When you go to a supermarket, the doors open automatically. You might be perfectly capable of opening a heavy door yourself, but having it open automatically makes things easier. For somebody else, however, that automatic door might make the difference between being able to enter the shop independently and not being able to enter at all. The support is essential for some people. But everybody benefits.
At the time, I used this as an analogy for teaching pupils with SEND: many of the things that make our classrooms more accessible for pupils with additional needs are simply good teaching practices from which all pupils can benefit.
Four years on, the EEF’s new Guide to Inclusive Teaching has made me think again about those sliding doors. I still like the analogy, but perhaps there is more to opening the doors than I originally thought (https://educationendowmentfoun…).
A two-part model The EEF’s new guidance introduces a two-part model of inclusive teaching.
- First, we consider the universal approaches we use every day that benefit everybody, but are especially important for pupils with additional needs.
- Second, we consider the adaptations and additional support some pupils might also need, and how we know whether these are helping rather than hindering their learning.
Importantly, the two parts are complementary and overlapping, rather than sequential. We aren’t saying: First I’ll teach everybody normally, then I’ll do something different for pupils with SEND.
Instead, we make our everyday teaching as strong and accessible as possible, notice where barriers remain, and respond to the pupils in front of us.
What might this look like? Last week, I was teaching relative formula mass to my Year 11 class.
I reviewed the prior knowledge pupils would need, introduced the new concept and checked that the fundamentals had been understood (using mini whiteboards), picking up some initial errors and misconceptions. I then modelled several worked examples under the visualiser before pupils began practising independently.
None of this was specifically aimed at students with SEND, it was just “good teaching” and, hopefully, useful for everybody in the room.
As students started working though, their different needs became apparent. Some worked quickly and confidently and asked for additional questions to answer, while others moved more slowly and carefully.
However, it was apparent that some students were in need of some additional support before they could succeed independently.
Adaptations and additional support
For one pupil, I scaffolded the process again. We worked through an example together, pausing at each stage. They repeated the process with my support, tried doing another question with me alongside them, and then continued independently.
With another pupil, the barrier wasn’t immediately obvious. Rather than explaining everything again, I asked them to talk me through what they understood and where they had got to. This helped me identify the precise sticking point and address that, rather than reteaching something they already understood. It also helped them to articulate their method in a different way before applying it again.
This illustrates the relationship between the two parts of the EEF model:
- I modelled for everybody, then modelled more intensively for somebody who needed it. - I checked everybody’s understanding, then questioned one pupil more carefully to diagnose their difficulty. - I scaffolded for everybody, then increased the scaffolding for a pupil who needed it, before stepping that support away.
Adapting the route When we talk about adapting teaching, it’s easy to imagine a different worksheet, a simplified task or a separate activity.
Sometimes these may be appropriate.
But adaptation can also mean increasing the intensity of high-quality teaching in response to what we discover about a pupil’s learning.
It’s important to remember that a diagnosis or identified need can provide useful information and help us anticipate barriers, but it can’t tell us exactly what an individual pupil will need in every lesson.
In my Year 11 lesson, the pupils were still learning relative formula mass. I hadn’t made the chemistry easier or lowered my expectations of what they could achieve.
I’d adapted the route, rather than the destination.
Of course, that won’t always be the case. Some pupils will need more substantial or ongoing adaptations, and appropriate learning goals won’t necessarily be identical for every pupil. But we shouldn’t reduce the destination unnecessarily simply because a pupil needs a different route to get there.
Help or hinder?
The EEF guidance also asks an important question:
How do we know that adaptations and additional support help rather than hinder learning?
More adaptation doesn’t necessarily mean more learning. - A scaffold might help a pupil access a difficult task, but could prevent independence if it remains indefinitely. - Simplifying a task might enable completion, but could remove the thinking we wanted the pupil to do. - One-to-one adult support might help today, but is it helping the pupil become more independent tomorrow? - And an intervention might provide valuable additional teaching, but it should supplement, rather than replace, strong classroom teaching.
Good intentions aren’t enough. We need to know whether the support is working.
Assess, plan, do, review This takes me back to something from my original blog that seems just as relevant now: assess, plan, do, review.
In its simplest classroom form: - Do they get it? - If not, what might help? - Try it. - Did it work? - And repeat.
I tried to ensure that this process was happening continually in my Year 11 lesson: checking prior knowledge, checking after modelling, watching pupils practise, identifying barriers, providing support and then checking whether they could continue without me.
Inclusive teaching isn’t something we bolt onto the “normal” lesson afterwards. It’s an ongoing process of noticing, responding and checking.
Keep opening the doors
So I still like the automatic doors analogy. Strong universal teaching can remove barriers for everybody and may be particularly important for pupils with additional needs, but opening the automatic doors doesn’t mean we’ve removed every barrier a pupil might encounter once they’re inside.
We need to notice the barriers that remain, make thoughtful adaptations where they’re needed, and avoid assuming that any diagnosis or description tells us exactly what an individual child needs.
Most importantly, we need to keep asking: Is this actually helping this child to learn? If it isn’t, we adapt again.
Because inclusion isn’t really about the number of doors we open, it’s about whether our pupils can actually get through them.
