The 2020 Vision review, led by Ofsted head Christine Gilbert and published earlier this year, explores how personalised learning should look in schools by the end of the next decade. It describes personalising learning as ‘focusing in a more structured way on each child’s learning to enhance their progress, achievement and participation’.

It does require a culture change, specifically some relinquishing of control from teacher to pupils. But
it is not rocket science; and there are many mature examples of good practice which other schools can learn from and adapt for themselves.

Preston Manor High School, a multi-cultural comprehensive in Wembley, has taken a highly individualised approach to literacy since the mid-1990s, largely because the majority of pupils are from ethnic minority groups and 70 per cent do not have English as their first language.

Georgina Liveras, deputy head, explains: “Often, the students will be speaking another language at home. We needed to have a real push on literacy across the school to develop children’s ability to use language in different contexts and develop higher order thinking.”

The literacy intervention programme extends across the whole school, from Year 6 feeder primaries to Year 12s and across all subjects, including the pastoral system. In Year 8 alone for example, there are writing projects for under-achieving children, reading at registration time supported by Year 12 students, Latin classes for Gifted and Talented and a debating club open to all but specifically targeting some pupils.

The English department’s specific intervention programme consists of ‘blocking’ students all the way through from Year 7 to 11, dividing them according to ability groups and giving each one intensive support.

In Year 7, for example, the year group is split into two blocks for one lesson a week. Students at level 4 follow a programme specifically written by the English department.

Students at level 2 and below go to their SEN
key worker; students at level 3 go to a specific teacher responsible for working on progress units; level 5 students attend Latin classes; and EAL (English as an additional language) students are taught by the EAL specialist. All students have a discrete literacy lesson.

Exam results have improved dramatically, rising from 45 per cent A*-Cs at GCSE in 1995 to 70 per cent in 2003 (the first cohort of children to benefit from five years of literacy interventions). In SATS, 40 per cent of children gained level 5 in English in 1995 rising to 87 per cent in 2003, with similar dramatic rises in Maths and Science.

The literacy scheme is staff intensive – in English
up to 10 staff are needed to teach the range of groups – but it is a funding priority,” says Georgina. “We believe that children will never be fully successful in education unless they have that confidence with the language.”

Phil Rowbotham introduced personalised learning at Holmes Chapel Primary School in Cheshire when he took over as head nine years ago and has gradually extended it throughout the school. The focus is on developing learning strategies and assessment for learning in which children learning from each other is a major part.

Peer-to-peer learning includes, for example, children working together in pairs to edit drafts of each other’s work, he explains. “There has to be a protocol so you don’t get one child rubbishing another’s work so we use the ‘three kisses and a wish’ approach: they look for three positives and then frame any corrections as ‘I wish you had... used capital letters or put a full stop in.’"

There is a code for drafting work so that the children know how to highlight learning points – putting a ring around a spelling mistake for example. The work then goes back to the partner and they discuss the corrections.

Phil says: “There is an agreed procedure throughout the school and it’s important that it is consistent. You need to have an established way of doing things so the children aren’t redoing things differently every year.”

Peer-to-peer work has laid the foundations for more collaborative learning at the school using Spencer Kagan’s work on cooperative strategies.

Rally-coach involves pairs of children working together on a set of questions – maths problems, for example. The questions can be different for each child. One child writes down their answer with a pencil and explains their thinking. Their partner – the ‘coach’ – listens, praises if they think the answer is correct and questions if not. For the next question, they swap roles.

“It’s about developing the children’s coaching skills and helping them to ask the right questions to support the learning of others,” says Phil.

Alison Peacock is headteacher of The Wroxham School, a primary in Potters Bar and she too believes in involving children intimately in their own learning. Wroxham children have a significant say in decisions affecting how and what they learn.

For 15 minutes every Tuesday, all children participate in a mixed age meeting led by year 6 pupils.

Alison explains: “It’s a chance for the children to discuss any issues they want to raise or it can be something that the governors have asked them to look at, or example. It starts off with a game and that leads on to a discussion. It provides a vehicle for everyone to know that there’s a time when you can have your voice heard in a formal way.”

In class the children decide the level of learning they will undertake in each curriculum area; they also choose who they sit with for the week and will evaluate at the end how well they learned as a result. There’s no scope for coasting, however: if a teacher thinks any child is deliberately avoiding challenging work – perhaps because they are worried about the risk of failing – it’s tackled in a one-to-one conversation.

Year 5 and 6 children take part in learning review days twice a year when the child goes through self-assessment with their parents, teacher and head and reports on what has gone well and what areas they need help to improve on.

“The rigour is there, in terms of assessment, but it comes from the children themselves,” says Alison. “It works because they can talk so coherently about the decisions they have made about their learning.”

The school’s results speak for themselves: having been in special measures in 2003 when Alison took over, Wroxham was judged outstanding by Ofsted.

There is no culture in the school that means they are judged or ranged, so the children are competing against themselves, Alison adds. “There’s no sense now of it being ‘not cool’ to work hard and that’s a seismic shift from where we were.”