What does it actually mean to be an inclusive school? Can we know our students individually, without feeling the need to only meet their needs through multiple individual-level strategies?
While personalisation matters, chasing complete individualisation often leads to confusion and chaos. Truly inclusive schools are not built on endless bespoke adaptations. They are built on high-quality teaching for all, supported by appropriate adjustments.
To understand this approach, we should start with a fascinating story from the history of aviation.
The Average Pilot
Due to technological advances made in World War 2, planes had become faster, more powerful and increasingly complex. Keen to reduce crashes and fatalities, researchers explored what modifications could be made to the cockpit to make planes safer to fly. This led to a 23-year-old Harvard graduate by the name of Lt. Gilbert S. Daniels revolutionising the airline industry and indeed the whole world.
Traditionally, cockpits were designed with the average pilot in mind. This determined the height and width of the seat as well as the placement of the pedals. To see if this needed updating, Lt. Gilbert S. Daniels measured 4,603 pilots and detailed 140 different physical characteristics. As well as the obvious, such as height and weight, it also included the obscure, such as the length of each finger and thumb.
The goal was simple. If the average pilot could be defined, the cockpit could be designed for him. But when Daniels analysed the data more closely, he made a surprising discovery.
Jagged Profiles: The Myth of Average
When Lt Gilbert Daniels took what he thought were the ten most important physical dimensions to see how many pilots met the average range. He found that out of all the pilots he measured, not a single one met the average specification for all ten key characteristics.
So, trying to design a cockpit that acts as one-size-fits-all ended up suiting nobody. Designing a cockpit that can be suitably adjusted to all, can thus suit everybody.
Planes started fitting adjustable seats, helmets and straps. As a result, the safety levels of flights improved significantly, and the number of crashes reduced.
As Rose reflects, “If we ignore jaggedness, we end up treating people in one-dimensional terms.”
What this means for inclusive education
Students have jagged profiles. Their strengths, needs, preferences and behaviours don’t align to an average and don’t remain static; they’re as individual as the students themselves. Research findings tell us, therefore, what is likely to work for many learners, not what will work for each learner in every context.
Peer-reviewed research papers can provide valuable information. They can give us an indication of how a group will respond, on average, to an intervention – and this is essential information.
When working with an individual student, however, results from a specific study are unlikely to tell us how a particular student in your particular setting may respond. Although the way students learn is more similar than it is different, those differences can lead to significant variation in how we should respond.
This is where inclusion often becomes misunderstood. The solution to variation is not total personalisation. Instead, informed by knowledge of each of our learners individually – and much like the pilot’s chair moving forwards and backwards in the cockpit – it’s about building in adjustment from the start.
Practical Implications for Schools
1. High-quality teaching as the first layer of inclusion
Decades of educational research show that most learners benefit from clear explanations, structured practice, consistent routines, opportunities for feedback and positive relationships. These universal features of high-quality teaching support the widest range of students, including those with additional needs.
The most inclusive schools ensure that every teacher and every leader takes responsibility for meeting the needs of their pupils. Building your inclusive approach on the principles of high-quality teaching makes it possible for every teacher and leader to be part of the solution here.
2. Flexible adaptations built on firm foundations
The lesson from aviation is not that every cockpit must be completely redesigned for each pilot. It is that a well-designed baseline, with the capacity for adjustment, is far more effective than trying to engineer perfection for every individual in advance.
Education works in the same way. We build strong, inclusive classroom environments that serve most learners well, embedding such approaches as Retrieval Practice, Spacing and Interleaving. Then we add adjustments to make them best suit our context and our students.
Retrieval Practice – teachers pitch their retrieval tasks in ways that are meaningful for every student. Where the Retrieval Practice task tells teachers that students’ prior knowledge is not secure, they adapt by reteaching the class or intervening with a group or an individual student.
Spacing – teachers help students to recall prior content through Spacing. They pitch the task to ensure that every student can access it while keeping a close eye on the performance of those who have struggled with those topics. They use the Spacing task as a catalyst for a class discussion that dispels any misconceptions or fills in any gaps in learning.
Interleaving – teachers help students to learn content more securely by switching the topics they are being asked to recall or think about. Teachers carefully observe where this is deepening learning for students and where it might be confusing them instead, and they adapt accordingly: lessening the cognitive demand, slowing down the pace, adding a scaffold or creating a ‘flexible group’ to support those students.
This is the heart of truly inclusive practice: informed by research, shaped by professional judgement and responsive to the real students in front of us.
Final Thoughts
Inclusion is about creating environments where every student can and does learn. Where all students feel safe and secure. And where no student is left behind. High-quality teaching based on key Cognitive Science principles is the foundation from which this can be built. From there, flexible adjustments that are thoughtfully applied ensure every student matters.
Jaggedness is unavoidable. It is what makes life (and education) so interesting and beautiful. By designing schools like adjustable cockpits, we empower all students to succeed.
