CPD Reflections: Teaching An Adaptive Curriculum

By Izzy Hilliard

Back in the heady days of early 2019, the English department received training from the English and Media Centre, a developmental centre that encourages best pedagogical practices and innovative approaches to teaching English. At the EMC, they value raising attainment but also want to offer approaches that allow students to become confident, articulate and critical thinkers and learners. On their website they recognise that some of their CPD may be viewed as “radical,” but they want English teachers to begin “taking risks that challenge both themselves and students.” Fast forward two and a half years and we have gone through two school closures, red tape, Chromebook use, no sharing of books, no sharing of paper- and we have done so resiliently whilst still putting the students and their education first. However, as we re-enter the school climate we once again have to be considering how we can push our curriculum forward, even if that entails “praiseworthy failure.” Whilst students at Key Stage 4 are constricted by government-dictated text choices and exams, Key Stage 3 is an opportunity to have freedom with the texts we choose and the pedagogy we use to educate. This aligns with the idea of an “adaptive curriculum,” which the EMC defines as “ a single curriculum which all students in a given class can access if it is suitably adapted.”

The main three ideas that the EMC promotes are:

• Choice- the EMC believes that students should have a stake in what they are learning and to do this they have to have some say in the texts that they study and the form they write responses in.
• Connectivity- Texts that students study should connect with students’ own lives and experiences including prior reading and viewing.
• Cognition- Students should want to engage in deep thinking that relies primarily on self-generated ideas rather than ideas they have absorbed from the teacher.

In regards to these three ideas, the EMC promotes what they call, “Low Threshold, High Ceiling,” which is particularly pertinent in Westminster Academy due to having mixed-ability classroom settings. They referenced the study called Closing the Reading Gap which says that it is wasteful of learning time to have a novel, poetry anthology or play that students cannot access. The training established that differentiation is vital at the point of access for all students. Subsequently, to ensure that the high ceiling is met, endpoints could also be adapted and changed for different students. Whilst no endpoints should establish low expectations all students need to be appropriately challenged depending on their ability. What does the English Department do already? Already the English department uses regular discussion, self and peer assessment. Furthermore, post our training in 2019 we have now started creating a novel “agenda.” This is when students are able to see snippets from the novel they will be reading and create an agenda about the aspects they find interesting eg The theme of violence across the snippets; the narrative voice is engaging because …. Etc. We then refer to this agenda for the rest of the term. It allows students to take ownership over what we have read and what we will be reading as well as anchoring their study of the novel. They have directed the teaching rather than just been told what is and is not significant. Why does an EMC approach matter at Westminster Academy? As Westminster Academy attempts to promote the IB in younger years, I believe that the EMC approach speaks to many of the IB Learner Profile characteristics. By increasing their independence from a young age with self-directed learning and choice we are asking our students to be inquirers and risk-taking. Subsequently, the pedagogical approaches, promoting Pie Corbett’s “Talk” allows students to practise and perfect their open-mindedness and the way they communicate. How does this impact me and my practice? After the three sessions from the EMC I reflected on the changes I wanted to make in my own pedagogy.

• How can I adapt endpoints of a unit for different students without changing my expectations of the quality of work?
• How can I encourage my students to take accountability for their own learning and curriculum?
• How can I ensure that my students use “self-assessment time” to make meaningful progress?
• How can I embed the IB Learner profile into an EMC approach within the English department?
• What texts should I be teaching to ensure that I have a “Low Threshold, High Ceiling” curriculum
• How can I establish high-quality differentiation throughout the curriculum so that no student cannot access any of the low threshold texts?