What is a pupil passport or one-page profile?

What it is

A pupil passport (also called a one-page profile) is a short one-page summary of a child's strengths, needs and what helps them learn, written with the child. It guides staff but is not a legal document like an EHCP. The two names are largely interchangeable; schools tend to say "pupil passport" when the point is to brief teaching staff quickly, and "one-page profile" when the point is to capture the child's own voice. Both fit on one side of A4 so a teacher or supply staff member can take in the key points at a glance.

It usually has three parts: what people like and admire about the child (their strengths and what they enjoy), what is important to them, and how best to support them: the calming strategies that work, the triggers to avoid, and how to communicate with them. The idea comes from person-centred planning, developed by Helen Sanderson Associates, who were commissioned by the Department for Education between 2004 and 2008 to train schools to use these approaches.

What it is not

This is the part most pages skip. A pupil passport carries no enforceable provision. It is not a SEN Support plan and it is not an EHCP. An EHCP is a legal document the council and school must deliver; a one-page profile is a helpful summary that staff are expected to use, but nobody can be taken to a tribunal for failing to follow it. So it should never be handed to you as a substitute for the statutory support your child is entitled to.

What does have legal force is the principle behind it. The Children and Families Act 2014 (section 19) and the SEND Code of Practice 2015 require schools and councils to take account of the views, wishes and feelings of the child and parent, and to involve them as fully as possible in decisions. A one-page profile is one common way schools meet that duty, but the duty is the law, not the document.

Who writes it and how often

It is normally put together by the school, usually the SENCO (the teacher who coordinates support for children with special educational needs), working with the child and family. It should be reviewed regularly so it stays accurate, commonly once a term and at least once a year, and refreshed at any transition, such as a new class, a new key stage, or moving school, so it travels with the child.

A profile can feed into the bigger statutory processes without replacing them: the child's views captured in it can support an EHC needs assessment or an annual review. If you are weighing up the wider system, it helps to know the difference between SEN Support and an EHCP and what a school must do for a child with SEN but no EHCP.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.