The use of the student support file to promote continuity and progression in learning at the beginning of the school year: findings from incidental inspections

Chapter 10 - The use of the student support file to promote continuity and progression in learning at the beginning of the school year: findings from incidental inspections (PDF)

In September 2024, the Inspectorate published a composite report on the quality of provision for children and young people with special educational needs in primary and post-primary schools [1]. That report was based on twenty-nine inspections conducted in seventeen primary schools and twelve post-primary schools. One of its main recommendations was that schools should use student support files more effectively for planning and delivering learning programmes for children and young people with special educational needs.

In September and October 2024, the Inspectorate conducted a programme of incidental inspections in primary and post-primary schools with a particular focus on the extent to which schools were using student support files to facilitate continuity and progression in students’ learning at the beginning of the school year.

The incidental inspections were conducted in ninety-six schools: fifty-two primary schools and forty-four post-primary schools. The schools, located across twenty-five counties, included twenty-four in the DEIS [2] programme and nine Irish-medium schools. All inspections were unannounced and were conducted by one inspector over one day.

The following were examined during the inspections:

• whether schools had a student support file for the children and young people on the continuum of support
• whether the student support files contained priority learning needs for the new school year
• whether student support plans contained meaningful and individualised targets.

This chapter presents the inspection findings.

[1] Available at: https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/towards-high-quality-learning-experiences-for-all-provision-for-children-and-young-peo.pdf

[2] The Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) programme provides additional resources to schools with the highest levels of disadvantage, to reduce barriers and to enable children and young people to reach their potential.

Transitions

Children and young people experience numerous transitions during their educational journey. These include major transitions between sectors, such as from early learning and care settings to primary school, or from primary to post-primary. They also include transitions between classes or year groups. In addition, children and young people navigate daily transitions as they arrive at and leave school, shift between learning activities and move between instructional and recreational periods.

Transitions often involve changes to routines, environments and personnel, which can heighten stress and anxiety for children and young people, particularly those with special educational needs. Therefore, it is essential that teachers manage transitions effectively to ensure continuity, coherence and consistency across learning environments and throughout the school.

To ensure effective transitions, schools should have systems in place to gather information about the interests, strengths and needs of children and young people with special educational needs. In gathering this information, schools engage with parents/guardians, support staff, other relevant professionals and the child or young person themselves. Schools should also ensure that all teachers involved in a young person’s learning have access to this information. The sharing of this information with all relevant teachers helps to ensure that transitions are a positive experience for the child or young person. In the primary context, this means the class teacher and special education teachers having access to such information and, in the post-primary context, the subject teacher and special education teachers having access to the information. The sharing of information in this way supports teachers in developing learning activities tailored to the interests, strengths and needs of children and young people.

The continuum of support

The continuum of support [3] is a framework to support all children and young people to progress in their learning. There are three stages on the continuum: classroom support (support for all); school support (support for some); and school support plus (support for a few). The three stages enable teachers to provide supports that are incremental, moving from whole-school and classroom-based interventions provided by the class or subject teacher to more individualised supports at the level of support for some. The final stage, support for a few, responds to children and young people with the most significant needs.

Schools are advised to implement the continuum of support to ensure continuity in provision for young people with special educational needs. Effective implementation of the continuum of support also ensures that the monitoring and review of children and young people’s progress is continuous throughout the year.

The student support file, which includes a student support plan, is a key document to support teachers to implement the continuum of support.

The student support file

A student support file [4] is the recommended means for schools to plan for, and record, the progress of young people who receive additional support, either within the mainstream class or in special education settings. It is designed to allow schools to track a young person’s educational pathway and to record their progress and needs over time. The student support file serves as a comprehensive record of all support provided to the young person. It includes plans, interventions, consultations and the outcomes of reviews. When properly maintained, the student support file ensures continuity of support for the young person, especially during transitions between classes, between schools and from primary to post-primary education. An effective student support file also facilitates parental and professional involvement in the young person’s learning.

A critical document in each student support file is the student support plan. This is an individualised learning plan that documents the young person’s strengths, interests and needs, as well as the priority learning needs that have been agreed as the basis for targets and interventions. Targets in the student support plan should be devised by teachers using a range of assessment data. The targets should reflect priority needs and can include socio-emotional targets, behavioural targets, language targets as well as learning targets. Relevant teachers, parents and the young person should be involved in the target-setting process. The progress young people make in reaching their learning targets should be monitored and reviewed regularly, with all developments documented in the student support plan.

[3] Available at: https://assets.gov.ie/Special Education Needs A Continuum of Support.pdf

[4] Available at: https://assets.gov.ie/Student support file guidelines.pdf

Whether schools had student support files

At the beginning of the inspection visit, the inspector requested the list of children and young people on the school’s continuum of support. Inspectors selected four children and young people on the continuum and requested to see the relevant student support files. The selected four comprised two children or young people at the support for a few stage and two at the support for some stage.

• Forty-four primary schools (84.6%) had student support files in place for children at the support for some and the support for all stages of the continuum of support.
• There were no student support files in place for the children in eight primary schools (15.4%).

• Forty post-primary schools (90.9%) had student support files in place for young people at the support for a few stage of the continuum, while thirty-five of the post-primary schools (79.5%) had the files in place for those at the support for some stage.

• There were no student support files in place in four of the post-primary schools (9.1%).

• In fifty-five (57.3%) of the ninety-six schools, the student support files contained priority learning needs for the new school year. Twenty-seven of those schools were primary schools and twenty-eight were post-primary schools.

• In forty-one schools (42.7%), the student support files reviewed did not include priority learning needs for the new school year. However, in thirty-four of these schools (82.9%), the files contained priority learning needs for the previous school year.

• In seven of the ninety-six schools (17.1%), the student support files did not contain priority learning needs for either the new school year or the previous school year. All seven of these schools were post primary.

• In twenty-six schools (27.1%), the learning targets in the student support plans were meaningful and individualised. This comprises 25% of the fifty-two primary schools and almost 30% of the forty-four post-primary schools.
• Learning targets were meaningful and individualised ‘to some extent’ in fifty-three schools (55.2%). This comprises 61.5% of the primary schools and 47.7% of the post-primary schools.
• Seventeen of the schools (17.7%) had not established meaningful and individualised learning targets in the student support plans. This comprises seven primary schools (13.5%) and ten post-primary schools (22.7%).

The department advises schools to use the continuum of support as the guiding framework when planning support for children and young people with special educational needs [5]. The student support file is integral to this framework. Used correctly, the student support file ensures continuity of support for young people across classes and between schools.

The findings from ninety-six incidental inspections, conducted between September and December 2024, highlight some positive aspects in the use of student support files. Areas for improvement were also identified in how schools develop and use student support files to ensure continuity of provision for children and young people with special educational needs.

Student support files for all children and young people on the continuum of support

The student support file was used in more than 80% of schools. The file provides a single, whole-of-system approach to recording the interests, strengths and needs of young people with special educational needs.

However, not all schools used the student support file. It is concerning that eight of the fifty-two primary schools (15%) inspected and four of the forty-four post-primary schools inspected (9%) did not have student support files in place for children with the highest level of need. School leaders in every school should ensure that student support files are developed for all young people on the continuum of support.

Identification of priority learning needs to support young people at the beginning of the school year

While student support files were in place in most schools, the use of these files to inform teaching and learning at the beginning of the school year required improvement. In just over 40% of schools, priority learning needs for young people were not recorded in the files at the beginning of the school year. While almost all of these schools had identified priority learning needs in the previous school year, it was particularly concerning that 17% of schools had no priority learning needs identified for either the new school year or the previous school year.

The identification of priority learning needs at the beginning of the school year is important. It helps teachers to plan for students’ learning and to provide continuity and progression in their learning. It informs better selection and timing of strategies to support young people to manage the important transition to a new class, year group or new school. Special education teachers, in collaboration with class teachers (primary) or subject teachers (post primary), should ensure that each student support plan contains identified priority learning needs that

can be used to inform the support provided for students at the beginning of each school year.

Individualised targets

Priority learning needs provide the basis for learning targets. In essence, a learning target is an agreed statement of what skill the child or young person will develop or what knowledge or dispositions they will acquire in response to an intervention [6].

The inspections show that there is a need for significant improvement in most schools regarding the setting of individualised targets that are meaningful to the young person and aligned with their interests, strengths and needs. Only twenty-six of schools (27%) had individualised and meaningful learning targets in their student support plans. While teachers in over half of the schools (55%) demonstrated efforts to develop individualised and meaningful targets, seventeen schools (18%) had not engaged in effective individualised target setting for children and young people on the continuum of support.

The findings in relation to teachers’ capacity to set meaningful targets are not confined to special education. Recent reports from the OECD [7] and the Inspectorate [8] highlight the challenge that schools face in setting targets to support their interventions under the DEIS programme. A comprehensive system-wide approach is essential to support, monitor and enhance teachers’ ability to set individualised and meaningful learning targets for young people.

[5] Available at: https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-education/publications/set-guidelines-and-supporting-documentation-to-aid-schools-in-supporting-childrenyoung-people-with-special-education-needs/

[6] Available at: https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/Guidelines-for-post-primary-schools.pdf.pdf p.45

https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/Guidelines-for-primary-schools.pdf p.45

[7] Available at: https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-education/publications/oecd-review-of-resourcing-schools-to-address-educational-disadvantage-in-ireland-and-supporting-documents/

[8] Available at: https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/improving-outcomes-and-experiences-for-children-and-young-people-evaluation-of-home-sc.pdf

This chapter identifies three priorities to improve continuity and progression for young people at the beginning of each school year:

• A priority for teachers is to ensure that students’ priority learning needs are identified in student support plans to support the students as they make the transition to a new school year.
• A priority for schools is to ensure that every young person on the continuum of support has a student support file.
• A priority for the system is to adopt a whole-of-system approach to supporting, monitoring and enhancing teachers’ capacity to set individualised and meaningful targets for young people on the continuum of support.

Three recommendations are identified:

• At the end of each school year, special education teachers in collaboration with class/subject teachers should ensure that all student support files contain identified learning needs to be used to inform the support provided to the young person at the beginning of the next school year.
• School leaders should ensure that there is a student support file in place for every young person on the school’s continuum of support.
• Relevant stakeholders should collaborate in a review of existing supports provided to schools to assist with target setting and plan strategically for developing teachers’ capacity in this area. Those stakeholders include NEPS, NCSE, the department’s Special Education Section, Oide, Initial Teacher Education (ITE) providers and the Inspectorate.