Writing a highly effective PEP document
The Personal Education Plan (PEP) is a record of the child’s education and training. It should describe what needs to happen for a child in care to help them fulfil their potential and reflect, but not duplicate, any existing plans such as Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs).
The PEP is a vital document because it provides a collective memory about the child’s education. It is an integral part of a child in care’s wider plan. It is a statutory document. The PEP should help everyone to gain the clear and shared understanding about the teaching and learning provision necessary to ensure academic progress and meet the child’s educational needs, describing how that will be provided. Both schools and local authorities have a shared responsibility for making the PEP a living and useful document. The most effective PEPs reflect the individual planning that all schools undertake for all of their pupils.
1) Know your pupil
The aim of a pupil’s education plan is to formulate a term by term strategy to maximise their outcomes, academically and socially/emotionally.
There will be a range of information that will need to be considered when formulating the plan:
- Pupil’s wishes and feelings
- Attainment data – current performance and outcome estimates
- The wishes and feelings of key stakeholders in the young person’s care (carer, social worker, school, possibly parents)
- Their social and emotional well-being, which is assessed via a Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The questionnaire identifies the young person’s mental well-being through a series of questions. Their social worker is normally responsible for administering the questionnaire and it is normally completed by their carer, although they and school can also complete the questionnaire. Best practice is that an SDQ is completed on an annual basis. The score should be used to implement appropriate support and Social, Emotional & Mental Health (SEMH) interventions, alongside academic provision.
2) Working in partnership with your colleagues
Although you will oversee the progress and provision for each child in care, your colleagues may have more day to day contact with them or have a specific key role in their provision plan. It is important that you liaise with your colleagues to ensure that the pupil’s provision (and thus how it’s recorded in the PEP document) is effective. For example, we would strongly encourage you to ask the pupil’s class teacher or teachers to set the termly targets. Their form tutor, Head of Year or Director of Learning may have frequent contact regarding SEMH support for the pupil. If the pupil has an EHCP or special educational needs (SEN) support, it is best practice to involve your school’s Special Educational Needs & Disabilities Co-ordinator (SENDCO) in the pupil’s plan each term. Equally, for pupils in Year 8 – 13, it is best practice to involve your school’s Careers Lead too.
We encourage Designated Teachers to set up access to the PEP document for other staff so they can add details to the PEP as and when they can during the term. Details of how you can do this are below in How to complete each section of the PEP.
3) The Welfare Call ePEP
The Suffolk Virtual School uses the online ePEP from Welfare Call. Welfare Call is the organisation that collects attendance data for each Suffolk child in care daily. DTs are provided with access to the Welfare Call ePEP system. Schools with a pupil in the care of Suffolk County Council should contact the Suffolk Virtual School on 01473 260818 or Welfare Call directly on 01226 716 333 with any queries about logging into the system.
4) Dual registered pupils
If a pupil is dual registered, we would expect the setting where they are attending to complete the PEP document. We would, however, ask the two settings to share and contribute information about provision and progress as much as possible. Both the attending provision and on-roll school can have a log in to edit the PEP document.
5) Best practice approach to planning provision each term
The PEP is designed to be a record of the planning, implementation and reviewing of each pupil’s plan. Details of these plans should be recorded as they are put in place, reviewed (and amended where appropriate) so that the PEP is a picture of the whole term rather than a snapshot of one moment in time.
The below diagram explains how best to approach the recording in the PEP throughout each term: