MRMICT

Adaptation, Disadvantage, and the Power of Precision

It was an honour to not only be able to attend this year’s Schools North East Curriculum Conference but presenting again alongside Dominic Martin my headteacher, was also fantastic. The speakers today reinforced, firmly, a key idea for me: adaptation isn’t about lowering expectations—it’s about making learning clearer and more precise. Addressing this isn’t about dilution or ‘catching children up’ through interventions alone. It’s about ensuring that our curriculum, teaching, and task design are structured in a way that makes success possible in the first place. But how do we do that you ask? Well the range of speakers certainly began to build a case. 

First up, David Didau’s keynote challenged the usual thinking around ability, reminding us that ability is the consequence, not the cause. The greatest difference between children isn’t intelligence, but the quality and quantity of what they know. Too often we forget that success must precede struggle—children who rarely experience success aren’t just ‘struggling learners,’ they’re learners who have been taught to expect failure. We need  strong foundation of past successes in order to continue this journey. 

A concept that stood out was gapless instruction—if children struggle, it’s not because they ‘just don’t get it,’ but because there are gaps in how they’ve been taught. This may seem obvious but they idea of making our content, teaching and tasks opportunities to provide ‘gapless teaching’ intrigues me, something I will most likely continue to tinker with. We also can’t assume prior knowledge where it doesn’t exist, and we can’t leave children to fill in the blanks. That’s where clarity and structure come in. This again resonates with what I shared in our session. 

Marc Rowland built on this by digging into the internalised impact of disadvantage on the children. We know poverty isn’t just financial but to we understand it—it’s social, emotional, and deeply embedded in a child’s self-perception.

A child might have access to an opportunity, but that doesn’t mean they feel like they belong there. This was an interesting thought here, the idea of belonging is an idea that almost all schools will say their children have, however, within that is various sub-groups of belonging. Marc referenced the Geography field trips in secondary school, yet makes the point it’s not the learning they miss out on but the community and sense of belonging which is felt far deeper, over longer periods of time than the ‘knowledge’ supposedly ‘lost’. So making it free doesn’t mean it feels accessible. Real inclusion isn’t about access alone—it’s about building agency, self-belief, and a sense of belonging.

One of the interesting sections of this speakers session was children with greater variability outside of school (different beds, parents houses etc.) means more consistency and certainty inside of school is needed. Children experiencing disadvantage need predictability, coherence, and high expectations. Our curriculum is the foundation of this, but how we design and deliver it determines whether children succeed or get left behind.

Applying This to Curriculum, Teaching, and Task Design

The Clarity Model aligns closely with Didau’s principles of explicit, structured instruction. If we want children to succeed, we have to strip away ambiguity, be precise about what success looks like, and design tasks that actually support learning rather than just occupying time.

• Choice of ‘moment’ (why now?) – Are we sequencing knowledge in a way that prepares children properly rather than expecting them to infer or ‘pick it up as they go’?

• Choice of ‘frame’ (how it’s structured) – Are we delivering learning in a way that makes the thinking visible? Gapless instruction means every child has access to the full cognitive picture, not just those with prior knowledge.

• Choice of ‘image’ (how we represent it) – Are we giving children clear, structured models? Disadvantaged pupils need consistency and precision—they can’t afford to ‘guess’ what we mean.

• Choice of ‘word’ (language and specificity) – Clarity = specificity. Vague explanations and assumed knowledge only widen the gap.

• Choice of ‘flow’ (task design and practice) – Are we ensuring children actively retrieve and apply knowledge rather than just recognising it? Are they practising it properly or just repeating mistakes?

For curriculum intent, this means:

• Designing units where knowledge builds incrementally, with opportunities for retrieval and structured application.

• Ensuring assessment measures curriculum impact, not just test performance—so we’re actually assessing what children have had the chance to learn.

• Making sure adaptive teaching is planned in, rather than relying on interventions after the fact.

For teaching and task design, it reinforces:

• More structured talk and modelling to help children internalise key concepts.

• More structured practice before independence, so children aren’t expected to ‘just get it’ after one attempt.

• Using assessment as a teaching tool—if children are struggling, is it because they weren’t taught it explicitly?

Final Thoughts: Adaptation is Precision, Not Reduction

The real challenge of adaptation is not making things easier, but making them clearer. When we design learning that is structured, explicit, and practised properly, we don’t just support disadvantaged children—we teach better for all children. 

In summary, high expectations and strong teaching are the intervention. Not endless catch-up, not vague enrichment, not reducing cognitive demand. Just precision, structure, and clarity that make success possible in the first place.

Curious to hear from others—what does adaptation look like in your curriculum? How do you ensure your tasks and assessments empower rather than exclude?

Thank you for reading

Karl (MRMICT)