Individual Learning Plan (ILP) Guidance

By developing an Individual Learning Plan (ILP) for each disabled student, we aim to provide tailored academic and personal support that is adjusted to suit individual needs.

You will devise an ILP with the Disability Adviser for your School of study. With your permission, this will be sent to the Academic Disabled Student Co-Ordinator in your subject area who will meet with you to discuss and sign the ILP. The information from this plan will then be shared with other staff with whom you will come into contact to ensure your requirements are taken into consideration.

What is an ILP?

An Individual Learning Plan (ILP) recommends reasonable adjustments the university can make to minimise a disability-related disadvantage. For example, adjustments for exams, assessments, campus, and learning.

Certain adjustments which may benefit you are now available to all students as part of the QMU Policy on Inclusive Learning and Teaching Materials.
Students have the right to ask a friend or supporter to accompany them to meetings arranged with members of staff at QMU e.g. when discussing the ILP.

Who sees ILPs?

Your ILP recommendations can be seen by relevant academics, practice educators (with student’s consent), the Disability Service, Registry and Academic Administration staff.

Do I need to renew my ILP each year?

No. Your ILP adjustments continue throughout your course at QMU unless you meet a QMU Disability Adviser to make changes. (Funded support such as tutoring, mentoring, and printing budgets needs to be re-applied for each new academic year, however.)

Sharing your ILP

Do not assume that every lecturer / tutor is aware of everything in your ILP.

You may share your ILP directly with academic staff who you wish to make aware of the impact of your disability on your learning and performance; this is especially important if you want them to take any action.

Making changes to your ILP

To discuss changes to an ILP, please contact your Disability Adviser. Appointments can be booked on Student Central or by email to DisabilityAdvisers@qmu.ac.uk

Does my ILP apply on placement?

Your QMU ILP is not designed for implementation on placement. Reasonable adjustments may differ for practise-based learning. Students can use the ILP as a starting point for discussion about reasonable adjustments with the Placement Educator ahead of placement commencing.

The following reasonable adjustments previously formed part of an individual student’s ILP, but they are now mainstreamed for all students at QMU:

Lecture outlines or presentation slides, such as PowerPoint slides, for lectures/seminars should be made available to students at least 24 hours in advance of the class.
Permission to audio record in lectures - students will need to inform the lecturer that they are recording, and the recording will be strictly for personal use. Recordings are for the individual’s own personal use and is not to be shared with others and specifically not to be shared via any social media channels / emails. Guidance on recording is further detailed in in Section 12 of the QMU Acceptable Use of IT Policy.
Students can move around or leave the teaching area discreetly without challenge.
Ensure captions are available on all audio-visual materials.

Please refer to Section 2.1 Principles in the QMU Policy on Inclusive Learning and Teaching Materials for more detail on reasonable adjustments available to all students.

Use of extension to deadlines

If a 7-day extension to deadlines for individual written assignments and pre-recorded presentations is recommended in your ILP, you can use this extension without asking permission from academic staff or Academic Administration.

The 7-day extension to deadlines for individual written assignments and pre-recorded presentations applies to individual assessed assignments only.

It does not apply to live presentations scheduled in class.
It does not apply to group work submissions. For group work, all students regardless of whether or not they have an ILP must submit by the required date.
It does not apply to any other specifically agreed extensions such as Extenuating Circumstances submissions.

Any extension to deadlines for longer than 7 days must be applied for through an Extenuating Circumstances application via the QMU portal.

When submitting assignments, be aware that the main dropbox closes at the standard deadline. A post deadline dropbox can be used for the ILP agreed extension to assignment deadlines. The extended post deadline dropbox should only be used for Extenuating Circumstances submissions which have been agreed with Academic Administration.

If an extension to deadlines is used for formative work, there is a risk that you may not receive feedback. If you have concerns about submitting formative work on the standard due date, contact your Module Coordinator.

If your ILP recommends use of a PC, you can bring your own laptop to use the assistive technology recommended or funded by the QMU Disability Service in your exam.

Please note that separate rooms are arranged for campus-based exams only. If your class is sitting an exam online at home, a separate room on campus would not be arranged.

Human readers and scribes are not usually available for online exams.

Instead, if you have a recommendation for reader/scribe, Examinations will email you links to text-to-speech tools in advance of the online exam. You may already have similar tools available to you on your own device – you can use whichever text-to-speech tool you prefer. If you have concerns about completing an online exam without a human reader/scribe, please discuss this with a Disability Adviser.

Unlimited rest breaks do not apply to online exams.

When rest breaks are recommended in an ILP, a standard 10 minutes of additional time per hour is applied to the overall online exam time. For example, if you have a 1-hour exam and your ILP recommends 25% extra time and unlimited rest breaks, you will be given 1 hour + 15 minutes + 10 minutes = 1 hour 25 minutes to complete the online exam.

The exam clock does not stop when a rest break is taken. If a 10-minute rest break per hour is insufficient, please discuss this with a Disability Adviser

All students requiring a parking space for disability-related reasons should apply for a parking permit - information on how to do this can be found on the Parking on Campus page.

After an assessment of needs, if a student requires disabled parking, Disability Advisers add the student to a list accessed by the QMU Parking team.

Only students with a mobility-related disability can use the designated disabled parking spaces.
Students applying for parking for non-mobility disability related reasons can park anywhere except the designated disabled spaces. Non-mobility disabled parking permits are charged at the usual rate.

If you would not be able to exit the academic and/or accommodation building via stairs in an emergency evacuation, please contact QMU Health and Safety (hs-staff@qmu.ac.uk).

The Health and Safety team will guide you on the next steps.

The QMU Individual Learning Plan (ILP) does not apply directly to a placement setting. You should discuss reasonable adjustments required directly with your placement provider, using the ILP as a starting point for discussion if you wish.

You can seek support and advice from your Placement Co-ordinator at QMU if you have any concerns about disclosing or want to explore appropriate adjustments to request. Ideally, you should make contact with the placement provider prior to the start date. Advice on placement wellbeing support is also available.