Research School Network: Adapting teaching to be ​‘inclusive by design’: the ​‘off-the-shelf’ dilemma Adapt Maths Wirral is a partnership between Blackpool Research School, Education Endowment Foundation, & Wirral Council.

Mrs. Yates’ school provides all of the materials she needs to teach maths to her Year 7 class. But an upcoming lesson on adding and subtracting mixed numbers presents a problem, as she knows her class struggled with some of the prerequisite concepts required to be successful.

She knows she could adapt the lesson to better suit the needs of her class. But between unexpected safeguarding reports and an additional break duty, time has run out. She clicks the remote, and follows the script for a lesson she knows her pupils are not quite ready for.

In recent years, schools have had a renewed focus on the quality of their curriculum. In some subjects, including mathematics, this has led to an increase in ​‘bought-in’ schemes. This has in many cases reduced teacher workload and led to a more consistent approach to the teaching of maths. But at what cost?

Auditing current practices

Our partnership is working with 20 primary and secondary schools from across Wirral. We undertook an initial audit of current practices across these schools, and the findings around lesson adaptations spotlighted a priority.

Some schools noted that while their curriculum is strong, there is a need for lessons to deviate from the planned structure more regularly to maximise learning for individual students. And that while they are proficient in gathering assessment data, the ​“so what” — the adaptation of teaching based on that data — remains a challenge.

Review and reflect

Adaptive teaching is often associated with ​‘in the moment’ changes. But we can also consider adaptations that can be made to our planned curriculum prior to a lesson starting.

We can do this be routinely asking ourselves: ​‘How can I give all children the best possible chance of understanding this concept?‘

With this question in mind, the Adapt Maths Wirral partnership has developed a framework for teachers to consider what ​‘before the lesson’ adaptations they might make.

Reviewing the lesson includes:

• what you know about the class – the ​‘every lesson’ adaptations needed to support a pupil with a visual impairment, or the knowledge that James missed last lesson so might need some additional support
• the prior knowledge of the class – what they have been taught previously and what have they retained, which might be assessed through planning a start of lesson low-stakes quiz
• your curriculum materials – reviewing slide decks and removing, adapting, or adding to content as needed
• common misconceptions related to the topic – considering what these are, and how the use of examples and resources might minimise the impact of these
• vocabulary – including which key words will need explicitly teaching, and whether stem sentences might be needed to support all to be successful

We have also considered how we might give all children the best possible chance of understanding our lesson content through the use of ​‘think aloud’ modelling (EEF, 2025) and faded worked examples (EEF, 2022). Our training day featured live demonstrations of both of these strategies from our Wirral Evidence Leads, followed by time for rehearsal of these techniques in small groups.

The next in this series of blogs will focus on adaptive teaching during the lesson: how we check for understanding, then make appropriate adaptations according to the results. We will follow this up later in the year with case studies from individual schools on what implementation of this work looks like in their context.

References

Education Endowment Foundation, 2017. Improving Mathematics in Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 guidance report.
Education Endowment Foundation, 2022. Working with worked examples – Simple techniques to enhance their effectiveness [blog]
Education Endowment Foundation, 2025. Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning guidance report.