Personalising learning: theory and enactment

In the new up-scaled learning communities of 150-300 students in the BEP
(2005), learning was to be personalised for all students. However, drawing
mainly on Tomlinson (2005), the writers of the BEP were at best sketchy about
the characteristics of personalised student learning experiences, their rationale, and
strategies/procedures likely to promote these experiences. These authors viewed
personalisation as predominantly a teacher-directed technical accomplishment
around academic learning, rather than a process of optimising quality learning in
academic, social, cultural and personal development terms, as suggested by Fielding
(2004, 2006), Rogers (2013) and others. We concur with this broader conception,
noting that over the three years of our study the teachers experimented with various
curricular adaptations to enhance the likelihood of both academic and personal
development processes/outcomes.