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Differentiated learning: from policy to classroom

journal contribution
posted on 2014-01-01, 00:00 authored by M Mills, S Monk, Amanda KeddieAmanda Keddie, P Renshaw, P Christie, D Geelan, C Gowlett
This paper explores the impact of a Teaching and Learning Audit of all government schools in Queensland, Australia. This audit has a concern with the extent to which schools ‘differentiate classroom learning’. We note that in England, since September 2012, one of the standards that teachers have been expected to demonstrate is an ability to ‘differentiate appropriately’, and thus the lessons of how this particular audit was implemented in Queensland have relevance outside of Australia. The paper draws on data collected from Red Point High School, one of the State’s 1257 schools and education centres audited in 2010. We suggest that this requirement to differentiate classroom learning was implemented without appropriate clarity or support, and that it increased teacher surveillance in this school. However, we also argue that some spaces were opened up by this audit, and its concern with differentiation, to articulate a social justice agenda within the school. We conclude that differentiation is a complex concept which is not easy to shift from a policy to a classroom context, and requires more careful explication at policy level and more support for teachers to enact.

History

Journal

Oxford review of education

Volume

40

Article number

3

Pagination

331-348

Location

Abingdon, Eng.

ISSN

0305-4985

eISSN

1465-3915

Language

eng

Publication classification

C Journal article, C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2014, Taylor & Francis

Issue

3

Publisher

Routledge