How to write an ISP that meets the new statutory standards

An ISP is an Individual Support Plan: a statutory document, required from September 2029 for every pupil on SEN Support, written in five structured sections and co-produced with parents. This article walks through what each section needs, how to write it well, and how to avoid the common mistakes that will fail an Ofsted inspection.

I've written more SEN plans by hand than I care to count. The shift from IEPs to ISPs is real, but it's not as scary as it sounds — provided you understand the structure and the standard. Most of what makes a good ISP is what made a good IEP. The difference is that ISPs have a legal floor, a national format, and a co-production requirement. Get the structure right and the rest follows.

The five sections of an ISP

Every ISP under the new standard contains exactly five sections. The DfE schema is still firming up, but the structure is locked in.

1. Strengths and needs

This is where the plan starts, and it matters more than people realise. Lead with strengths.

A good strengths-and-needs section answers three questions:

• What is this pupil good at? (Strengths — academic, social, creative, character)
• What do they find hard? (Needs — categorised by the four areas of need from the SEND Code of Practice)
• What does the parent see at home that the school might not?

The four areas of need are: communication and interaction; cognition and learning; social, emotional and mental health; sensory and/or physical. Every need should map to at least one of these.

The mistake most plans make is opening with deficits. Plans that lead with deficits set the wrong tone for everything that follows. Lead with strengths. Heads are reading these. Parents are reading these. The pupil might be reading these one day.

2. Barriers

Section two is where you say what's stopping this pupil from learning right now. This is different from "needs." Needs are characteristics. Barriers are situational.

A pupil with autism (need) might face a barrier of unstructured break times causing sensory overload (barrier). The need is constant; the barrier is what's actually getting in the way today.

Good barriers are specific. "Anxiety" is not a barrier. "Anxiety triggered by transitions between lessons, especially when the next teacher isn't familiar" is a barrier. Specific barriers lead to specific provision. Vague barriers lead to vague provision.

3. Provision

Section three is the longest and the one Ofsted will scrutinise hardest. It lists what the school is doing about the barriers in section two.

Every line of provision should answer four questions:

• What is the intervention or adjustment?
• Who is delivering it?
• How often, and for how long?
• What's the cost? (If it's a costed intervention — and most are.)

A pupil with the barrier of anxiety triggered by transitions between lessons might have provision like:

• Movement break card, issued by form tutor, used at pupil's discretion (no cost — universal)
• Weekly check-in with pastoral lead, 15 minutes, Tuesday lunchtime (£312 per term — targeted)
• Sensory regulation kit in form room, replenished termly (£40 per term — universal+)

This level of specificity matters because the £1.6bn Inclusive Mainstream Fund requires schools to track spending against outcomes. If you can't say what the intervention is, who's delivering it, and what it costs, you can't account for the funding.

4. Outcomes

Section four says what success looks like, by when. Outcomes are the bit most plans get wrong.

A good outcome:

• Is specific (not "will improve in maths")
• Has a measurable indicator (a number, a behaviour, an observable change)
• Has a target date (usually the next review)
• Maps to a barrier in section two
• Is RAG-rated at each review

A bad outcome is "the pupil will engage more in class." That's a wish, not an outcome. A good version is "the pupil will participate verbally in at least three lessons per week, evidenced by teacher tracking, by the end of the autumn term."

Outcomes should be ambitious but achievable. If every outcome is green at every review, they're not ambitious enough. If they're all red, they're not achievable. Aim for a mix.

5. Review

Section five is what changed since the last cycle. It records:

• Which outcomes were achieved (RAG status)
• What worked and what didn't
• What the parent said
• What the pupil said (if age-appropriate)
• What changes for the next cycle

This is the section that builds the evidence base over time. Every review compounds. By the time a pupil reaches EHCP application — if they ever do — the review history is the bulk of the evidence pack.

The review section is also where co-production becomes visible. If the parent contributed nothing, the review records that as a fact. If the parent contributed substantively, the review records what they said and how it shaped the next cycle.

Co-production: what it actually means

The White Paper is explicit that ISPs must be co-produced with parents. In practice, this means three things.

Parents see the plan before it's finalised. Not as a Word attachment with "thoughts welcome." As a document they can review, comment on, and respond to.

Parents contribute observations the school doesn't have. What the pupil is like at home. What they say about school. What's improving and what isn't. This isn't optional context — it's part of the evidence base.

Parents review outcomes at each review. Not just "informed of the outcome." Asked whether they think the outcome was achieved, partly achieved, or missed.

Schools that try to do this over email at scale will burn out. Schools with structured parent contribution — through a portal, a form, or a guided interview — make it manageable.

Writing an ISP from scratch — a worked example

Let's take a real-feeling case. Year 8 pupil, on SEN Support, primary need is communication and interaction (autism diagnosis). Difficulties with unstructured time, transitions, and group work. Strong in maths, IT, and individual creative work.

Strengths and needs:

Liam is a Year 8 pupil with strong skills in mathematics, IT and creative work. He has a diagnosis of autism (communication and interaction). He has good attendance and strong academic potential, particularly in STEM subjects. His mum reports that he is articulate, funny, and an avid reader at home. Areas of need: difficulty with unstructured social time, transitions between lessons, and group-based learning activities.

Barriers:

1. Unstructured break and lunch times cause sensory and social overload, leading to him isolating in the library or experiencing meltdowns by the end of the day.
2. Transitions between lessons (especially when the next teacher is unfamiliar) trigger anxiety that affects his readiness to learn for the first 10 minutes of the next lesson.
3. Group work in English and humanities lessons is a particular challenge — he can't always read social cues quickly enough to contribute, and disengages.

Provision:

1. Quiet space access (library, with named adult on duty) at break and lunch (universal+, no incremental cost).
2. Visual timetable issued at start of each week, with photos of subject teachers (universal+, £15 per term materials).
3. Movement break card, used at pupil's discretion (universal, no cost).
4. Weekly 15-minute check-in with pastoral lead, Tuesday lunchtime (targeted, £312 per term).
5. Pre-teaching of group work tasks for English and humanities, 10 minutes before lesson (targeted, £180 per term).
6. Class teacher CPD on autism-friendly group work techniques (universal+, £400 one-off whole-staff).

Outcomes:

1. By end of autumn term: Liam will use the quiet space at break or lunch at least 3 days per week, evidenced by sign-in log. (Indicator of self-regulation.)
2. By end of autumn term: Liam will be observed contributing verbally in at least one English and one humanities lesson per fortnight. (Indicator of group work engagement.)
3. By end of autumn term: Liam will report (in pastoral check-in) that transitions feel "okay" or better in 4 out of 5 weeks. (Indicator of anxiety reduction.)

Review (at end of autumn term):

Outcome 1: green. Liam used the quiet space 4 days per week on average. Outcome 2: amber. Contributed in English consistently, humanities less so. Pre-teaching for humanities to be expanded. Outcome 3: green. Pupil reports transitions are mostly okay; mum confirms reduced after-school overwhelm. Parent voice: mum reports Liam is talking more about school, less about specific lessons. Wants to explore a peer-mentor role for him next term. Pupil voice: Liam says "I like Tuesdays" (referring to pastoral check-in). Wants to try a chess club he's heard about. Changes for spring term: add chess club access to provision; expand pre-teaching to humanities; introduce peer mentoring opportunity.

Common mistakes — and how to avoid them

Mistake 1: Vague provision. Provision that doesn't say who, when, or for how long is unenforceable. Provision that doesn't have a cost can't be tracked against the funding.

Mistake 2: Outcomes that aren't measurable. "Will engage more" is not measurable. "Will contribute verbally in at least three lessons per week" is.

Mistake 3: No parent voice in the review. The review section without parent input fails the co-production test. Even if the parent didn't contribute, the review needs to record that — and what was tried.

Mistake 4: Plans that never change. Every review should produce changes. If nothing changes, either everything's working perfectly (rare) or no one's actually reviewing the plan (common).

Mistake 5: One plan, one document, one shared drive. This works for one pupil. It collapses at 100 pupils. The reason ISPs are statutory and structured is because the existing approach didn't scale, and the inspection regime is changing to reflect that.

How long should an ISP take to write?

A good ISP, written from scratch, takes 30–45 minutes if you have the data to hand. A review takes 15–20 minutes per pupil. Multiply by your caseload and you've got the workload picture.

The variable isn't writing speed. It's data access. SENDCos who have to dig through five systems to write each plan are not slow — they're badly tooled.

What we built

SENDCo View has the five-section ISP structure built in. Strengths-and-needs, barriers, provision, outcomes, review — each section has guided prompts, pre-populated data from the MIS where relevant, and parent voice flowing in from the parent portal. Termly review prompts surface automatically. Outcomes are RAG-rated and tracked over time.

See how the ISP builder works →

If you'd like a printable template you can use today, our Preparing for ISPs — A 12-Month Plan for SENDCos guide includes a worked ISP template you can adapt. Download it free.