| Can understanding pupils’ diversity change our perceptions of how school works? |
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Research taster
When they look into their pupils’ backgrounds in depth, teachers can be surprised by the diversity of culture and experiences they discover. This in turn can lead to reflection on how well their teaching draws on and accommodates the diversity among their pupils. Teachers who encouraged their pupils to bring in items from home in a shoebox and discuss them, ended up asking themselves quite fundamental questions about their own role and the role of school in children’s learning : “If you look at these boxes you can see all the differences in just a small group of children … all too often this diversity is closed down in schools. Do we make them conform too much?” 
Your evidence
In order to explore how much you take into account the diversity of your pupils in your practice, you might like to consider the following indicators:
1. Is the class as a whole and are the children individually helped to recognise the range of cultures and experiences that the class encompasses. Are they helped to learn to respect this? Does any unnecessary and divisive competition take place?
2. How flexible and responsive are classroom organisational groupings? Do they reflect the diversity of children’s capabilities? 3. In decisions about the curriculum, are the interests of each of the children recognised and given appropriate attention? Is the children’s previous experience drawn on as National Curriculum requirements are adapted? 4. How are the products of the class represented in classroom displays, in assemblies, in more public situations? Are there some children whose work features more often, and others whose work is seen less often? 5. How wide-ranging are the pupil achievements which are valued? Does every child experience at least some success to reinforce their self-belief and commitment to learning? Is formal assessment activity and its reporting handled sensitively? Moving forward Having considered how much pupil diversity is reflected in the life of the school, are there things that you and your colleagues can do to extend this? Could you feed your reflections on your practice into strategic meetings, such as when you consider the effectiveness of the school equal opportunities policy?
TLRP Home-school knowledge exchange project at: http://www.tlrp.org/project%20sites/HomeSchool/index.htm
Effective home-school liaisons at: http://www.gtce.org.uk/policyandresearch/research/ROMtopics/parentalrom/ or http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/parents/
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