Personalising learning: theory and enactment

In the new up-scaled learning communities of 150-300 students in the BEP (2005), learning was to be personalised for all students. However, drawing mainly on Tomlinson (2005), the writers of the BEP were at best sketchy about the characteristics of personalised student learning experiences, their rationale, and strategies/procedures likely to promote these experiences. These authors viewed personalisation as predominantly a teacher-directed technical accomplishment around academic learning, rather than a process of optimising quality learning in academic, social, cultural and personal development terms, as suggested by Fielding (2004, 2006), Rogers (2013) and others. We concur with this broader conception, noting that over the three years of our study the teachers experimented with various curricular adaptations to enhance the likelihood of both academic and personal development processes/outcomes.