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We are all very busy dealing with our individual courses and having the time to differentiate each lesson is difficult.

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Having assistance either in class or online is necessary to be able to provide sufficient help to those who require differentiated work. It is not always available.

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We do not always have prior knowledge of the class we are going to teach. We all guest teach with other cohorts than our own. Understanding of the differentiation required is a tall ask for just one input.

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We have seen cliques form within classes and cohorts, individuals becoming isolated from or withdrawing from the rest of the cohort. We also have those confident and assertive individuals that want to prove themselves or ask endless "what if" questions. They can dominate leaving no room for the quieter, reticent colleague.

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This can vary greatly with a cohort. Students who already hold degrees don't want to be studying again, they would much rather focus on the practical / operational elements. Sometimes students who have worked elsewhere within Policing can be disinterested when going over "old ground". Some fast track detectives have little interest in being front line / response.

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The initial training course used to be taught F2F in classrooms at a police station but with the Covid pandemic came distance, online learning and new challenges. Differentiations included, where the students were conducting online learning: at a desk in a quiet room or in the lounge with children running around. WiFi connectivity is an issue as well as what can and cannot be accessed through a police issue computer. We are now moving towards a more blended learning approach but as we also have more students there are not always enough rooms available so students are moved around a lot with no consistency. I would like to consider and research classroom environments, especially for students with neuro-diverse issues.

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I think this is something that we have been focusing on more recently especially within our curriculum design teams. Many of our lessons are delivered with the teacher at the front of the class using a PowerPoint and notes. There is a place for PP but this does not take into consideration the different learning styles. We are now looking at a flipped classroom approach where emphasis will be on the student researching the topic before the lesson with a number of different resources provided to them for self study to fit their own learning style. Following this, group activities and knowledge checks to consolidate the students learning.

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Jo - Thanks for putting this together. It is really refreshing to see all of your comments and your thoughts on where our organisation is with differentiation.
I currently see the obstacles and issues that we have with it as this.....
There are many challenges when it comes to considering differentiation in our classroom at Initial Training. I believe that the biggest obstacles to this are identifying different learners needs prior to the beginning of a programme, having a clear understanding of what that involves and then having the right resources / equipment to address this and fill the gap between the learner’s abilities from the outset.
If I'm honest I think that we (organisation) are quite poor with all of this and that we fall short at planning / induction phase, lack of initial and diagnostic assessment for example. I do not think that this is a fault of ours, but is a failing of the organisation, where it is politics, a lack of funding and to a certain extent the relationship between different departments, lack of communication and collaboration.
We all know where the shortfalls are and knowing how we all work, I am confident that we all do what we can in the circumstances. As an action going forward, I am going to try and ensure that there is a focus towards this at planning phase of each programme and to hold leadership and aligning departments to account. At the end of the day it is the learners that are let down by the organisation and it is our responsibility to raise these issues. Harsh maybe? but how I see it.

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I looked at worksheets as we tend to use them mainly for definition checks at the beginning of the lesson and not so much for anything else. If we could design a number of these work sheets/books to put in to our teaches, then in a literacy and numeracy sense (drink drive with numbers) it could refresh the teach with some self motivated self study and further provide extra study notes for the leaners. We have done quizzes in the past which I am a fan of. Winner takes all as it were. What are your thoughts on work books for students to go through both in class and at home? I would like your thoughts...thanks.

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Team, what are you thoughts on this? Should we use it more ? do we have time? what do we and learners get out of it? Sam and I had an ICT at the beginning of the day which encountered IT issues, this meant that we were short on time and unable to get the learners in to groups to research and present back there findings on Miscarriages of Justice. A brilliant learning to which encompasses so many literacies and Differentiations all in one go. I would like to see more group work and presentations afforded in to our time table