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UCL's student population is more diverse than ever. Different groups of students learn best in different ways and progress at different rates.

Teaching inclusively enables all students, whatever their circumstances, to enjoy the fullest possible learning experience.

It benefits all students because it values their individual strengths and contributions and makes the learning experience richer and more diverse for everyone.

Having a wider range of views and experiences in the classroom can lead to a more critical understanding of a subject. As teachers, it can challenge us to rethink what and how we teach, and to widen the materials we include on any given subject.

What inclusive teaching means

Inclusive teaching means teaching in a way that:

respects the diversity of students

enables all students to take part in learning and fulfil their potential

ensures different students' learning needs and preferences are met, regardless of their backgrounds, learning styles or abilities

removes any barriers that prevent students from learning.

Inclusive teaching also means not discriminating against students - directly or indirectly - because of their:

age

disability

gender reassignment

marriage and civil partnership

pregnancy and maternity

race

religion or belief (including lack of belief)

sex

sexual orientation.

Inclusive teaching is part of UCL's Equality and Diversity Strategy 2015-2020.

Putting it into practice

Before your first teaching session

Try to find out as early as possible who is going to be on your course. Ensure you know which students have extra needs and what specific reasonable adjustments you will have to make.

If you can, go to a UCL Arena session on equality and diversity to become familiar with the Equality Act 2010 and UCL's obligations within it.

If you can, familiarise yourself with UCL Disability Services, the support they provide and what we mean by 'reasonable adjustments'.

Setting ground rules and expectations

It can be useful to set informal ground rules to define 'inclusive behaviour' at the start of a course or session. Decide on these with your students.

Explain to students how being inclusive can benefit the whole class.

For example, by contributing to a group discussion, students will build their communication and critical-thinking skills. Discuss what you mean by terms such as critical thinking and analysis to ensure students understand what this means in practice.

Preparing teaching materials and activities

Put all your teaching materials on Moodle (UCL's online learning environment) well before your teaching sessions so that your students can access these and prepare themselves.

Ensure that all your handouts, presentations and online course materials are accessible and meet the E-learning baseline.

This means, for example, using:

high-contrast text/ background colours

legible fonts

ensuring the text you write can be read correctly by screen-reading software.

Guidelines on accessibility:

Try to be aware of your own biases when choosing teaching material - offer as diverse a range of opinions as possible.

Top Tip

When organising group work, try allocating your students to groups rather than allowing them to choose their own. This will lead to a more diverse learning environment and will encourage all students to take part.

What to be aware of in your teaching

Be alert to practical issues, such as students with visual impairments, hearing aids or wheelchairs.

If possible, present content in different, more interactive ways. For example, using objects, images and video can be more engaging and accessible for students than always having text-based materials (see the toolkit on active learning).

Make sure that all your students can be heard and are encouraged to participate. Get every student involved through techniques such as group work and peer learning. Try to reduce the potential for discussion to be dominated by an individual or specific group of students (see the small-group teaching and large-group teaching toolkits).

Consider using diverse assessment methods and help students to understand the standard of work they are expected to produce. Check that the feedback you give is helpful to students, see the guide Enhancing and giving quicker feedback.

Consider using Lecturecast, a system for recording lectures and making them available online. Lecturecast reinforces learning by giving students 24-hour access to the taught components of their courses. This can benefit students who have English as a second language or learning difficulties.

The UCL Inclusive Curriculum Healthcheck can help you ensure that all students, regardless of background are able to participate fully and achieve at equal rates.

Check your progress

Check whether all students look engaged in teaching sessions and be alert to student behaviour that could indirectly feedback on whether your teaching is as inclusive as possible.

This could include, for example:

changes in attendance

distribution of grades throughout the group

choices students pick for assessments (such as essay titles).

Ask students to feed back to you about whether they feel included. For example, you could give out notes in class for students to anonymously write down what they think is working well or could be improved. At the next session, you could follow up by suggesting some changes based on their feedback.

Where to find help and support

If you have an issue around inclusive teaching that you can't resolve by speaking to your students, there are several sources that can help.

UCL resources
UCL inclusive curriculum healthcheck The UCL BME attainment project Liberating the curriculum UCL Disability Services UCL Equalities & Diversity Strategy
E-Learning baseline for accessibility

Creating accessible content - guidance from ISD

Connected Curriculum Our framework for research-based education at UCL. Explore the six dimensions and get tips and advice on how to further enhance your programmes of study.

Distance Learning An increasing number of UCL courses are fully online distance learning, or mostly-online 'blended learning' (where students might come for compressed teaching). With recent technological developments, reaching out to a truly global audience has become ever more possible for credit-bearing programmes or the growing field of life learning (CPD, short courses etc).

Object-based learning Using objects in teaching not only helps students to understand their subject but also develops academic and transferable skills such as team work and communication, analytical research skills, practical observation and drawing skills. It can also trigger innovative dissertation topics. This link takes you to the Object-based learning section on the UCL Culture website.

External resources

Student retention and success in higher education: a Higher Education Academy enhancement workstream on inclusive teaching.

JISC, Supporting an inclusive learning experience.

Hockings, C. (2010) Inclusive learning and teaching in higher education: a synthesis of research, York: Higher Education Academy.

Reay, D., David, M. & Ball, S. (2005). Degrees of Choice: Social Class, Race and Gender in Higher Education. London: Trentham Books. (on Amazon)

Gibson, S. (2015) When rights are not enough: What is? Moving towards new pedagogy for inclusive education within UK universities. International Journal of Inclusive Education.

This guide has been produced by the UCL Arena Centre for Research-based Education. You are welcome to use this guide if you are from another educational facility, but you must credit the UCL Arena Centre.

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UCL's student population is more diverse than ever. Different groups of students learn best in different ways and progress at different rates. Teaching inclusively enables all students, whatever their circumstances, to enjoy the fullest possible learning experience. It benefits all students because it values their individual strengths and contributions and makes the learning experience richer and more diverse for everyone.

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For all those teaching or training to teach within the Further Education (FE) sector, this book provides a critical understanding of the complex concept of inclusion and its implementation in a range of different contextual settings.

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Our Advancing Equality and Diversity programme on Foundation Online Learning will equip you to implement equality and diversity strategies across your organisation, including how to improve your practice in line with Ofsted's criteria.

In 2019-20, we launched our flagship Centres for Excellence in SEND offer and by March 2020, over 700 of you had joined the Centres to access support. We're delighted to announce that the Centres for Excellence in SEND will continue in 2020-21.

Our Diversity in Leadership programme is aimed at increasing the diversity of the further education sector by, among other things, challenging bias and reducing barriers to attaining leadership roles for BAME and female staff.

The ETF has worked with the Council for Disabled Children to develop a new publication called ' Tomorrows leaders: a world beyond disability'. It is written for those learning and working in education and highlights the importance of having the highest aspirations for our young people and supporting them to achieve them.

The ETF has set out what we have done and what else we will do to in order to achieve our vision and mission. Take a look at our strategy.

In the latest episode for the ETF podcast, we speak to David Russell, CEO at the ETF, and Jeff Greenidge, Director for Diversity at the ETF and AoC, about what an inclusive FE sector looks like for learners, staff and stakeholders, and what their contribution is to making that happen. Listen to the #InclusiveFE podcast.

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Equality, Diversity and Inclusion - The Education and Training Foundation

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Our Advancing Equality and Diversity programme on Foundation Online Learning will equip you to implement equality and diversity strategies across your organisation, including how to improve your practice in line with Ofsted's criteria. In 2019-20, we launched our flagship Centres for Excellence in SEND offer and by March 2020, over 700 of you had joined the Centres to access support.

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Jan Ansell has three disabled daughters whom she adopted with her husband Kevin because, as foster carers, they could not bear the pain of handing back children they had loved and cared for.

They cherish their daughters, but are struggling to cope. As well as dealing with the challenges of adoption, they are at the sharp end of a funding and provision crisis affecting thousands of families with children who have special educational needs and disabilities (Send).

In May the family moved from rural Pembrokeshire to Buckinghamshire to be closer to relatives who could offer support - they have two older children and five grandchildren - and to be in an area more accessible for wheelchair users.

Since moving, however, the girls have been unable to go to school because no places have been available; they have been unable to register for summer holiday activities, having missed the deadline; and they are even struggling to get around their rented bungalow while waiting for ramps to be fitted.

"This is anything but an inclusive society," said Jan.

Sasha, 15, Kelly, 12, and nine-year-old Anna spent time in care before being adopted. Jan thought that, given their severe Send status, her daughters' educational and other needs would be prioritised, and that she and Kevin would be properly supported.

The reality has been quite different. "Yes, we knew our girls had special needs - we didn't know we would have to fight for everything they were deemed to be entitled to."

Whereas they had felt well supported as foster carers, Jan discovered that - as adopters - they had all the parental responsibility and far less help.

She quoted a recent adoption survey which revealed that 70% of adoptive parents found it a "continual struggle" to get the help and support their child needed.

Sasha, who was three when she was adopted, has a rare birth defect that affects her brain, uses a wheelchair and is non-verbal. As she has grown older, she has increasingly suffered from temper tantrums - up to four or five a day - during which she screams and throws herself out of her chair.

The Ansells adopted Kelly when she was two. She has cerebral palsy, severe learning difficulties and also uses a wheelchair. Anna was 18 months when she joined the family. She also has cerebral palsy, but is mobile and has severe ADHD. "We have to factor in all three sets of needs, and they are very different," said Jan.

Finding appropriate school places is the biggest problem, and it is one that is shared by thousands of parents of children with Send across the country, many of whom have been out of education for months or even years. The Local Government Association estimates that councils in England face a Send funding gap of more than £500m this year.

Parents denied appropriate support for their children are resorting to legal battles to secure their children's entitlement. The government, which has been taken to court over its Send funding policies, recently announced a call for evidence on the issue after months of high-profile campaigning by parents and cash-strapped councils.

Jan said she had received excellent support from her contact at Buckinghamshire county council, but there just is not enough provision.

"Everyone keeps saying there are no school places. We have a special school just down our road but they've said we can't come until at least 2020. We found a wonderful school in Milton Keynes - it would suit Anna down to the ground - but for every place there's four waiting to get in. Three schools in Milton Keynes have turned us down at panel.

"[The girls] all have education health care plans [EHCPs - legal documents that entitle them to appropriate support]. They are 'previously looked after' children. All of these things are supposed to give them priority."

Both Jan and Kevin are in their late 50s and are full-time carers. Kevin left his job with the AA six years ago because of the demands of home. Their day is an endless round of lifting, bathing, feeding and changing their daughters. "It's wearing. Our eldest does not get to bed till 9.30pm. You just feel you are on the go 24/7."

They have worked hard to ensure the girls have as normal an upbringing as possible, taking them them to Spain and Disneyland. But without a school place, they do not know how long they can continue. "There's a limit," said Jan.

Without the stimulation and separation that school provides, the girls are becoming irritable with each other. Buckinghamshire county council has said it will provide school places for all three girls in September, but where is yet to be confirmed. Any longer and Jan doubts she will be able to cope.

"We cannot give up on our children ... and giving them over to people who do not feel this immense, special love is unthinkable.

"We just want 'society' to stop pretending they are inclusive, when we are fighting for school places and are excluded from activities.

"More schools for our children are needed but I can't see a government giving priority to those who will never be taxpayers."

Buckinghamshire county council said it had recorded a significant rise in the number of children and young people with EHCPs.

"Currently there is no [provision] within the funding stream to support placements for children with Send in Buckinghamshire. However, the growing demand is creating a challenge.

"We are also working with the specialist sector to meet the growing demand and investing in additional capacity for those groups where we are seeing high levels of increased need."
The girls' names have been changed to protect their identities.

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'Anything but inclusive': No school places for three disabled sisters

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Jan Ansell has three disabled daughters whom she adopted with her husband Kevin because, as foster carers, they could not bear the pain of handing back children they had loved and cared for. They cherish their daughters, but are struggling to cope.

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As a professional educator and educationalist my focus is promoting inclusive education and alternative provision, delivering tailored support for further education (FE) college students and, to an extent, teaching staff.
My education career began in my home country, Brazil, where I spent many years working in senior management roles in mainstream educational settings, collaborating with teaching and support staff. The idea of inclusion in was not introduced to the education debate in Brazil until the 1990s. Following this, my interest in learning about inclusive practice motivated me to leave Brazil and study abroad where I believed, perhaps naively, that inclusion was already happening.

In 2011 I completed a doctorate on the topic of 'Inclusive Practices in Education' and have since immersed myself in learning more about this. Inclusive practice has subsequently become a crucial part of my work providing learning support within the mainstream Further Education (FE) sector in the UK. Prior to this I worked in a UK secondary school as part of the pastoral team, where I gradually migrated to a SEN focused role. In both settings, supporting students with learning difficulties and other special needs, I've witnessed a mixture of good inclusive education practice, alongside more questionable approaches.

A common thread I've encountered along the way is the pressure placed upon teaching staff to deliver measurable, results-based teaching practices, which aren't as inclusive as they'd personally like. A significant proportion of teachers seem to find themselves at a crossroads when it comes to inclusion, as accountability on other aspects of their role is immense, including attendance, exams results and progression. All of which have real educational value, but result in completely diverse outcomes for students with disabilities in comparison to, so-called, able students. Although teachers are expected to design lessons incorporating differentiation, the success of this is not always measured to account for the different ways of learning or differences in abilities learners have. This causes barriers to learning for many children and young people, who struggle to fit into the requirements of a system primarily focussed on exams and grades.
Hilra Vinha
In my current FE setting I have been involved in implementing measures to address this. For example, the college have adopted an increasingly inclusive approach to learning support including more integration of support staff into the whole college culture - with positive impact. Providing learning support to the wider college community has resulted in a blurring of boundaries between what is considered SEN and mainstream support. I am hopeful such initiatives can inform inclusive education debate and go some way to reduce the limitations faced by educators who advocate and work to progress inclusion. Unesco states the aim of their 'Futures of Education' initiative is to: "catalyse a global debate on how knowledge and learning can shape the future of humanity and the planet". While it is a continuous work in progress, as is the nature of education, I believe inclusion is the right of every child and young person and that it is our job as educators to improve our practices and make it happen.

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Promoting Inclusion in Further Education - Allfie

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At the age of two I was given the present of a brother who had severe learning disabilities and mobility difficulties. For as long as I can remember I have been an advocate-sister. The strong bond I have with my brother and our shared experiences have shaped my life greatly, including my professional choices and the causes I support.

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*SEN strategy: Removing barriers to achievement 2004

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*SEN strategy: Removing barriers to achievement 2004

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*Why the Warnock Report still matters today

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*Why the Warnock Report still matters today

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Back in November 1971, Labour backbencher Doris Fisher asked Margaret Thatcher, who was the secretary of state for education and science at the time, to consider an ambitious inquiry into "the whole field of special education". Thatcher declined, claiming that it would not be helpful.

Three years later, Fisher tried again. By then, the law had changed. Steady lobbying had resulted in children with severe learning difficulties or disabilities finally winning the right to formal education. Thatcher now agreed that the time was "ripe" for an expansive enquiry into special education.

It was not "ripe": the Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young People, chaired by Mary Warnock and published in May 1978, was very long overdue. The introduction to the report claims that the last such body to have terms of reference anywhere near as broad was the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf and Dumb and Others, which reported in 1889.

There has not been a more broad-ranging report into special educational needs and disability since the Warnock inquiry. It remains the most comprehensive review of SEND to be commissioned by a UK government. Its scope included categorisations of SEND; education in mainstream, special, independent, residential and hospital schools; relationships between families, health and social services; and the roles of colleges, universities and teacher training.

It followed in the wake of changing social attitudes towards disability and was conducted as British politics became increasingly neoliberal. These socioeconomic influences are visible in the inquiry's terms of reference, which asked the committee to "consider the most effective use of resources" to prepare young people with disabilities for "entry into employment".

The committee responded by setting out a coherent case for improving the quality of special education and for forms of schooling that embodied social acceptance. The report asserted the hard-won rights of those with SEND "to have the usual choices of association, movement and activity": from working and contributing "materially to the community", to travelling "without fuss on public transport", and having "a social life and a love life".

The committee's recommendations soon found a legislative home in the 1981 Education Act, which included the first qualified duty to include children with SEND in mainstream schools. It also introduced the system of statutory assessment (or "statementing"), the basic machinery of which was proposed by the committee.

The recommendations visualised lifelong inclusion and that young people would be supported to attend "ordinary" college courses. Universities and polytechnics were advised to develop admissions policies for students with SEND. Industrial Training Boards would encourage employers to provide employment and training opportunities for people with disabilities, including routes into teaching.

The report used the now-contested language of "integration" to describe inclusive ideas and approaches. While integration implies a sense of pupils adapting to the school, the committee's vision required schools to do the adjusting. Its findings provided the first major challenge to the medical model of disability, where impairments and differences are portrayed as intrinsic to the individual and the cause of disadvantage and lower quality of life.

But one of the inquiry's most significant achievements was transforming how we talk about disability. In the inter-war period, official terminology categorised children with SEND as "mentally defective", "backward" or "retarded". Post-war, pupils with learning difficulties were "ineducable" and "educationally subnormal".

Warnock concluded that such labels were not just unhelpful for identifying an individual's educational needs, but amounted to a life sentence. The inquiry popularised the term "special educational needs" and consigned the most pernicious labels to history.

Not only has much of the report, including parents' right to appeal decisions, endured, but elements of the 2014 SEND Code of Practice reforms were presaged by the committee. For example, the notion that provision and services should extend to the age of 25; and the recommendation that councils maintain an "up-to-date handbook of local special education provision" - a nascent "local offer".

You cannot overestimate how much this report changed education and how far it now underpins much of what we do when it comes to SEND. This report was, and remains, relevant because it marked a fundamental shift in discourse on special needs and disability, and accelerated progress towards inclusive approaches to education.

Our role is now not to replace it but to move it on. We need to debate the key ideas once more and assess what inclusion will look like 40 years from now. We also need to decide, as a profession, what inclusion really means.
Rob Webster is a senior researcher at the Centre for Inclusive Education, UCL Institute of Education. He tweets @maximisingTAs

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Why the Warnock report still matters today

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Baroness Warnock's landmark 1978 report on special education sparked legislation that enshrined the policy of inclusion, and it changed the way we talked about disability.

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Behavioural expert Marie Gentles visits Milton Hall to help with challenging pupils.

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Tomlinson (1996)

1996 Tomlinson Report (text)

Tomlinson Report (1996)
Report of the Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities Committee

The Further Education Funding Council 1996

© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Background notes

John Tomlinson

John Tomlinson (1932-2005) was educated at Stretford Grammar School, Manchester University, and the Institute of Historical Research.

After serving as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force from 1955 to 1958, he taught for two years and then became a local authority education officer, first in Shropshire and then in Lancashire. In 1967 he was appointed Deputy Director of Cheshire Local Education Authority, becoming Director in 1971.

From 1985 until his retirement in 1997 he was Professor of Education at the University of Warwick and Director of the University's Institute of Education. Following his retirement he was appointed emeritus professor.

He served on a large number of public bodies: he was chair of the Schools Council from 1978 to 1981, President of the Society of Education Officers from 1982 to 1985, and Chair of the Council of the Royal Society of Arts from 1989 to 1991. He was a significant figure in the creation of the General Teaching Council.

The Guardian described him as 'a prophet':

During his career he anticipated and pioneered significant educational ideas: residential centres, comprehensives, inter-professional collaboration in the interests of the whole child, self-reflective schools and inclusive education. At a time when most of society's ills were being laid at the door of teachers, he nourished their self-respect and dedication, and conveyed his enthusiasm in elegant prose, and powerful, witty speeches and lectures (Obituary, 30 August 2005).

The Report

The report was commissioned by the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) following the new responsibilities placed on the Council and the colleges by the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act.

The Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities Committee, chaired by John Tomlinson, was given the following terms of reference:

Having regard to the Council's responsibilities towards students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, to review the range and type of further education provision available, and to make recommendations as to how, within the resources likely to be available to it, the Further Education Funding Council can, by working with colleges and others, best fulfil its responsibilities towards these students under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 (page 203)
The Committee's work took three years (1993-96). An account of their strategy with regard to evidence can be found in Appendix 2 to Annex F

See also the 1997 report Learning Works: Widening Participation in Further Education, produced by the FEFC's Widening Participation Committee, chaired by Helena Kennedy.

Summary of the report's recommendations

The report's key aim was the development of a more inclusive further education sector.

It recommended that:

there should be an adequately funded, nationally co-ordinated staff training initiative for inclusive learning to cover teacher training, management training, and organisational development;

colleges should be encouraged to produce long-term strategy and action plans on inclusive learning and to appoint inclusive learning managers;

the FEFC should continue to recognise the costs of providing effective individual student assessment, promote wider understanding of its funding methods, and consider allocating funds to cover new costs which may arise as a result of ensuring effective assessments for inclusive learning;

the FEFC should ensure that its funding arrangements continue to enable colleges to meet the costs of individual support for learning;

there should be new regional sub-committees to recommend funding new provision where there is evidence of emerging need and/or it can be done more effectively than at specialist colleges;

any review of funding methodology should promote inclusive learning and participation.;

colleges should measure their progress towards inclusive learning through self-assessment, and the provision of inclusive learning should be a criterion in their inspection;

all students' achievements should be recognised within a national framework which gives value to their learning, including developing a pre-foundation award called Skills for Adult Life relevant to all students;

there should be a wider view of the meaning of progression, to include transferring and maintaining knowledge, skills and understanding.

a framework for collaboration between the FEFC, government departments and other agencies should be created to provide a 'seamless robe' of provision and support services and opportunities to move in and out of learning as needed;

colleges should be required to take more systematic account of local needs and to receive help with strategic planning to take account of under-represented groups of adult learners, including those with multiple difficulties, mental health difficulties, and emotional and behavioural difficulties.

(This summary is based on that published by the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education (CSIE).

The report online

The complete report, published by the Further Education Funding Council as a 266-page A4-size paperback, is presented in a single web page. I have not reproduced the two-column layout of the original. Blank pages have been omitted.

The above notes were prepared by Derek Gillard and uploaded on 21 May 2021.

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Tomlinson Report (1996) - background notes

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Tomlinson (1996) 1996 Tomlinson Report (text) Tomlinson Report (1996)Report of the Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities CommitteeThe Further Education Funding Council 1996 © Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

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"Either he goes, or I'm taking my daughter out of the school."

This is what a parent told me in confidence last summer. They were referring to a boy with Down's syndrome, and associated behavioural difficulties, who had been in their daughter's class for the six years of primary school. The boy was demonstrating behaviours that would see another child excluded. This included hitting, kicking, biting (students and staff), damaging property, swearing and disrupting lessons to the point that the classroom had to be evacuated several times a week - and their daughter was struggling to cope with the disorder.

We are an inclusive school, and were committed to meeting his needs, determined not to fail him. Special educational needs (SEN) experts had been involved from the start and full-time, one-to-one support was in place. Educational psychologists suggested a child-centred programme of study; speech and language therapists delivered communication therapy; occupational therapists designed programmes of activities to be done three times a day, requiring designated space and costly equipment. We accommodated all of this and more in our one-form entry primary school where both space and cash are at a premium, driven by his parents' unwavering insistence that mainstream school was the only place he could ever reach his full potential. Other children with similar needs had succeeded here - why not him?

But in striving for inclusive education, we had unwittingly turned a blind eye to the elephant in the room. If inclusion requires a child to be excluded from the same experiences and boundaries as everyone else just to remain on the premises, then it's not inclusion. I've lost count of the number of times I've been told to put the child first, but why only the child with SEN? What about the 29 other children whose education is hindered and - in some cases - personal safety jeopardised? I am responsible for those children too.

I am for inclusion, but not at all costs. In this case, the cost was not only the child's happiness and progress, but the happiness and progress of everyone else in the school. We lost two good members of staff after they had been reduced to tears on numerous occasions by feelings of utter helplessness. On bad days, senior leaders would take over, trying every trick in the book but managing little more than babysitting to give staff respite and minimise collateral damage.

We had hoped that things would improve with more time and strategies. But as the child got bigger, more independent, physically stronger and emotionally aware, it was apparent we couldn't offer the right help. We ran out of options.

Thankfully, the boy is now in specialist provision and, with the right support, is doing much better. But it was too late for some of his classmates who transferred schools to ensure their own education could proceed more effectively.

I recall the headteacher explaining that our school "believed in inclusion" and that we wanted our students to grow up understanding and tolerant of differences, prepared for the "real world". But that's not what was happening. In the real world, nobody would force someone with SEN to stay in an environment where they were coping so badly. The rest of the children in his class may well now have a negative view of people with Down's syndrome, unfairly tainted by one experience.

Most primary teachers receive very little training in how to teach SEN students and it is often left to teaching assistants, who are even less qualified, to provide the necessary support. I remember his parents saying: "You can't just put any learning support assistant with him, he needs a specialist with expertise in his area of need." I completely agreed, but such specialists aren't common and those with the skills the child needed tend to work in special schools, not as support assistants in mainstream primaries.

In year 2 we have a little girl with autism. She is doing well, but is prone to outbursts and sometimes lies down and refuses to move - it's her way of coping. Her classmates have learned not to react to this and if she lies down they simply walk round her so lessons can continue. This is, in some ways, a positive thing: they accept her and don't bat an eyelid when her behaviour is unusual. However, I can't help but feel we've brought up a cohort of children who, when they see someone with special needs in distress, would assume they should just walk by without offering help.

Inclusion in principle is the right sentiment but, at best, it can come at a high price and, at worst, it can be a complete injustice. Children are individuals so the solution needs to be individual. There are plenty of examples of children with SEN who are successfully integrated in mainstream schools to the benefit of themselves and their peers. But if we want children with SEN to have the same opportunities to succeed as others, we should not feel guilty about admitting they may need a different environment in which to do this. Furthermore, our responsibility is to all children equally, not just those with SEN.

We need to be very careful that well-meaning ideals are not depriving children of their right to the specialist provision they need, nor indeed - if we are being truly inclusive - depriving others in the process. Inclusion, yes, but not at any cost.

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Secret teacher: I am all for inclusion in principle, but it doesn't always work

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Keeping children with special educational needs in mainstream schooling can deprive them of expert care - and their classmates of a decent education

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Mental health conditions triple for Neet young people

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The annual Neet brief has found that 20.8 per cent of Neet young people had a mental health condition in 2020

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Time To Think has identified ten behaviours that generate the finest independent thinking.
We call them the Ten Components of a Thinking Environment®.In the presence of these ten behaviours people think for themselves with rigour, imagination,
courage and grace.

Our acclaimed courses, developed through observation and research since 1985, teach the application of these behaviours to teams, leaders, coaches and individuals.

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Time To Think has identified ten behaviours that generate the finest independent thinking. We call them the Ten Components of a Thinking Environment®.In the presence of these ten behaviours people think for themselves with rigour, imagination, courage and grace. Our acclaimed courses, developed through observation and research since 1985, teach the application of these behaviours to teams, leaders, coaches and individuals.

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The Guardian

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Jodie Palmer has wanted to be a teacher since she was 13. But last year her dream came crashing down when she failed to pass the numeracy test. It meant the 22-year-old could no longer start her training, which she'd already secured through School Direct."I was heartbroken," says Palmer, an English literature and language graduate. "I cried and cried and cried."

She'd spent a year preparing for the exam - including taking practice tests and having one-to-one tuition - but the pressure of the mental arithmetic questions kept tripping her up. "I could do the maths, just not within the time they set," she explains.

The numeracy test, which all aspiring trainee teachers must pass, has two parts. In the first section candidates get 11 minutes to answer 12 mental arithmetic questions, then in the second, they have 36 minutes to answer 16 written questions that cover skills such as interpreting data. It is designed to ensure all teachers have a basic competency in numeracy (there's also a literacy test), on top of the required minimum C grade at GCSE.

Sample questions from the arthithmetic section include asking candidates to work out how much money a class would raise if all 30 students took part in a sponsored spell test,getting an average of 18 spellings correct - each worth 20p. Another question asks trainees to calculate six out of 25 as a percentage.

Palmer is one of nearly 2,000 people who have been prevented from training to teach in recent years because of failing the numeracy skills test. When the exam was first introduced in 2000, people were given an unlimited number of tries and could begin a training course before passing the exam.

In September 2012, however, the government made passing the test a mandatory requirement to train, limited people to just three attempts, raised the pass mark and stopped people re-taking the test for two years if they failed three times. The Department for Education (DfE) said the changes were being made to ensure only high-quality candidates trained, and to raise standards in schools.

Since then DfE figures show that, out of the 124,000 people who have taken the test, 1,962 prospective teachers have failed their three.

While the percentage of those stopped from training is small, it is worrying given the critical shortage of teachers in England.

In August government data predicted a 10% shortfall in the number of trainees for this year. A range of key subjects have failed to meet government targets and some disciplines have attracted barely half the numbers aimed for.

Whatever the statistics, the issue has seriously affected candidates like Palmer - and others who started teaching courses before the change and have found themselves unable to qualify.Since Palmer failed she's been working as a level 3 teaching assistant at a primary school in Sheffield - the school would like to take her on through School Direct if she passes the test next year. Ironically, part of her role involves teaching maths, but failing the numeracy test means she can't teach the subject as a qualified teacher.

Palmer thinks the situation is ridiculous. Julia Smith, who has been running tutoring sessions on the test for four years, agrees. "We've got to get it banned," says the former secondary school maths teacher, who also sits on the teaching committee of the Mathematical Association. "The whole test has nothing to do with the maths you need in the classroom [...] I've never met a teacher who's needed to calculate how much carpet is needed in the classroom in under a minute; it's ludicrous."

The numeracy test has also been a stumbling block for Katherine Shaw*, another aspiring teacher. She felt confident with the maths, and consistently passed the practice tests, but suffered from panic attacks in exam conditions.

"I might as well have been doing the test in Swahili, because when I'm experiencing a panic attack I literally don't understand what I'm reading or hearing," she explains.

Shaw argues it's unfair she's been unable to train because of something that's out of her control - and she doesn't understand the logic behind the two-year ban on re-taking the test either.

But a spokesperson from the DfE defended the decision, saying it is "vital in helping to maintain our world-class teaching profession".

They said: "The test is part of a rigorous selection process, designed to make sure new teachers have the crucial literacy and numeracy skills needed to give every child the best possible start in life."

Smith meanwhile is very concerned that the test is preventing a lot of high-quality candidates from entering the profession.

"I've had people in front of me who you can tell are going to be brilliant teachers," she says. "They go above and beyond with the test, they've been working on their maths every night, and yet we're saying, you're out."

She emphasises that candidates already need to have a grade C or above in GCSE maths to train. The government should up the grade requirement if this isn't good enough evidence of numeracy skills, she argues.

"[The test] compounds everything that's wrong in maths education," she says. "We should be celebrating maths, not making people fearful of it. And we should be embracing the new teachers that are stepping forward."

*Name has been changed as she wished to remain anonymous.

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What teacher shortage? The numeracy test stops trainees in their tracks

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Jodie Palmer has wanted to be a teacher since she was 13. But last year her dream came crashing down when she failed to pass the numeracy test. It meant the 22-year-old could no longer start her training, which she'd already secured through School Direct."I was heartbroken," says Palmer, an English literature and language graduate.

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FE News

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Further Education News

The FE News Channel gives you the latest education news and updates on emerging education strategies and the #FutureofEducation and the #FutureofWork.

Providing trustworthy and positive Further Education news and views since 2003, we are a digital news channel with a mixture of written word articles, podcasts and videos. Our specialisation is providing you with a mixture of the latest education news, our stance is always positive, sector building and sharing different perspectives and views from thought leaders, to provide you with a think tank of new ideas and solutions to bring the education sector together and come up with new innovative solutions and ideas.

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Embedding English, maths and ICT when teaching and training

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There has been a lot of talk lately about the standard of English and maths, not only in young people, but also in adults. If you are a teacher or trainer, there will be opportunities to help improve these skills, along with those of information and communication technology (ICT). This...

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CBI Education and learning for the modern world

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CBI Education and learning for the modern world

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Joe Ruhl tedtalk

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Teaching Methods for Inspiring the Students of the Future - Joe Ruhl

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Ned's Gr8 8

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1. Don't Be Boring
"In our engaging classrooms, we have to have a set of procedures and routines," Perez said. But they don't have to be boring. She often has students come in and look at a list of adjectives on the board, many of which stretch her students' vocabularies. She asks them to greet two other students and use one of the adjectives to describe how they are feeling today. The activity gets them up, moving and ready to learn, plus they've used a new vocabulary word in relation to themselves, checking in with their community along the way.

2. Vote
Activate students' brains with a quick round of voting. Perez often puts three learning goals for the day up on the board and asks students to vote for the one they think is most important. All three goals are good ones and there's no wrong answer. "The reluctant learners get to look around the room and see who else thinks just like them," Perez said. This quick activity helps create curiosity among students about what each of them is thinking.

3. Set Goals
Perez is also a proponent of both teacher and students setting personal learning goals every day that are achievable, believable and measurable. "Part of reaching that goal is publicizing that goal," Perez said. Making goal-setting a regular and visible part of one's teaching practice models it for students. But it's very important to leave time for students to revisit the goal they set at the end of the day, Perez said. That opportunity to reflect will help them see and value what they did during the day, as well as where they may have fallen short of the goal.

4. Form Groups
Perez constantly asks her students (in this case a group of educators) to break off to share with one another, brainstorm or collaborate, and she always sets a time limit for the conversation, like 72 seconds. "In my classroom I use bizarre time limits and then they think I'm actually watching the clock and they get to it," Perez said. She finds this promotes more time on task than a generic five-minute time limit, which students know is just as likely to stretch into eight minutes.

5. Quick Writes
Often Perez will throw out a question and ask students to quickly brainstorm on paper as many answers as they can. Then she'll do a "popcorn share" where students stand up whenever they want and throw out an idea. This could be an alternative to something like "round-robin reading," which can put reluctant learners in the hot seat. In this case, Perez sets her students up for success by giving them time to brainstorm first -- the answers are right in front of them. This strategy has the added value of forcing students to listen closely to their peers, since they don't know who will pop up next.

6. Focus on the ABCs: Acceptance, Belonging and Community
"Without this set of ABCs, traditional ABCs will not be as successful," Perez said. She's aware of the rush to cover content in many schools and classrooms, but says teaching is not about what is covered today, it's about what is uncovered in students. "Don't be so standards-driven that you forget the needs of your students," she said.

7. Continually change the "state" of the classroom
These are changes in who is providing the information, who is doing the talking. Perez likes to say for every 10 minutes of content, teachers need to give students two minutes of "chew time."

8. Empathize
Keep in mind the students' perspective and listen when they explain what they need to learn. Take Ned's Great Eight to heart.
NED's GREAT EIGHT

I feel OK

It matters

It's active

It stretches me

I have a coach

I have to use it

I think back on it

I plan my next steps

9. Do a BRAIN checklist

Build a safe environment

Recognize diversity in the classroom

Assessment must be formative, authentic and ongoing

Instructional strategies should be a palette of opportunities

New models

"We've got to be growing and open to new ideas," Perez said. "That's why teaching is such an adventure. Each day you walk into the classroom, you never know what you're going to get."

10. Simplify
Perez suggests framing every lesson in a similar format, but executing it differently each time. First activate the learners by making them curious and developing a need-to-know. Then, let them dig into the content in an exploratory phase that takes them deeply into rich content. Last, help scaffold students' broader understanding by helping them integrate it with what they already know. Some metacognitive questions that can get them thinking this way include: What part of the lesson did you like the best? What part was the most difficult for you? Why do you think that was? What do you think you can do today to help yourself stay focused?

"If we don't give our kids time to reflect, to connect, to marinate on the information, they're going to regurgitate what's right there in front of them without even thinking," Perez said. Reflection and rehearsal of what was learned is crucial to move information from working memory into long-term memory.

11. Chunk Information
Make information more easily digestible for students. "We need to be more purposeful in our delivery of information," Perez said. Too often teachers deliver an entire lesson without letting students move or discuss once. Kids will give up if they are overloaded with facts, and chunking provides a way to pause and let students think over what they've learned. Breaks to assimilate information are crucial for mastery.

"Lesson mastery means students have mastered the content when they do something substantive with the content beyond echoing it," Perez said.

12. Props
Perez keeps a box of props for when she's teaching. She often throws something to a child when it's his turn to talk so he has something to focus on. She says this works particularly well for kids with attention problems, as well as for the tactile learners.

13. Breaks
Short video clips can be a great brain break. A great clip can be interpreted in multiple ways. "You're fostering divergent thinking," Perez said.

14. Post-Its
Post-It note discussions are a good way to get all students involved without making anyone uncomfortable by putting them on the spot. Ask an open-ended question. It could be an activator at the beginning, a marinator in the middle, or even a summarizer to test for understanding at the end of a lesson. Students jot down their answers to the prompt on Post-Its. English Language learners or special needs students could write just one word or draw something. Then students share in pairs. "Even the most reticent learner is OK sharing one-on-one." Perez said. Post all the responses on a graffiti board and pull out some trends.

15. Make Snowballs
The Snowball brain break is one of Perez' favorite ways to summarize learning at the end of a lesson (and should be done when students are on their way to recess or at the end of the day). Students write answers to a prompt on a piece of paper. On the count of three, they throw their "snowball" randomly up and away (but not at anyone). Then everyone grabs a snowball that landed near them."It's a way you can purposefully pause, have them reflect and make connections," Perez said. She uses it in all subjects, sometimes asking students to write three new vocabulary words they learned, or three successes they had in that lesson, or three questions. "Students love it and it's inclusionary because it's anonymous," Perez said. Students also get to see one another's thinking in this activity.

16. Guessing Games
When slightly boring content must be covered, create a need-to-know in students by having them predict the answers. Students are more likely to be invested in the answers when they are revealed after students themselves have had a chance to debate and predict.*

This strategy among others is meant to get students to manipulate and think about the information themselves. "If the teacher does all the interacting with the material, the teacher's brain, not the students' brains, will grow," Perez said. That's why Perez advocates that teachers have a large toolkit of approaches to get students thinking, speaking, writing, touching, building, listening and, most importantly, doing something with the content.

17. Balanced Inquiry
Lectures do have a time and a place, but they are far more effective when they are interactive. Perez likes Harvey Silver's guide for an effective lecture: connect new knowledge to existing knowledge, organize the materials into chunks, dual code the information so it's stored in multiple places and exercise the brain.

"It's a matter of balance to keep the engagement alive," Perez said. She doesn't advocate that teachers always have students teach one another just because it has a high retention and transfer rate; doing all of one thing is never effective. Instead, she says, it's about a balanced use of all the inquiry approaches.

18. Mind-streaming
Mind-streaming is another fun brain break activity that also gives students a chance to recall what they've learned and teach one another. Have students randomly pair up and then each person teaches the other the most important things they've learned in that lesson. Each person will remember different things, and when there is overlap that will reinforce the concept. It's simple, effective and doesn't require any teacher preparation because students are teaching one another.

19. Be Interactive
Perez begs educators to always try to make tasks engaging and interactive by giving students enough knowledge, giving them the language to express it, giving them an authentic reason for the interaction they're engaged in, prime them with interesting questions, establish a community of learners that support each other, and give students a clear understanding of the task. If these elements are part of every class, she says, all students can be successful.

20. HOPE
The last tip Perez offered educators is to have HOPE, an acronym she uses for Have Only Positive Expectations.

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20 Strategies for Motivating Reluctant Learners | KQED

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Understanding what a child's brain needs is central to instruction.

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*East Coast College policy against bullying

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*East Coast College policy against bullying

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QD077 - Bullying and Harassment Policy V6 May 2019

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*East Coast College Policy on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

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*East Coast College Policy on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

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QD105 - Equality Diversity and Inclusion Policy Aug 20

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- Video Collection

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Add Your Voice

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As promised from my last post, here are a few tips for Socratic/class discussion because this is my absolute favorite thing to do.

{Your platform will depend on your school, but this can happen in any virtual environment.}

In a virtual setting, Socratic discussion is a way to invite students to explore concepts that need a deeper understanding or as a way to build a community that practices civil discourse. It is my favorite way to check for understanding and allow the students to show what they know and learn from each other.

My favorite thing to say to my students is, we are ALL here to learn. We all need to be able to ask questions if we don't understand.

Don't be the person who knows everything. Be the person who wants to know more.

Things to Consider:

Size- how many students will be a part of this? I've done Socratic discussion with a group of 10 and a group of 40. It can be done.

Time- start small. Teach the participants HOW this is done in your classroom.

Socratic Seminar Observations- Reviewing how students are assessed because it's important for them and you will get asked. I used to be asked, "How many times do I have to speak?" and I hated that question. So, I devised this because I want to know that you GET IT, not just that you can speak.

Creating one objective or question to help focus the discussion. For example, how do we define liberty?
This gives a check-in point in case it goes off the rails. I address this in my Facilitator Guide.

Socratic discussion in a virtual world:

Should be student-driven with teacher facilitation where needed

Can create engagement and deeper understanding beyond what students think they care capable of.

What if students don't participate?

Assume positive intent- this is very new for some students, some have to work, some have other siblings needing the devices.

Come up with questions or have the student submit questions, comments via chat.

Use FlipGrid to allow for discussion outside of the classroom. I used this when students were absent and unable to participate. It also allowed students who needed the extra time due to other barriers to participate and for me to see if they understood.

Norms

Please mute your microphone unless you are speaking to ensure the speaker can be clearly heard. You may choose to use the hand raise to develop a queue.

Be thoughtful, courteous, and curious in your discussion. Assume positive intent and if you are unsure, ask what the person meant.

Be aware of how much you talk! Everyone should have the opportunity to participate. Encourage students to keep a note of what they want to say so they don't forget.

Anything else we need to consider to create an environment that fosters learning and conversation? (This allows students to have a say because ALL classrooms are different and all kids need something different)

Still worried? Ask a few colleagues or some friends to help you try it out for the first time! This is what I always do. My husband is my tester for things. Don't be afraid to let the students give feedback on what went well and what needs to be tweaked to make it even better the next time.

Lastly, be kind to yourself, especially if you are trying it for the first time. You've got this!

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As promised from my last post, here are a few tips for Socratic/class discussion because this is my absolute favorite thing to do. {Your platform will depend on your school, but this can happen in any virtual environment.} In a virtual setting, Socratic discussion is a way to invite students to explore concepts that need a deeper understanding or as a way to build a community that practices civil discourse.

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*We need to talk about differentiation in schools TES

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*We need to talk about differentiation in schools TES

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You know what differentiation is. How could you not? It's been a fundamental part of teaching for as long as most in the profession can remember. It's what we do, day in, day out. It's how we ensure that all our students manage in school and all our students excel. It's been a topic in most observation feedback sessions, most departmental meetings, most planning workshops and many, many social media debates. It's obvious what it is. It's ...

You give your definition and explain what it might look like in practice. And the teacher you are talking to screws up their eyes slightly, frowns a little and says, "Oh, really? Well, for me, it's more ..."

Puzzled, you both ask a third teacher. A fourth. A fifth. You ask your line manager. You ask their line manager. You ask your Facebook friends and your Twitter followers and your WhatsApp group. You ask any teacher you can find within shouting distance.

Suddenly, you realise something very disturbing: all this time, all those discussions, all that planning, and no one really agrees on a single definition of differentiation or what it should look like.

So, what the hell do we do now?

First, we must ask ourselves whether it really matters if we don't agree what differentiation looks like.

Your immediate answer is likely to be "No, we all pretty much know roughly and we wouldn't want anything too prescriptive, would we?"

But let's say you are receiving feedback following an observation and you are told to differentiate more. Next time you are observed, you are doing exactly that, and yet the observer again picks you up on it, because the observer and you have entirely different ideas about what differentiation means - and both appear to be valid. This will only end badly.

Or what if you are looking, as a department, at how you could differentiate more? The head of department sends you all off to try to do just that. If you don't all agree what differentiation is or what it looks like, that exercise would be entirely pointless and implementing any meaningful changes as a result would be challenging.

Finally, it matters because, under the umbrella of differentiation, much bad practice can find shelter. We need to make the umbrella transparent so we can see all the potential teaching ghouls lurking beneath, and we can begin to unpick what works and what does not under the differentiation banner.

So, yes, not agreeing matters. But do we really disagree as much as my initial foray into the topic indicated? I decided to find out.

I'm on Twitter. I have a reasonably sized network of teachers within my reach. So I asked my fellow tweachers what they thought differentiation was. The responses could be grouped into four ideas:

Ensuring access to learning.

Providing high challenge, low threat in a way all learners can succeed.

Scaffolding without reducing expectations.

Inclusive teaching for inclusive learning.

At first glance, these seem quite cohesive as a set of definitions. You could contain these four points under the central idea of knowing your learners, and enabling them to access learning and be successful. It's simple, it's snappy, it's as good a definition as any.

But when you try to roll this out in practical terms, you realise you can do pretty much anything under that definition and those four tenets, and call it differentiation.

A range of worksheets aimed at different grades within an objective? Tick. Giving students a choice of difficulty via some "chilli challenges"? Tick. Marking every student's book in their favourite coloured pen for more personalised feedback? Tick. Letting Toby demonstrate his understanding of Newton's third law using mime as he's recently been researching Marcel Marceau? Erm, well, strictly speaking, tick.

So, what exactly are we asking teachers to do when we say "differentiate", if we work with this definition? Everything, and almost anything. When you look through the copious research on the topic (which I have done on your behalf), you find the same issues. Whether it is the work of Carol Ann Tomlinson - the apparent oracle of differentiation - or the countless other experts on it, you don't find any real agreement and you end up coming away with more questions than answers.

This troubled me. I had spent nearly a week looking into it, and the very word "differentiation" had morphed into something nebulous and almost meaningless.

I couldn't quite believe it to be true. So I went bigger. I put out a survey. And 5,000 lovely people responded.

I asked them what techniques they had used as vehicles of differentiation in the past year. I hoped I would get a small collection of interventions that were backed by research, that were sensible and that could be grouped under a single definition.

This did not happen. In the name of differentiation, much wrong is, probably unintentionally, being done. Here are the top five (of many) and my own thoughts on each.
1. Differentiating oral questioning
First up is the targeting of individual students with questions differentiated by difficulty, which about 80 per cent of respondents reported doing.

Pros: The goal of providing stretch and challenge for the most able can be satisfied by targeting those students in this bracket with the most devilish and challenging of questions. It will force them out of their comfort zone. Equally, you can ask students with lower prior attainment easier questions, as you methodically work your way through Bloom's taxonomy, to help build their confidence and aid motivation.

Cons: Quite simply, doing this risks holding children back through low expectations. Asking different questions to different individuals risks widening the attainment gap if all students aren't expected to perform the same thinking. We should ask every question to the group - cold calling (see the writing of educationalist Doug Lemov) is an effective vehicle for this - so every student is involved in even the most challenging of cogitations.

If students know there is a reasonable chance of being required to answer any question, they will know they are part of an inclusive environment. Equally, teachers need to be able to respond to the emerging needs of their classes, so utilising techniques that require all students to respond is paramount.
2. Differentiating feedback
Similarly popular is writing differing feedback for students to respond to - a stalwart of many a marking policy. So, while Martin might be told to work on his spellings and his use of metaphor, Maryam might be instructed to watch her punctuation and look again at her essay structure.

Unsurprisingly, more than 90 per cent of the English teachers surveyed used this method, with the percentage dropping across all other subjects down to 77 per cent in science and only 64 per cent in maths.

Pros: This approach can certainly help learners improve the piece of work that has been marked and fed back on. They can see where they made their mistakes and correct them. They get feedback that is personalised to them - something students do value - and time to respond.

Cons: The main one here is workload. The Education Endowment Foundation's 2016 review of the evidence on written marking found "a striking disparity between the enormous amount of effort invested in marking books, and the very small number of robust studies that have been completed to date".

The review from the EEF also referred to the government's 2014 Workload Challenge survey, which "identified the frequency and extent of marking requirements as a key driver of large teacher workloads. The reform of marking policies was the highest workload-related priority for 53 per cent of respondents."

Essentially, there is no evidence that individual written feedback makes much difference, and there is a lot of evidence that it causes huge workload issues. And if individual students have responded to individual comments, and corrected and improved their work, then it's only right and proper to check these ... individually.
3. Tailoring to prior attainment
Next up is the idea of using prior attainment data or target grades to determine starting points on tasks, or using them to give different tasks, or allowing students to choose the tasks they complete. Around 60 per cent of respondents used these approaches.

Here, I found a notable disparity between primary and secondary respondents, with those working with younger pupils being much more likely to utilise these particular techniques; different starting points, for example, had a sizeable difference in likelihood, with primary teachers at 70 per cent and secondary only at 40 per cent.

Presumably, this stems from the wider range of pupil needs found in a typical primary classroom compared with those found in secondary, where streaming is more common.

Pros: Starting pupils at "their level" means that they can learn at their own pace and are less likely to struggle to progress. The higher-attaining students can skip through the easier fundamentals and attempt more challenging work whereas those learners who progress more slowly aren't rushed through content.

Cons: This can lead to lowered expectations of pupils perceived as less able and could mean that opportunities for those faster- progressing pupils to overlearn, improving longer-term retention of knowledge, are missed. As with marking policies, this type of approach to differentiated instruction has been identified as increasing workload, too.

Finally, the research behind the new Ofsted framework suggests that this is low-impact differentiation: "In-class differentiation, through providing differentiated teaching, activities or resources, has generally not been shown to have much impact on pupils' attainment. In Scheerens and Bosker's (1997) meta-analysis of school effectiveness research, for example, this factor showed no or a very weak relationship with pupils' outcomes. Hattie (2009) likewise found the effect of differentiation to be among the weakest in his influential work on 'visible learning'."
4. Scaffolding
About 90 per cent of teachers reported that they utilised the approach of having high expectations of all and then giving different levels of support or scaffolding to individuals within a class.

This can manifest in a plethora of ways, usually beginning with a worked example - or the explanation of a concept - being modelled by the teacher. This provides the initial cognitive support.

Students can then be provided with frameworks that support the completion of similar problems, often with slight variations to add some increased difficulty as they move towards independence.

Pros: This is reassuring, given that in Barak Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction a desirable trait of an effective teacher would be to "provide students with scaffolds, or instructional supports, to help them learn difficult tasks", with the warning to ensure that this support is withdrawn as competence increases to avoid students becoming reliant on such structures.

This is not a proactive approach but must be reactive depending on performance within a particular domain of knowledge. Aspects of cognitive load theory, such as the worked example effect (Clark, Nguyen and Sweller, 2006) followed up by completion problems and fading structures also complement this method of delivery.

Cons: Rosenshine suggested learners should have a success rate of around 80 per cent of a task, but this is very tricky to get right in a classroom where learners have varied needs and abilities.

The chances are that, on the independent tasks, a few students will be getting 100 per cent and some might only ever make it to 50 per cent in the time you have. The average might be 80 per cent: is that OK? Or does that mean you've effectively met the learning needs for only those few who conveniently get two of the 10 questions wrong?
5. Differentiation by outcome
Mercifully, less than 30 per cent of respondents reported using learning outcomes organised hierarchically with the terms "must, should, could" or "all, most, some" to differentiate where students may end up at the end of the lesson.

The premise of using differentiated outcomes is based on the fact that students will learn and progress at different rates. We therefore need some way to let learners know our minimum expectations over the next 50 minutes or so, given that they will acquire differing amounts of knowledge.

Pros: By the time the bell rings, all learners will be able to leave the room knowing they achieved something (theoretically).

Cons: The tone of this approach is all wrong, and the potential repercussions are incredibly damaging. Many a teacher has heard a student say, "I'll just be one of the 'shoulds' today" in lessons "differentiated" in this way, and this is indicative of a culture of low aspiration for, well, "all, most or some" of the learners.

Luke may have built a reputation of working steadily, despite his low prior attainment, and is getting by comfortably on a diet rich in "musts".

But Luke could thrive on a varied intake of levelled outcomes if they were delivered in the right way; like blitzing the mushrooms in the food processor before adding them to the bolognese sauce so the children don't notice them but they still benefit from the B vitamins.

Beyond these five headlines is so much variation it would make you wince. And I don't want to make you do that, so take my word for it.

So, what now?

It's true: we are all doing myriad things in the name of differentiation and a lot of it is dubious in effectiveness and catastrophic in terms of workload. And this huge variation may well be down to the fact that, in my hours of research, I couldn't find any overarching, works-everywhere, easy-to- implement and economically viable approach that all teachers could utilise. There are no easy answers here: differentiation looks different in every classroom because no one really knows what it is or what works.

What struck me, too, though, was that our view of differentiation is so narrow. No one seemed to be researching or talking about the wider differentiation that happens in schools: the phone call from the attendance officer that gets a student into school; the meeting with the member of the pastoral team that resolves an issue and gets a student back to class; putting students on report to support them in improving their behaviour; having a breakfast club that enables students to start the day with enough energy to learn; the learning mentor with hours of training on working one-to-one with autistic students. The list of possible examples of differentiation taking place outside the classroom or done by non-teaching staff is almost endless.

The way forward, I fear, is a controversial one: I would scrap the word "differentiation" from our educational lexicon except when pertaining to special educational needs and disability (SEND).

SEND students have pronounced barriers to learning and the differentiation strategies suggested on educational, health and care plans (EHCPs) truly enable access to the curriculum and much more. Autistic students may benefit from being able to leave lessons two minutes early to avoid the overstimulation of a busy corridor, making them calmer and better able to learn in the next lesson.

Hearing-impaired students may have a signer or need to sit near the front to better enable lip reading. Most EHCP strategies have the ultimate goal of developing the student over a long period of time to improve their chances of thriving once they leave education and move into the world of work.

These aspects of differentiation can literally change the lives of young people. Go and visit a special school where inclusion is a reality, not just a nice thing to put in the school prospectus. It does not have to mean 30 different lessons but a sensible, adaptive way of teaching that gives every child the best opportunity to succeed. Effective SEND teaching has much to teach us.

And for everyone else? We shouldn't talk about differentiated questions or differentiated assessments or differentiated feedback any more. We should ban the word "differentiation" because, ultimately, it's not enabling us - it is distracting us. It has become almost an excuse not to know our pedagogy well, not to delve deeply into how our questioning, or behaviour management or scaffolding would impact each individual, not to see those non-academic adaptations as being part of what we are supposed to do. It's a catch-all that catches no one.

Instead, let's concentrate properly on what a workload-acceptable, research-based, effective approach to teaching 30 children of varying levels might be. Students don't need every aspect of their learning slightly differentiated; they just need us to know, recognise and respond to the slightly different ways in which they learn.
Ian Taylor is lead teacher at Trinity Academy Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, and tweets as @MrTSci409 This article originally appeared in the 8 November 2019 issue under the headline "We need to talk about differentiation"

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We need to talk about differentiation in schools

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You know what differentiation is. How could you not? It's been a fundamental part of teaching for as long as most in the profession can remember. It's what we do, day in, day out. It's how we ensure that all our students manage in school and all our students excel.

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Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats Technique - Exploring your mind

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The six thinking hats technique, developed by Edward de Bono, is a communication and reasoning tool. You use it to see from new perspectives by applying lateral thinking.

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How committed are you to differentiation?

Effective learning cannot be left to chance and differentiation is the most critical tool you have at your disposal to affect the learning process. The most effective teachers are those who continually consider the ways in which they can differentiate their approach to empower, support and challenge those they teach.

A Series of Interventions

To give differentiation the value it deserves, try looking at the lessons you teach as a series of interventions along a learning continuum. Every time you plan a lesson or interact with a pupil during the course of a lesson, you are making a conscious intervention; you are issuing a call to action for the learner to respond to the opportunity for learning with which you have presented them.

Every intervention you make really counts and it counts for each and every pupil in the class. As not every pupil in any class is the same or finds themselves at exactly the same point on their learning journey, effective interventions cannot and should not be the same.

Sometimes it is hard to decide what the most effective differentiation is going to look like in your class, especially as what works in one lesson is unlikely to work in the next. If you can accept that effective differentiation requires ongoing consideration and you commit to putting it at the heart of all your lesson plans, there is no doubt your learners will reap the benefits.

Differentiation by Task Does Not Guarantee Efficacy
During my NQT year, I can clearly remember a feeling of smug satisfaction when I thought I had 'cracked' differentiation with my neatly planned (and sadly all too frequently worksheet-based) activities which simply progressed from shorter to longer tasks for the pupils to complete. It was very straightforward in my mind: lower ability pupils would work on two to three tasks or questions, middle ability four to five and those lucky higher ability pupils were treated to six or even seven.
I am ashamed to admit that I spent more time planning tasks extended in length rather than challenge. It took me a while to realise that this approach was not having the desired effect; it was not the golden goose of pupil progress I had hoped it would be.
Although at first a little scary, casting this approach aside was excitedly liberating. Moving to use what I knew about the individuals in my class to inform my differentiation methodologies quickly broadened the ceiling of learning and opened the classroom door to more purposeful outcomes. Remember differentiation does not have to be by task; it can take virtually any form - questioning, the use of resources and scaffolds, adult deployment, group tasks and solo activities - so long as it is well-informed.
Look Back to Move Forward

Collect feedback from your pupils on what they felt had and had not worked last time. Encourage them to be specific. Set this feedback in the context of what needs to be achieved in the next lesson and use this to evaluate whether the same approaches will work again and whether they will work for all, some or none of your pupils.

The analysis and reflections you and your pupils make about the learning that took place in the last lesson will unlock your thinking on the best mode of differentiation for the next lesson.

The Power of Quality Questioning
By asking, and planning to ask, quality questions we require learners to provide responses that force them to practice using their higher order thinking skills. By targeting and differentiating the questions we ask of certain learners we can tease out knowledge, clarify thinking and address misconceptions.
Questioning - whether it is teacher to pupil, pupil to teacher or pupil to pupil - is the most effective way you can squeeze every single drop of thinking out of your interventions. In her book, Full On Learning, Zoe Elder sums asserts questioning as ' one of the key influencers on the progress made by each child, [as it is] the most immediate and accessible way for teachers to determine how much learning in going on.'

Co-Constructed & Clear Success Criteria

Deploying different success criteria amongst the learners in your class can be an effective way of appropriately differentiating for the spectrum of learners you are likely to teach. Once you have set the learning objectives and communicated the foundations for the lesson, the success criteria can for how these objectives will be met can be discussed with the learners and ensure everybody is clear on what their learning will be assessed against.

Do not shy away from having a variety of success criteria at large in your class at any one time; if they are personalised and appropriately tailored for the learners using them, they can act as powerful tools for classroom learning. Anders Ericsson's The Making of an Expert widely accepted belief that purposeful practice is integral to the development of true expertise can be viewed as advocacy for the deployment of carefully considered success criteria.

Whilst no classroom is going to be able to facilitate the 10,000 hours of deliberate practice Ericsson promotes, it can certainly be used to direct and support personalised, guided practice.

And finally....

Other blogs worth a peek...

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How committed are you to differentiation? Effective learning cannot be left to chance and differentiation is the most critical tool you have at your disposal to affect the learning process. The most effective teachers are those who continually consider the ways in which they can differentiate their approach to empower, support and challenge those they teach.

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Published: 23/09/2013
KS3 KS4 KS5 | Planning and assessment

20 accessible and engaging ideas for differentiating resources, activities and lessons.

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