IEP and IPP Accommodations for ADHD: The List Canadian Parents Actually Use

Your kid has ADHD, a school meeting is coming, and every list you find is American, forty items long, and written for a teacher. Here is the list Canadian parents actually use, sorted by what the accommodation is for, with the one test that tells you whether a line in the plan will happen on a Tuesday.

An accommodation is a change to how your child learns or shows what they know. It does not change what they are expected to learn. That distinction matters in Canada, where "modified" often means the curriculum itself is reduced and can follow a child onto transcripts. For most kids with ADHD, accommodations are the right ask. Modifications are a separate conversation, and you should know which one the team is proposing before you agree to anything.

The plan that holds these has different names. Alberta writes an IPP, and some divisions write an Instructional Support Plan (ISP) or a Learner Support Plan (LSP) instead. Ontario and British Columbia write an IEP. The list below works the same in all of them.

The Tuesday test

Before the list, the test. Read any accommodation and ask: what does this look like for my kid on a Tuesday, who does it, and how often?

"Access to movement breaks" fails the test. It names no person, no trigger, no frequency. "A two-minute movement break every twenty minutes during seated work, cued by the teacher, tracked on the break card" passes. The first one is a description that will quietly stop happening by November. The second is a service you can check on.

Every item below is written to pass the test. Adjust the numbers to your child; keep the shape.

Attention and focus

• Seating away from the door, the window and the pencil sharpener, near the teacher, with a peer who models on-task work. Reviewed at each report period.
• Instructions in one or two steps at a time, given verbally and then written on the board or a card. The teacher checks that the first step started before moving on.
• A visual schedule for the day at the desk or on the wall, with transitions flagged five minutes ahead.
• A quiet signal between teacher and child to redirect attention without calling them out in front of the class. Agreed with the child, not imposed.
• Reduced copying from the board. Notes provided, photographed, or shared digitally so working memory goes to the lesson, not to transcription.

Executive function: starting, organizing, finishing

• A planner check at the end of each day, initialled by the teacher, until the routine holds without it. Then a weekly check.
• Long assignments broken into dated chunks, each with its own due date, so "the project" becomes four small things.
• Extra time on in-class work and tests, usually time-and-a-half, with the amount written down. "Extra time" with no number is not an accommodation.
• Reduced homework volume, not reduced learning. Ten well-chosen math questions instead of thirty, agreed in writing so it does not read as the child slacking.
• Advance notice of changes to routine, substitute teachers, and field trips, sent home the day before where possible.

Regulation and movement

• Scheduled movement breaks (a job, an errand, a walk to the water fountain) at set intervals, not only as a reward or after a blow-up.
• A fidget tool that stays at the desk, named in the plan so it does not get confiscated by a teacher who was not in the meeting.
• Access to a regulation space with a plan for how the child asks for it and how they come back. Not a hallway, not the office as a punishment.
• A check-in with one trusted adult at a set time, five minutes, most days. The adult is named.

Tests and assessments

• Time-and-a-half on tests, written as a number.
• A separate, quieter setting for tests when the child asks or the teacher offers, without it being treated as special.
• Breaks during a test, with the clock paused.
• Oral answers or a scribe for a child whose writing speed hides what they know.
• Tests at the time of day the child works best, which for many kids on medication means before lunch. Say the time.

Communication between home and school

• A short weekly email from the teacher: what went well, what did not, anything coming up. Two sentences is enough. The point is that it exists.
• One agreed way to report a hard day at home, so the school hears about the after-school collapse that never shows up in class.
• A dated review of the plan at least at each reporting period, with the parent present. Alberta plans are meant to be living documents reviewed through the year; Ontario IEPs are reviewed at least each reporting period. Ask for the date now.

How to ask, and how to write it down

You do not need all of these. Pick the three that would change your child's week the most, and ask for those first. Three specific requests get written into a plan; fifteen get "we'll see what we can do."

For each request, bring one specific example from home or from marked work. "He spent ninety minutes on twenty minutes of homework on Tuesday and Thursday" moves a team faster than "homework is a struggle." Then ask the Tuesday question about whatever the school writes down, and ask for the who and the how often to be added in those words.

If the answer is no, do not argue it. Ask for the request and the reason to go into the notes, ask what would need to be true for it to be possible, and ask for a date to revisit. Those three sentences are on the free Parking-Lot Script, and the page on what to say when the school says there is no funding explains why they work.

Canada, province by province, in one paragraph each

Alberta. Accommodations live in the IPP, ISP or LSP. A funding code is not required to receive accommodations; inclusive-education funding goes to the division by formula and is distributed by need. If you hear "no code, no support," the guide on what Alberta schools can and can't do has the exact correction.

Ontario. Accommodations live in the IEP. A child does not have to be formally identified by an IPRC to have an IEP; a principal can put one in place for a student receiving special education support. If the school wants to move from accommodations to modifications, ask what that means for the transcript before you agree. Regulation 181/98 sets the process; the IPRC guide walks through it.

British Columbia. Accommodations live in the IEP, guided by the Ministry's special education manual. A designation is not required for classroom accommodations; ask the school what the IEP will say about who delivers each one.

What this list is not

It is not a diagnosis, a treatment plan, or a substitute for the assessments a psychologist or physician can provide. It is the language for the meeting. You bring the knowledge of your child; the plan should end up saying, in words you can check, what the school will do about it.

This guide explains accommodations in plain language for Canadian parents. It is not legal or medical advice. For your province's official process, start with your ministry of education's parent guide, and for a rights issue you cannot resolve with the school, speak to a lawyer or a provincial advocacy organization.