, the interventions in the ISP should be evidence-based, drawing from the National Inclusion Standards that the government plans to publish by 2028.

For children receiving Targeted Plus support, the ISP will also reflect input from external professionals such as speech and language therapists, occupational therapists or educational psychologists through the new Experts at Hand service, an initiative mentioned in the Schools White Paper released in March 2026.

 

What ISPs will look like

We know that ISPs will be digital, and that they’re intended to be living documents, updated as a child’s needs or provision changes, and accessible to parents as well as school staff.

The exact platform is yet to be released by the DfE, there is currently a pilot template and system being explored through user research with schools, local authorities and parents to design something that works in practice.

What’s confirmed is that it needs to travel with the child between settings, reduce duplication and support transitions properly.

For SENCOs juggling a SEND register in one place, a provision map somewhere else and review paperwork somewhere else again, one coherent digital record is a useful idea. Although some SENCOs are concerned about the admin task of transferring from a current system to the new one when it’s released.

 

How your school will use ISPs

The statutory duty to produce ISPs will come into effect following legislation (The new SEND Code of Practice), expected from September 2029. But the investment in training and infrastructure is starting now, ahead of that legal requirement.

In terms of who does what:

SENCOs are likely to lead on quality and consistency rather than producing every ISP individually. That means establishing how ISPs are initiated and reviewed, making sure the evidence base behind provision choices is sound, coordinating external professional input and supporting staff to contribute meaningfully. ISPs must be reviewed at least annually, and the SENCO will be central to making those reviews purposeful rather than just administrative.

Class teachers will be heavily involved in creating and updating ISPs, and ensuring what’s in the ISP directly shapes how they teach. This is part of the broader shift the reforms are pushing: every teacher is a teacher of SEND, not just the SENCO.

School leaders should know that Ofsted will assess ISPs as part of their focus on inclusion during inspections. It won’t just be about whether ISPs exist, but whether they’re high quality, whether provision is being delivered as described and whether parents have been involved. If parents have concerns about whether an ISP is being followed, they’ll be able to raise this through the school complaints process.

 

What ISPs mean for parents

ISPs are meant to be co-produced with parents. The consultation is explicit that parents are recognised as experts on their own children and that ISPs should be developed in genuine partnership with families. Parents will be able to access the ISP digitally and see updates as they happen.

For schools, this means thinking carefully about how you build relationships with families of children with SEND.

 

How to prepare for the new ISPs

The consultation runs until May 2026 with legislation not due until 2029, but there are things worth doing now.

• Audit what you’re already using to record SEND needs and provision
• Look at how consistent it is across the school and how accessible it is to parents
• Review what information travels with a pupil when they leave and what you receive when a pupil joins
• Talk to your class teachers about what they need from a SEND record to change their practice

 

How IQM works with schools

Consistency is at the heart of what IQM does. As ISPs bring a more standardised approach to recording and reviewing SEND support, schools need a clear picture of where their whole-school inclusion practice is strong and where there’s still work to do.

That’s exactly what the IQM Evaluation Framework is built for.

When schools undertake their journey towards Inclusive School Award status, they use a structured way to assess what’s working across the whole school, not just within individual classrooms or year groups, and to identify the areas that need collective focus. Rather than relying on a snapshot, it builds an ongoing picture of inclusion that leaders and SENCOs can use for purposeful school improvement.

For schools navigating the shift towards ISPs and a stronger whole-school inclusion offer, IQM provides the consistency of evaluation to make that process purposeful. Get in touch for your free school information pack.

 

More articles you’ll like:

How AI in Education is making inclusive practice possible in 2026

Mental health or challenging behaviour? A checklist for decoding pupil behaviour

Ofsted 2025: What the New Framework Means for Inclusion and SEND