Next Practice in Resourcing Personalisation - The use of time

How might we better structure our use of time to deliver personalised learning?

The tradition that education must be structured according to uniform units of time has been questioned by a small minority of educators for many years, but now this idea is being taken up more widely. The conventional wisdoms of the standard lesson, the conventional school day and the fixed timetable and term, along with the concept of progressing through classes defined by year of birth, are being challenged by innovative schools. Those who are committed to personalising learning are introducing much greater levels of flexibility into their arrangements. They are acknowledging that:

• students learn at their own pace ('the lesson' may be too short for those who learn more slowly, and way too long for those who are well ahead)
• some learning tasks require more time than others (such as project work, peer mentoring and off-site work)
• some learning tasks are most effectively undertaken at a certain time of the day (literacy and numeracy in the morning, for example, when minds are most alert)
• students, if all are to be engaged, need to be afforded greater levels of choice in the direction of their learning programme.

In some schools, lessons are now of differing lengths, school days are extended and lunch breaks are varied or abandoned. Others have created six to ten day timetables and are experimenting with term and year length. In some of the most radical English examples (it is a much more established practice in the United States), schools are catering for two or more cohorts of pupils who use the same building at different times, while teachers, teaching assistants and support staff work in shifts.

Current Field Trials

Since Autumn 2006, we have been supporting a number of field trials to address this challenge.

Bridgemary Community Sports College

John Cabot Academy

Leasowes Community College

The Southernway Federation

The Inclusion Trust

Current Practice 

We invited people to send in examples of current practice in this domain.

The use of time

Other practitioners working in the use of time

Practitioners in Bath have been doing some interesting work in the use of time arena. Read Cherril Pope's account of the work at St Mark's School, Bath here.

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