What Is an Individual Support Plan (ISP), and What to Expect

Why this matters

An Individual Support Plan (ISP) is where the day-to-day work of supporting your child actually gets tracked — a small number of specific, reviewable targets, with a clear plan for how everyone will work on them together. Done well, it keeps everyone — you, your child’s setting, and any other professionals involved — genuinely pulling in the same direction. Done as a form filled in by one person alone, it becomes paperwork that doesn’t reflect what’s actually happening for your child.

At its heart, an ISP documents what’s additional to, or different from, the provision already in place for your child’s peers — the extra or different support your child needs because their development is different. This is the same principle that underpins the legal definition of SEND support in the SEND Code of Practice — so the ISP isn’t just setting-level paperwork, it’s the practical record of exactly that.

How an ISP is different from a One Page Profile

You may already have come across a One Page Profile for your child — the two documents work together, but do different jobs:

• A One Page Profile is a snapshot of who your child is — their strengths, what’s important to them, and how best to support them. It doesn’t really change from month to month.
• An ISP is a working document — a small number of specific targets, with a plan for how to work on them, reviewed and updated regularly as your child makes progress.

Think of the One Page Profile as the constant backdrop, and the ISP as the part that’s actively moving forward.

Who should be involved — your voice matters here

An ISP should never be written by a setting alone and simply shown to you afterwards. Genuine involvement means:

• You know your child’s history, home life, and what’s worked before — information the setting can’t fully see on its own.
• Your child’s own voice, wherever possible — even a very young or pre-verbal child can show what they enjoy and what helps them, through their behaviour and reactions.
• Practitioners bring what they see in a different context — a setting, a group, alongside other children.

If you’re only ever shown a finished plan rather than asked to help shape it, that’s worth raising directly with the setting.

What a good target looks like

A good target follows a simple cycle, sometimes called Assess, Plan, Do, Review:

• Assess — what can your child do right now?
• Plan — what’s the specific next step? (“Child will…”)
• Do — what support, strategy, or resources will help get there?
• Review — did it work? What’s the next step after this one?

A useful target is specific enough that anyone reading it would know exactly what success looks like — “will engage in an activity for longer” is hard to measure; “will sit for 3 turns of a shared activity with an adult” is something everyone can actually observe.

How targets grow over time

Targets aren’t meant to stay the same forever. A good target at the start often looks quite different from the target a few reviews later, as your child makes progress. For example:

• Starting out: a small, achievable first step, often with quite a lot of adult support built in.
• Once that’s secure: a step up — a little more independence, or a little more challenge.
• Further down the line: working towards your child managing the skill independently, or using it in more situations.

If a target hasn’t changed in a long time, that’s worth asking about — either your child has already met it and needs a new one, or something about the plan needs adjusting.

What your involvement should look like

Don’t let “how can we help at home” become an afterthought. A good ISP makes space for:

• What you’re already doing at home that’s working, so it doesn’t get lost or duplicated.
• Specific, practical ideas for how you can support the target — not just a vague note to “reinforce at home,” but something concrete you can actually do.
• What’s realistic for your family — a target that assumes an hour of dedicated practice every evening isn’t useful if that’s not achievable alongside everything else going on.

What to expect at review time

An ISP should be reviewed regularly — not just once a year as a formality. Reviewing it alongside your child’s One Page Profile works well for many families, since the two naturally inform each other and it means fewer separate meetings. If a target is met early, or clearly isn’t working, it’s worth asking for a review sooner rather than waiting for the next scheduled date.

A note for families

If any part of the plan doesn’t make sense to you, or feels like it was written without your input, say so. An ISP is meant to be something you understand and helped shape — not something translated to you after the fact.