Differentiation

During the course of our research, we came across the term “adaptive teaching”, which seems to be a favoured approach in some schools, particularly in England & Wales.  For further information visit –

Adaptive teaching explained: What, why and how? (sec-ed.co.uk) 

EEF Blog: Assess, adjust, adapt – what does adaptive teaching… | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk) 

Adaptive teaching: Rethinking the nature of learning in schools (animated video) (bold.expert)

Here are some of the key messages from these articles –

Ø  Whereas traditional differentiation focuses on individual students or small groups of students, adaptive teaching focuses on the whole class.

Ø  “Teaching to the top” while providing scaffolds to those who need additional initial support.

Ø  Previous approaches could be immensely time consuming for the teacher, but more importantly run the risk of ‘dumbing down’ or reducing the curriculum for some pupils.

Ø  “While providing focused support to children who are not making progress is recommended, creating a multitude of differentiated resources is not.” (SENCO Kirsten Mould) EEF Blog: Assess, adjust, adapt – what does adaptive teaching… | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)