Building a culture of adaptive teaching doesn’t happen overnight. Safiyyah Ansari, Deputy Head at Oakridge Primary School, shares her experiences of leading change and building staff confidence in adaptive teaching.
“We are in an area that is highly deprived. We have very low starting points,” Safiyyah explains. “We've got children with increasingly complex needs and a wide range of attainment levels.”
A couple of months after joining Oakridge, she realised that the school could benefit from a more inclusive culture to meet every pupil’s needs. “We were already confident with the quality and consistency of teaching across the school. But the next stage of improvement for us was ensuring that every pupil, regardless of their starting point or need, could successfully access ambitious learning,” she says.
Before deciding on their next steps, the school looked carefully at a range of evidence, including lesson visits, staff confidence, pupil needs and wider school priorities. This enabled them to identify where professional development would have the greatest impact through long-term rather than short-term measures.
Safiyyah says, “We wanted to strengthen teachers' decision-making so that inclusion became part of everyday classroom practice rather than relying solely on additional interventions.” They decided to make adaptive teaching their priority and added it to their school development plan.
Leading a whole-school culture shift with adaptive teaching
To turn this priority into action, Safiyyah decided to sign up to our Adaptive Teaching: Train the trainer programme. The programme develops leaders’ expertise in adaptive teaching. It also gives them the skills to design professional development on adaptive teaching using what they’ve learned and evidence-informed resources in a way that can be adapted for their school’s needs.
“I oversee curriculum, teaching and professional development for all staff in school. So it made sense for me to complete the programme because I needed that strong foundation of knowledge to design a comprehensive professional development offer. But equally importantly, I needed the expertise and confidence to lead that work well.”
Crucially, Safiyyah wanted to design professional development that “doesn’t just give staff ad hoc training but supports a whole-school culture shift.”
“The programme deepened my understanding of adaptive teaching as an evidence-informed decision-making process and provided a clear framework for implementing change across a whole school,” she says. It encouraged staff to diagnose pupil need first, but it also allowed her to identify the right starting point for staff. This meant the school could implement change gradually so that professional development was sustainable rather than becoming another short-term initiative.
It was important for Safiyyah to bring the whole team along. Teachers, higher level teaching assistants and learning support assistants (LSAs) are all taking part in training, with sessions adapted to each role. “We've explored anticipating barriers to learning, planning for misconceptions and understanding how to overcome them,” she says.
Although the training is adapted to different roles, Safiiyah says there is a common thread for all staff. “The consistency is really important. Whatever is being delivered to teachers and leaders is also being mirrored with our LSAs because they are a vital part of classroom practice and need to understand the same principles.”
She says it’s important that “everyone is approaching adaptive teaching in the same way so there isn't a disjointed approach. It helps us develop a shared language and consistent expectations across the school.”
Seeing the difference adaptive teaching makes
Safiyyah decided to build the training into Oakridge's existing instructional coaching and deliberate practice cycle, which she found complements adaptive teaching well.
“Last week we focused on checking for understanding and hinge questions. Much of that training was informed by the reading, research and materials from the programme. We explored the theory first, before teachers spent the following weeks designing their own examples, rehearsing them together, delivering them in lessons and then reflecting on the impact through coaching.”
This allows staff to keep refining their approaches over time. “It’s helped us translate research into consistent classroom practice. This work will continue into next year as we focus on embedding these approaches so they become part of everyday teaching rather than a standalone initiative. Our aim is to ensure adaptive teaching becomes an integral part of our school's culture and professional practice."
In the early stages, the school focused on staff working with small groups of pupils with education, health and care plans and those working below age-related expectations. Safiyyah says the impact on these pupils is already starting to show both in the classroom and through pupil voice.
"We’re already seeing encouraging signs. Teachers are making more deliberate decisions during planning, pupils are participating more confidently, and classroom discussions suggest that adaptations are helping pupils engage more successfully with learning.”
She says “the teaching has been adapted so well that pupils are now accessing learning more successfully at the level they are working at. They’re thriving in that environment.”
“There are children who rarely contributed in lessons previously who are now much more confident in participating and enjoying the lessons because it’s been carefully adapted for them.”
Leaning on research builds confidence in staff
At first, teachers were cautious about adapting teaching in their lessons. Safiyyah says one of the biggest challenges was helping teachers understand that adaptive teaching isn't about having a checklist or toolkit.
She says, “Teachers are beginning to move away from viewing adaptive teaching as a collection of strategies. Instead, they’re making more informed professional decisions about how best to remove barriers to learning while maintaining high expectations for every pupil. That shift in thinking has probably been one of our biggest successes so far.”
Helping staff to feel confident to move away from rigid routines and make professional decisions based on pupil need was only possible with a mindset change. “Once I'd changed teachers' mindset and helped them recognise that we needed to be more inclusive within our classrooms to support pupils, I was able to secure genuine buy-in.”
Safiyyah says staff responded positively once they understood the evidence behind the approach. “Because I came with the research and reading from the programme, it gave staff confidence in what was being introduced. It helped them make connections with things they already understood, such as cognitive science. That's been really important in helping them see that adaptive teaching is about strengthening their practice through evidence-informed decisions.”
Developing leadership expertise through adaptive teaching
Leading this work has shaped Safiyyah’s own practice and expertise. “It completely shifted my own mindset as a leader,” she says. “To have the confidence in what I'm delivering is really important. I need to be able to explain the evidence as well as the practice.”
“The programme has strengthened my credibility as a leader because I now have the research base, implementation knowledge and practical examples to support staff through change,” she says. “I can explain the evidence behind it, model it in practice and support them as they continue refining their teaching.”
It’s helped her to answer staff questions and respond to challenges. “There are times when staff will say, 'We've always done it this way.' Having the research behind me means those conversations become much more productive. People are much more willing to engage when they understand why something is changing rather than because leadership says so.”
After successfully introducing adaptive teaching with small groups, Oakridge is now embedding these principles across all classrooms. She’s already seen signs of how teachers are embedding this into their practice when she does lesson drop-ins.
“I'm beginning to see teachers thinking much more carefully during the planning stage. I'm seeing better questioning, more purposeful checks for understanding and more thoughtful decisions about how lessons are delivered.”
As a primary school, Safiyyah says “Our vision is to make sure we're changing children's lives and equipping them for the next stage of education. Creating a culture of adaptive teaching is helping us move closer to that vision every day.”
Drive a culture shift with Adaptive Teaching: Train the trainer
How could adaptive teaching benefit your school’s culture? Find out more and start your journey with Adaptive Teaching: Train the trainer today.
