Personalised Learning – The Four Deeps

Personalising learning has gone from contentious double-speak first spewed forth by central government in 2004 to something that is at the heart of curriculum development.

” John White, emeritus professor of philosophy of education at the Institute of Education, one of the most consistently original and free-spirited thinkers in British education, has called into question one of the mantras at the heart of government policy: personalised learning. What does it mean?

According to White, it is a sloppily defined term that means so many things at the same time as to mean nothing at all. It made its entrance in Blair’s speech to the Labour party conference last year: “Personalised learning for every child in new specialist schools and city academies” (those in the remaining bog-standards will have to satisfy themselves with their learning experience remaining impersonal). At this point, it was merely a seductive slogan in search of meaning.”

The Guardian, Oct 3rd 2006

Although its definition has taken time to evolve, the concept of personalising learning is now a familiar concept to curriculum managers and indeed many of the other staff in schools.

There are a massive range of papers, resources and studies that cover the agenda – enough to populate a blog in and of themselves, however this document written by David Hargreaves and published by SSAT and iNet, uses a model based around “the four deeps’ – Deep Learning, Deep Experience, Deep Support, Deep Leadership which I have found to be particularly useful in the past. There are a range of supporting pamphlets that I will post in due course.

"How Well are we Achieving our Aims?" – SSAT (1)

Once the wheels start turning on your curriculum change it will be important to gather feedback in a range of contexts and via a number of pre-determined way-stages. Collecting information from stakeholders – yes even the pupils! – is a crucial step along the way.

This first document, produced by SSAT, will be of use during the early stages to gather information about where the strong opinions lie in your school regarding possible changes to the way the school curriculum operates. As usual, grab the DOC version if you want to make changes specific to your school situation.

Gathering Opinions (PDF)

Gathering Opinions (DOC)

The second document will be of use a little further up the thinking tree and asks important questions about transition, progression, timings, flexibility and choice. Both documents come highly recommended!

Curriculum Checksheet (PDF)

Curriculum Checksheet (DOC)