Review 1: Adaptive Curriculum

Over many years of reviewing curriculum, I have spoken about the fact that most schools are built on the premise that one size fits all, the learners that don't fit have to experience alternative provision, which has become an industry in itself, but also the understanding of most special needs provision is that the classroom is not enough and additional resource needs to be provided. In the secondary or senior phase, this is all the more accentuated. The idea of adaptive curriculum is more hidden in the primary phase because of its design and delivery is more able to respond, however, there is a growing conversation about developing non-subject-led curriculum experiences which have a more adaptive capacity. Mainstream provision is creaking at its seems at the moment, most schools are still experiencing the post-pandemic impact of learners wanting to experience a different environment and many have needs that the classroom is not satisfying, hence, I believe, the increase in non-attendance, and the shift in areas of the country to home-schooling being the choice of many parents. I believe the latter is caused by the measurement mindset, but that is another subject to consider in a later issue!

Modern Curriculum

The drive in many schools has been toward ability grouping in at every opportunity, the product in most secondary schools has been a blocked delivery structure. Seen as inevitable and desirable there are many who try and "set" learners by some ability measure earlier and earlier in their experience. Some larger Primary schools are doing the same and certainly the Middle Schools that still exist in the system have been doing this for many years. Becky Francis et al in their book "Reassessing Ability Grouping" they discussed this phenomenon where a methodology is created to group across a year group population, sub-populations (classes) where the start point determines the journey. Without going into that detail here, the prerequisite of this is that the target subject is contained in a mutually exclusive structure so that it does not impact other subjects, they can make their own decisions and create their rationale.

Working with many schools I have become increasingly concerned that the impact of this structuring is accentuating the specialist nature of the curriculum too early and creating issues of team size that recruitment cannot satisfy. It is also creating unnecessary structural limitations that create groups taught by multiple teachers, a real problem in creating a climate of consistent delivery and it is making the scheduling ever more complex.

This modern structural design is a step away from class-based delivery where learners were placed in a class and the population stayed together for every lesson in every subject the form in the diagram below is familiar today in many grammar schools, particularly single gender schools where mixed PE is not an issue. This is easy to schedule as the flexibility of each line is possible to achieve staffing requirements and accommodating limitations, The biggest difficulty is that the learners develop group blindness, they do not have the opportunity to develop a range of working relationships with other learners.

.The other extreme of this structural analysis is the fully blocked position, every subject wanting a mutually exclusive structure so they maintain their rationale for the grouping strategies and basis

This methodology I would describe as modern schooling, driven by outcome measurements. Whatever strategy each column uses is unique and not necessarily coordinated with anyone, often I have found is not even unique with many subjects not bothering to use any base data and just resolving to use tutor groups' decisions making the effort to make this work a pointless pursuit.

Many of you will recognise the compromise position, somewhere between the above description where a hybrid of these two is employed. Where you are on the journey depends on idiosyncratic decisions made by leaders who have an idea of a strategy. Rarely have I found a strategic whole-school view. Often changes happen with new middle leaders bringing strategies from previous schools without an understanding of how this fits in the new context.

The hybrid model provides the opportunity for the shape to be considered with strategic intent. The design for languages, mixed gender PE, etc. The grouping strategy and class size intent is included, often not strategically considered but randomly added classes without overall efficiency considerations.

The question is, how agile is our thinking and whether the one-size-fits-all is always appropriate?

In every case this design methodology is built around one size for all. The same curriculum size is delivered for every child but if a learner is struggling then we need to do something else.

Post-Modern Curriculum

The is another consideration of the dimensions of curriculum - I teach this as a 2 dimensional view. Often I see curriculum models that are articulated in this familiar form that is inherently a one size fits all curriculum.

I would encourage every school to consider a two-dimensional form.

Why? Because it breaks the assumption that every learner has the same needs. By all means deliver the same curriculum elements but there is no requirement for it to look the same for every learner group.

The next logical step is to consider the curriculum as a whole. Designing populations based on prior attainment, or other measures, the curriculum design to a change of population make-ups to enable a mix of methods. I capture this below by considering a literate focus curriculum, the numerate or creative curriculum being the ideal. This hybrid is two-dimensional. Each line in the curriculum has the capacity to contain a curriculum that meets the needs of learners. The design

requires three factors to be considered;

1. Mobility - can we move learners between groups? Why do we need to and how much does it create the noise of change?
2. Equity - Does the design meet the needs of all the learners? Can SEN learners remain in a design line that meets their needs?
3. Efficiency - How much additionality is required and how do we staff it - can we afford this and are there any economies of scale that make variation of design possible?

Here are some posts we have shared recently related to this subject - please respond in the comments below if you have a contribution to the subject.

1. Within the #SMARTcurriculum method, we have seen the real benefits of challenging the one-size-fits-all curriculum model. We would suggest that there is often a benefit in employing adaptive curriculum strategies. This involves the modification of the curriculum model for specific learning populations. It is still the responsibility of teachers to adapt the learning experience of the population or class in front of them, now referred to as adaptive teaching. We would like to see the application of this methodology across the ability ranges: often adaption is only applied to the lower end of the range, whereas similar adaption should be applicable at the higher end of that range. The question is, how agile is our thinking and whether the one-size-fits-all is always appropriate?
2. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/guidance-for-teachers/using-pupil-premium One of the biggest challenges for education leadership is integrating all funding streams, accountability and strategic improvement ideas into a cohesive, whole experience for our pupil populations. Pupil Premium is a world leader as no other country is investing in this way in the tools to address the gap in learning for families with low income and experiencing poverty. This article on the Education Endowment Foundation website outlines developed strategies for bridging this gap. Still, I remain concerned for those schools where Pupil Premium activities are considered additional activities to the core structure of the school. It is clear that success is achieved where practices are integrated and adaptive curriculum is used rather than additionality is achieved. It is clear that there are many necessary strategies, including high-quality teaching, targeted academic support and the meeting of specific needs dependent on the context, but I remain convinced that curriculum design that is agile to respond to need facilitated by high-quality teachers and understood at all levels of leadership is fundamental. How have you seen Pupil Premium activity change over the past five years, bearing in mind the post-pandemic era has refocused intent in many of our schools?
3. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/solutions-breaking-down-barriers-for-students-with-send/ One of the dimensions that have come out of curriculum analytics is some interesting features of mainstream schools that are now bracing the challenge of more identified SEND students within their populations. The article that we feature here by Ben Mallinson, principal of The Ruth Gorse Academy, puts the needs of pupils with SEND at the heart of every decision. I would articulate this in curriculum terms, although the author goes beyond this into the broader picture of school, including attendance, mental health and learning outcomes. From personal experience, the adaptability of some schools, including the broad spectrum of children with specific needs that can create barriers to learning, is inspiring, but we need a system to see this in every situation for every child. The author begins the article with a concentration on inclusivity: how will every child access this? We are conscious of unconscious bias and need to see this application across every experience in the education journey, so children are not excluded because of some need. The challenge is that our assumptions about what school looks like and what learning experiences look like need to be adaptable rather than simply 'this is the way we have always done it The heavy load on teachers is the adaptive teaching methodology where the model is static, and the deliverer is expected to adapt, but it is inherently a one size fits all model. I would now advocate an adaptive curriculum model where one size does not fit all and various sizes are available, meeting the needs of learners at its core and dealing with the dependence of the teacher in the room to adapt their practice as the primary methodology. Special needs education is often captured as an additional provision within the senior school operation. The challenge of an adaptive curriculum is that there is a level of integration with realistic agility to reshape provisions to meet real needs. This has implications for the accepted norms of operation that need to be reconsidered, and in no way am I diminishing the significant importance of the wider aspects that the author refers to, but I do believe that curriculum design goes a long way to facilitate a solution to the broader issues. SEND learners in mainstream education remain a reality, and so they should. How adaptable can your systems be to include them in a broad spectrum response to their needs?
4. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/pushy-parents-not-to-blame-as-schools-lead-surge-in-bids-for-ehcps/ Another interesting article about special needs' position within the state education process and the exclusion of learners from the provision. I have spoken recently about the subject of adaptive curriculum specifically because we still focus mainstream provision on a one-size-fits-all ideal. With the level of need increase and the increasing amount of exclusion cited in this article, I see no other way than to reconsider the curriculum modelling used within our state system, particularly within the secondary phase. I have described the need for a post-modern, post-pandemic response to how we structure our schools. The modern approach would be increased blocking and setting. In contrast, a post-modern approach would include more class-focused organisation, which allows curriculum adaption to respond to the needs of groups of learners. This is an issue that is not going to go away. How are you balancing providing mainstream provision and meeting the needs of learners who need a different approach?
5. In designing your school provision, you'll be acutely aware of how you use your teacher and support time for the betterment of the learner's experience. Within the #SMARTcurriculum Method, we refer to investment above a baseline provision as 'Enhancement'. I was working with a school with a high percentage of SEN learners, considering how to best serve learners with special needs by enhancing teacher-led provision rather than the classic addition by extracting learners to support-led provision. So, being able to articulate the measure of planned curriculum time and how it relates to the number of learners in a class is a powerful tool in school leadership. The planned curriculum must be deliverable within the funding attracted by the learners. This is the key reason why #SMARTcurriculum's enhancement measure is important in transforming the effectiveness of the school narrative of efficient, effective and ethical provision. What areas do you believe would be positively impacted most by understanding the enhancement of teacher-led curriculum? ? 1. Clarity of intent. 2. Adaptive curriculum. 3. Teacher workload/wellbeing. 4. Learner outcomes. 5. Or add in comments your ideas.
6. I have been discussing adaptive curriculum recently. Within the #SMARTcurriculum method, we have seen the real benefits of challenging the one-size-fits-all curriculum modelling. We encourage school leaders to employ adaptive curriculum strategies, particularly where there are high levels of additional need, whether language, SEND or mobile populations. The practice involves designing the curriculum model with specific goals for designated populations that may require a different learning journey. The ability to facilitate this is in your population design strategies and the modern school moving to significant quantity of set blocks in secondary, where primaries are able to be much more agile in class structures. We are quite used to this in discussing alternative provision (AP), UTCs and studio schools; these are additional facilities. The question is whether adaptive curriculum design can be achieved within a single organisation. I was talking to a SEND specialist recently who said we have been exercising this agility for years and were puzzled by the rigidity of school practice in managing complex learning needs. How significant it would be to see the application of this methodology across the ability ranges: often, adaption is only applied to the lower end of the range, whereas similar adaption should also be applicable at the higher achievement end of the range? Would you be willing to explore the adaptability of your curriculum and the inherent practices in your structure that limit the capacity to be agile??
7. It's really interesting to see the proportion of people who have voted in this poll and the concentration of their priorities. Unsurprisingly, nearly 50% refer to send provision and reinforce what we have been saying about exploring adaptive curriculum, not just adaptive teaching practice. The mindset that this is built around is that if a child doesn't fit with what is happening in the classroom, then additional provision needs to be created, and here is the biggest challenge: how do we staff it, and can we afford it? Our analysis would show that we need to go back to the fundamental structure of schools and explore alternatives, which is why we have moved into developing language to describe the principles of population design, grouping strategies and adaptive curriculum. Does one size fit all? Clearly, a number of respondents have said they would prioritise smaller classes at KS1 and KS2 (ages 5-11). The numbers of respondents may illustrate reader experience, but we would fully endorse the funding structure within the English system needs to examine whether we have this class size question right and to state #SMARTcurriculum again believes from its evidence that when we talk about class size, the focus has to be on what we are doing between years 1 and 6 if we are ever going to change the outcome at year 11.? In recent analysis, the addition of nursery education structures has further heightened this need when considering the ratio of 1:3, 1:4 and 1:13, suddenly increasing to 1:30 at reception age. We have this journey wrong. Not to ignore others' opinions, but the two significant questions from the profession relate to the funding of those with special needs and class size within primary education. How much is the class size issue in primary education creating the heightened need for SEND provision later on? And what other impacts do you think we would see if class sizes were reduced for ages 5-11?
8. https://my.chartered.college/impact_article/key-considerations-essential-to-developing-a-curriculum-that-supports-learners-mental-health-and-wellbeing/ In this interesting article, looking at the key considerations essential to developing a curriculum that supports learners' mental health and well-being, four key features are cited as essential everyday practices. Firstly, an inclusive culture, climate and ethos followed by quality of learning interactions, pedagogy in the classroom and formative assessment. All of these work together, but I would say there are many assumptions made around the first. The greatest challenge is 'inclusive'. So often, supportive curriculum is created as additional provision 'intervention classes' or extraction from the mainstream; this is why we have championed the concepts of adaptive curriculum as opposed to adaptive teaching. The one element that (Hoffman 2000) refers to is the challenge of affective empathy, where extracting children to additional classes seen from the child's perspective reinforces exclusion, not inclusion. Clearly, there is a need to respond with specialist teachers and appropriate resources, but the concentration on the child's lived experience and their perspective of what is happening to them is essential when developing inclusive strategies. How do you balance extracting children to additional classes against bringing specialist resources into the classroom for the purpose of building inclusive culture, climate and ethos?"
9. Where the distribution of allocation of time can be modified for some learners, as well as the programme delivery, be adapted for learners needing change. This applies across the ability ranges, as the brightest learners can need curriculum adaption as much as those needing the most support. One example of this is the language journey for learners through secondary school. Often there is a desire to introduce two language experiences to learners. Then the question comes, are we watering down the experience where all learners are taught French and Spanish throughout KS3? My question is whether the one-size-fits-all is appropriate in this case. A single core language provision is necessary for all. Introducing a second language may not be suitable for all learners; in this case, an adaptive curriculum that is not the same for every child becomes appropriate. We are quite used to this in discussions concerning combined and single sciences but not applied beyond this in-subject discussion. How agile is our thinking, and is the one size fits all always appropriate?
10. https://www.stoneking.co.uk/literature/e-bulletins/stone-king-insight-key-changes-send-and-ap-improvement-plan-march-2023?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Stone%20King%20Insight%20Key%20changes%20in%20the%20SEND%20and%20AP%20Improvement%20Plan%20March%202023&utm_content=Stone%20King%20Insight%20Key%20changes%20in%20the%20SEND%20and%20AP%20Improvement%20Plan%20March%202023+CID_cff528de3506de0447fa41d072571832&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-and-alternative-provision-improvement-plan This is an important and very necessary paper, raising the importance of SEND and alternative provision. This paper strongly emphasises a truly inclusive system where learners who require support for their learning are to be appropriately resourced. The real difficulty I see in the way that is presented is the tension between a genuinely inclusive system where all learners are educated within the mainstream provision and only exceptional and high-needs provision is dealt with in specialist facilities. However, setting the bar at which point a specialist provision is required needs to be carefully considered. I believe it is often the cause of why alternative provision becomes necessary. I have talked on many occasions about adaptive curriculum where we challenge the premise that one size fits all led by a National Curriculum expectation or the performance tables. In these models, the school rhythm is the same for every child and those who don't fit or have specific needs require additional or alternative provisions. My first question is whether curriculum design has become so rigidly applied that it is causing the need for these additional provisions or whether curriculum design could be more adaptive. My second question is how we are resourcing the learning experiences and whether increasing class sizes for the younger years starts learners off badly. Secondly, whether resource constraints mean specialist training and access to an appropriately skilled workforce is becoming impossible to fund. How would an adaptive curriculum work for you, and do you have access to an appropriate specialist workforce for the needs of your learners??
11. Thank you to everyone who responded to the poll. It leaves me with several questions about how people understand adaptive curriculum. In the main, the on-the-ground analytics suggest that what is understood to be adaption tends actually to be additionality: learners are withdrawn from the main curriculum provision and designated teachers, or teaching assistants lead bespoke curriculum experiences. True adaptive curriculum, where learners in mainstream classes experience variations in programme design led by teachers, and supported by designated teaching assistants, is less common. After a conversation with a lead HMI this week, whose focus is on SEN provision, he confirmed this view with a huge increase in SEND designation since the pandemic period, particularly in the areas of SEMH and ASD. The rise in EHCP is also significant; in the order of 10% per year and rising. The issue of curriculum design understanding between adaptive programmes against additional programmes will become more acute as accountability demands evidence of impact from whichever style of investment in learning is decided upon. Is the curriculum you see truly adaptive, or is it adding bespoke provision??
12. I have been discussing adaptive curriculum recently. Within the #SMARTcurriculum method we have seen the real benefits of challenging the one-size-fits-all curriculum modelling. We encourage school leaders to employ adaptive curriculum strategies, particularly where there is high levels of additional need whether it be language, SEND or mobile populations. The practice involves designing the curriculum model with specific goals for designated populations that may require a different learning journey. We are quite used to this in discussing alternative provision (AP), UTCs and studio schools; these are additional facilities. The question is whether adaptive curriculum design can be achieved within a single organisation. How significant it would be to see the application of this methodology across the ability ranges: often adaption is only applied to the lower end of the range, whereas similar adaption should also be applicable at the higher achievement end of the range. Which of these characters your schools curriculum design, whether built around the National Curriculum (NC) or not? 1. Adapted annually 2. Adapted but static 3. National Curriculum plus interventions 4. National Curriculum plus unadapted for all. Please share some examples.
13. https://www.theheadteacher.com/attainment-and-assessment/pupils/send-adaption-inclusion For the last 25 years working on curriculum design models, it has been abundantly clear to me that the rigid systems schools use have gone some way to create the gaps in learning that children with high needs experience. This article highlights the need for adaption and the strength that it brings to classrooms. Within the #SMARTcurriculum Method we have for the last 12 years been talking about adaptive curriculum along side adaptive teaching. One meets the needs structurally, while the other meets the need pedagogically. The highest form of evidence that is so good to see in this example is the reference to children's confidence experiencing real inclusion, rather than isolation from their peers. I believe that adaptive curriculum is more an issue for the secondary phase, whilst the examples in this article illustrate how adaptive teaching impacts the primary classroom. That is not to say they are mutually exclusive, but there will be a different emphasis in each phase. How would adaptive curriculum impact your situation?
14. https://www.sec-ed.co.uk/best-practice/adaptive-teaching-explained-what-why-and-how-pedagogy-classroom-teachers-curriculum-differentiation-teachers-standards-pisa/ ‘Adaptive teaching’ practice has been embedded in the teacher standards since they were originally created. Clearly, the refreshing of the emphasis implies that implementation has not followed the intent. #SMARTcurriculum method would also suggest that there is sometimes a benefit to employ adaptive curriculum, where the distribution of allocation of time can be modified for some learners, as well as the programme delivery be adapted for learners needing change. This applies across the ability ranges, as the brightest learners can need curriculum adaption as much as those needing the most support. The question is, how agile is our thinking and whether the one size fits all is always appropriate?