Adaptive teaching guides: Practical tools for equitable classrooms

One of the most pressing priorities in schools right now is ensuring every pupil can access the full ambition of the National Curriculum, not just some of it, not just the 'easier bits', but all of it. this isn’t always happening. For pupils with SEND, access to a high-quality, well-sequenced curriculum isn’t an optional extra. It’s an entitlement. But we still have classrooms where teachers know exactly what they want to teach yet struggle with how to teach it so that every learner, from pupils who need greater scaffolding to those who are ready for advanced stretch and challenge, can engage and succeed. That “how” is where things often unravel. It’s not about knowing the content; it’s about designing lessons that meet the diverse needs of real children, in real time, with all the complexities that brings.

Over the past academic year across Our Community Multi-Academy Trust (OCMAT) we’ve been finding ways to respond to this challenge, not with another shiny initiative, but with something practical, teacher-led, and collaborative. This is where the subject-specific adaptive teaching guides came from. These guides are not prescriptive tools or rigid checklists. They are reflective aids designed to bring unconscious good practice to the surface, acting as prompts to spark thinking rather than formulas to be followed. They encourage teachers, support staff, and subject leaders to adapt thoughtfully, ensuring that high-quality teaching is maintained while being inclusive by design. At their heart, they’re a simple idea: a set of guides for each subject that bring clarity to adaptive teaching, making sure that pupils with SEND, and in truth all pupils, have the scaffolds and access points they need to succeed. But the story behind them isn’t about a piece of paper. It’s about culture. It’s about the belief that inclusion doesn’t live in the SENCo’s office or a bolt-on intervention, but in the everyday decisions that happen when teachers plan, model, and deliver their lessons.

For example, the Geography guide from Dymchurch sets out simple but powerful strategies like vocabulary walls, dual coding, pre-teaching of tricky terms, and retrieval tasks that make complex geographical concepts accessible to all pupils. They have helped staff to see inclusion not as a theoretical idea but as a set of practical, actionable strategies that make a difference. 

The starting point was the work we were already doing, peer-to-peer reviews across the Trust that brought SENCos, school leaders, and school teams together in open, reflective conversations through paired up schools across the trust, with solutions-focused inclusion questions created by schools, happening throughout the year. These reviews were an opportunity for school leaders and SENCos to look at both the micro and macro viewpoints of inclusion and work in a truly integrated way (this is talked about in the previous blog ‘two roles, one mission’ ). They were about listening, spotting the patterns, and asking hard questions about inclusion. What we found wasn’t surprising, but it was telling. Subject leaders were often highly secure in their curriculum knowledge, they could tell you the progression of knowledge in science or history inside out, but they weren’t always confident about how to adapt their teaching for pupils who might struggle or how to explain this to colleagues who were teaching the same curriculum. Not because they didn’t care or weren’t trying, but because inclusive teaching is deeply subject-specific, and the strategies that work in PE don’t necessarily translate to maths or art. We realised what we needed wasn’t a new framework or another layer of “expectations.” We needed a practical tool that teachers could actually use to make their lessons accessible from the start.

Subject leaders are the experts in their field. They know their subject inside out, its progression, its nuances, and the places where pupils are most likely to stumble. Whether it’s an abstract concept in science that feels miles away from pupils’ lived experience, a tricky historical timeline that demands holding multiple events in sequence, or the challenge of connecting a new mathematical skill to previously learned knowledge, subject leaders have the insight to anticipate these sticking points before pupils even encounter them. This deep understanding is what allows them to see where additional scaffolding or adaptive teaching will be needed, not to dilute the challenge, but to make the route to success clearer and more achievable.

When subject leaders work alongside SENCos, this expertise becomes even more powerful. A SENCo brings a wealth of knowledge about learning needs, processing difficulties, and the kinds of barriers that can turn a challenging concept into an insurmountable one for certain pupils. Together, they can design adaptations that are both targeted and subject-specific ,  refining explanations, sequencing tasks differently, or using visual and practical scaffolds to help pupils make the necessary connections. It’s not about bolting on “extra” support but about designing lessons that allow all pupils to access the core learning in a meaningful way. When this collaboration is embedded, it transforms the classroom: lessons become more thoughtfully structured, and pupils who might otherwise disengage are able to participate fully and succeed.

This work began as a direct response to the challenges we identified during our peer reviews. Time and again, we could see that teachers understood their subjects and their pupils, but they often lacked a practical, subject-specific reference point for adaptive teaching. I wanted to create something that didn’t add to workload but instead made planning for inclusion feel natural and achievable. I started with the Whole School SEND Teacher Handbook (Here ) specifically the subject guidance, and used it as the backbone for what would become our adaptive teaching guides. It’s an excellent resource, full of clear, evidence-informed strategies that focus on removing barriers without lowering expectations. From there, I built the first draft: a skeletal mock-up designed to be a flexible starting point, not a prescriptive checklist.

The first school to trial these adaptive teaching guides was Dymchurch, led by the brilliant SENCo and Head of School, Jenny Ross, along with her team. I shared the early drafts with them, and what followed was an honest, collaborative process of feedback and refinement. Together, they edited the adaptive teaching guides to reflect the school’s internal resources, preferred approaches, and scaffolding methods. The team at Dymchurch took the framework and made it their own ,  tailoring it so it felt authentic and aligned to the way they already taught, while adding practical tweaks that made it even more useful. This stage of co-construction was invaluable. It ensured that the adaptive teaching guides were not just a “trust initiative,” but something grounded in the reality of classrooms and shaped by the people who would be using them day to day.

Each one is built around a few key prompts: the classroom environment, the resources, the teaching approaches, and how we check understanding in ways that don’t exclude pupils. We’ve included practical strategies like modelling, sentence stems, dual coding, retrieval practice, not as a tick-list of “SEND things” to do, but as part of what high-quality teaching looks like when you’re thinking about all learners. We also include simple tools like a vocabulary bank or WAGOLL examples (What A Good One Looks Like), because we know how powerful clarity and modelling can be when pupils are struggling to grasp abstract concepts. But at the top of every adaptive teaching guide is the most important question of all: “What challenges or barriers might children face in this subject?” That question shifts the whole conversation. It stops teachers from adding adaptations as an afterthought and starts them designing with equity in mind from the beginning.

Crucially, these adaptive teaching guides are not intended to be a rigid checklist of “must-dos.” They are designed as an aide-memoir, a reflective tool to bring what is often unconscious good practice to the surface. They highlight the strategies that are already happening in classrooms and give them visibility, acting as a trigger for teachers to consider the “how” of their teaching as much as the “what.” A struggling Early Career Teacher can glance at the adaptive teaching guide while planning and immediately see practical ideas for scaffolding a lesson without lowering its ambition. A member of support staff can use it to think through how they might best assist a pupil with a specific barrier. A subject leader can use it as a conversation starter when explaining to colleagues how to approach their subject inclusively and consistently. 

In the Art and DT guide, inclusion is built through classroom layout, visual modelling of techniques, and space for creative exploration. It encourages gradually introducing equipment, scaffolding practical skills, and using peer or group discussion to share ideas. This kind of support ensures pupils with fine motor difficulties or anxiety around creativity are not excluded but instead encouraged to build confidence step by step.

The PE guide demonstrates how accessibility can be built into a highly physical subject. It focuses on equipment adaptation ,  such as using larger balls or introducing paralympic sports like boccia and ensuring all pupils can engage meaningfully. It includes ideas for formative assessment based on progress from individual starting points, and it highlights the importance of clear visual and verbal modelling.

While these adaptive teaching guides were designed with SEND in mind, they’ve proven to be just as beneficial for every learner. The research behind them, from Rosenshine’s principles to the Whole School SEND Teacher Handbook, is all about reducing cognitive load and improving memory and engagement. They help every child, not just those with additional or different needs. 

Some schools across the trust are already showing what happens when a more linear and consistent approach to teaching is embedded across multiple subjects. You can see threads running through lessons, the way modelling is structured, the way scaffolds are built in, the way assessment flows naturally into teaching. These schools are developing a shared pedagogy that is not only inclusive but also predictable and supportive for pupils. Over time, as these approaches become more refined and cemented within assessment and teaching practices, this consistency will grow. I believe that in time, we will see all schools in the trust move towards this model, where teaching is inclusive by design rather than by addition.

One of the reasons these adaptive teaching guides have worked (albeit early days!) is because they were co-created. They weren’t cooked up in an office and sent out as a directive. We built them with our subject network leads, with SENCos, and with teachers who were actually in the classroom, testing and refining them. We even discovered strengths we didn’t know we had along the way, like bilingual staff who helped us create multilingual vocabulary banks, or maths leads who dusted off forgotten manipulatives to make abstract ideas concrete again.

The impact has been noticeable. Ofsted inspectors have commented, more than once, on the clarity these adaptive teaching guides bring to lesson design, particularly in supporting inclusion. Teachers have said they’re easier to use than many of the over-engineered planning templates we’ve all seen come and go. And most importantly, pupils are feeling the difference. Lessons are more accessible, more structured, and more thoughtfully scaffolded, but without losing ambition or challenge.

We’re not pretending the adaptive teaching guides are a finished product. They’re living documents, constantly being refined as teachers use them and feedback. They don’t add to workload; they strip away the noise and give teachers a structure that works. 

It is also important to acknowledge that not every child will be able to fully access the National Curriculum, even with the most thoughtful adaptations and scaffolds in place. Some pupils require a truly bespoke curriculum that is tailored to their individual needs, often focusing on life skills, communication, or sensory regulation as much as academic progress. Recognising this is not a weakness in teaching or planning it is an essential part of inclusion. The adaptive teaching guides are not designed to ‘fix’ every barrier but to support the vast majority of pupils in accessing a challenging, meaningful curriculum while ensuring that those who need personalised provision are identified and supported appropriately.

When we talk about inclusion, we’re really talking about equity. Inclusion is the why. Equity is the how. And the adaptive teaching guides are one example of how we take the why, the belief that no pupil should be left behind, and make it real in the classroom. They remind us that the job isn’t just to cover the curriculum, but to make sure it’s truly accessible. Because if a pupil can’t access it, they can’t learn it. And if they can’t learn it, then the curriculum isn’t doing its job.

This work is still evolving, and it always will be. But every time I see a subject lead and SENCo planning together, identifying the tricky vocabulary in history or the conceptual leaps in maths, I’m reminded of why we started this. It’s about making inclusion the starting point, not the adjustment. When that happens, classrooms stop being places where some pupils just “get by” and start being places where every child can thrive.