How can you support your teachers in mainstream settings to feel confident meeting the diverse needs of all pupils, especially children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)?
Ambition’s new programme, Adaptive Teaching: Train the trainer, is designed to help you introduce a sustainable model of teacher development around adaptive teaching in your school.
It helps you to better understand adaptive teaching practices, with a focus on anticipating and responding to barriers to learning. It also supports you to train and develop your teaching staff to apply these approaches at a whole-class level.
This article explores what you will learn on the programme, the benefits for your school, why adaptive teaching is important, and how it’s delivered.
What will you learn on Adaptive Teaching?
If a focus on high-quality teaching and the ability of teachers to be responsive in the classroom are priorities in your school, then this programme can help.
You will deepen your expertise in adaptive teaching so you can support your teachers in better addressing their pupils' needs.
Some of the core components of adaptive teaching practices explored on this programme include:
- How to anticipate barriers to learning.
- How to use formative assessment to detect barriers and check for understanding.
- How to respond and adapt in lessons through feedback, scaffolding and flexible grouping.
- How to monitor whether the adaptation is working or needs adjustment.
You will also learn:
- How to design and deliver effective, evidence-informed professional development on adaptive teaching.
- The key considerations when looking to monitor and evaluate the impact of your training.
What is a train-the-trainer model?
A train-the-trainer model of professional development works by training one or more leaders in a setting who then train and develop their colleagues. It’s a scalable method of learning that has a multiplier effect.
Our Adaptive Teaching programme supports leaders to deepen their own knowledge in this area so they can train classroom teachers. It helps them to deliver evidence-informed approaches effectively.
How does the Adaptive Teaching programme benefit pupils and schools?
This programme will help you nurture your staff through effective teacher education to ultimately improve learning across your setting.
Here are some of the key benefits for pupils, staff and schools:
- Deepens leaders’ expertise in the core components of adaptive teaching, such as anticipating and responding to barriers to learning, and cognitive scaffolding strategies.
- Equips leaders with the latest evidence-informed approaches and resources in adaptive teaching and how to use these when designing practical training for their context.
- Builds leaders’ confidence to deliver effective teacher development and monitor its impact through a range of supporting resources.
- Helps leaders build a shared language, knowledge and body of practice for all teachers, aligned with the Early Career and National Professional Qualification frameworks. This aids understanding among colleagues.
- Increases the access of all pupils to teaching that’s adapted to their needs, including those with SEND.
- Saves schools money by being able to deliver and scale teacher development internally.
Why is adaptive teaching important?
Over 80% of pupils with SEND are educated in mainstream classrooms (Department for Education, 2024). This is important because there’s a gap in the academic and long-term social outcomes, such as future paid employment and upward social mobility, between pupils who have SEND and those who do not (Warwick Social Sciences, 2022).
Pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are also disproportionately affected, with over a quarter of pupils eligible for free school meals identified as having SEND.
Adaptive teaching practices are inclusive teaching strategies that teachers can use to understand and respond to the various needs of pupils in the classroom.
This may be particularly beneficial for pupils with SEND since “high quality teaching should reduce the need for extra support” (Davies and Henderson, 2021). This is only one element of teaching and learning support for pupils, however, and some pupils will naturally still need targeted or specialist interventions.
How is our Adaptive Teaching programme delivered?
The Adaptive Teaching programme lasts 18 weeks with a mix of facilitator-led and independent work to support your learning.
During this time, you will:
- Take part in two half-day online conferences: Focused on adaptive teaching and designing effective training for educators.
- Engage in three 75-minute sense-making twilight sessions: These sessions are held online and will help you plan, facilitate and monitor the impact of your adaptive teaching professional development work.
- Access a 30-minute webinar: Explore what effective adaptive teaching practices look like in the classroom with this online, asynchronous webinar.
- Access ten evidence summaries and additional tools and resources: Enrich your understanding and contextual knowledge of adaptive teaching practices through resources that can be tailored to your context.
Who is eligible to apply for Adaptive Teaching?
This programme is suitable for middle or senior leaders with responsibility for teacher development who want to improve high-quality adaptive teaching in mainstream schools.
This may include job roles such as:
- School director of teaching
- Teaching and learning lead
- Head of department
- Assistant headteacher
How much does the Adaptive Teaching programme cost?
The programme costs £775 + VAT per person.
Discover Adaptive Teaching
For more information and to apply, visit our Adaptive Teaching: Train the trainer programme page.
