Greater Depth: What The Government's Response To The CAR Has To Say
- Aidan Severs
- 21 minutes ago
- 5 min read
When the CAR report was published it was disappointing to find no mention of pupils working at greater depth. For all its talk about inclusivity and high expectations, it felt like a glaring omission.
However, when the government's response came through, there was some relief:
"A good-quality curriculum should also challenge those who are learning at greater depth by allowing them to deepen their learning, exploring concepts in more detail, applying content to different contexts, and making connections between subjects. Pupils should readily have opportunities for academic enrichment that extends and challenges their boundaries and fuels their love of a subject, including competitions, events and Olympiads amongst groupings of local schools and at national and international level. We will support teachers to identify and challenge pupils who have more to give in the classroom or who are not yet achieving what they possibly could. This does not just mean focussing on a named group of typically high-attaining pupils, but making sure that all pupils are stretched and challenged. Oak will continue to develop a range of AI tools and curriculum materials that support teachers and enable pupils to be stretched and challenged. Oak’s AI Lesson Assistant, Aila, will make it easier to challenge high attaining students by adapting content to their needs and abilities, such as encouraging them to make connections between subjects.
Recognising that many schools are already teaming up and creating pockets of excellence across the country to motivate and engage these pupils, we will also draw on the expertise of the RISE teams to seek out, optimise and learn from local and regional partnerships across trusts, local authorities and the wider education community to support pupils working at greater depth. At a minimum, we want schools to work together to support stretch and share best practice on what works well. There are also lots of academic enrichment and excellence programmes available, in the arts, science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects, English and the humanities, but the offers are sometimes complex to navigate. We will help schools to identify effective programmes and get the best out of them."
I am aware that the DfE are already working on how to support teachers in identifying and challenging pupils working at greater depth as I've had a couple of calls with them about my experience in this area, but it's good to see that this work might be making its way into policy.
Let's break down what the government are saying about pupils working at greater depth:
To begin with, there is the acknowledgement that if a curriculum is to be truly inclusive, it will meet the needs of pupils working at greater depth or have the potential to work at greater depth.
Then there's a nice little summary of what working at greater depth might constitute:
deepening learning
exploring concepts in more detail
applying content to different contexts
making connections between subjects
I think that's a helpful, grounding starting point which will allow for realistic identification and challenge. It definitely echoes what I set out in this blog post: Greater Depth: General Principles Of Challenge For Higher Prior Attaining Pupils
In line with the focus on enrichment in the government's response, there is then talk about how challenge for pupils working at greater depth might extend beyond curriculum provision in the classroom: remember the old gifted and talented network events? Looks like we could see the return of those kinds of opportunities, and that existing provision, networks and experts will be used in the delivery of this (see the whole second paragraph above).
Crucially, the key promise (rendered in bold) is that teachers will get support with the identification of such pupils. I've written a lot about this, and have shared much of this with the DfE with the specific recommendation/plea that we don't resort to unmanageable checklists of objectives for each subject and unit of work. To read more about my work on identification, see the following:
The second part of that promise is that teachers will be supported with how to challenge these pupils. I know for a fact that this is something that schools are already thinking about or working on, so more guidance on this will be welcome. Again, this is something I've already been working on:
As already mentioned, the third part of the promise highlights two different groups of children who we must be thinking about:
Those already working at greater depth
Those who have the potential to be working at greater depth (see How To Spot Whispering Talents (in Teach Primary Magazine) for more)
This is important as pupils in the second group are a lot less obvious and run the risk of being unseen.
The government response also includes an important reminder about challenge. When we focus in on challenging pupils working at greater depth, this can sometimes be to the detriment of challenge for other pupils (see Challenge for All vs. Challenge for Children Working At Greater Depth and The Challenge of Challenge: Defining What It Means in Your School for more).
I'm a little wary of the mention of 'adapting content to their needs and abilities' as I fear this could tip us back into 3-way differentiation territory, however I acknowledge that well-trained LLM AI can be used well to help teachers to think about how pupils can be challenged once the age related expectations have been met (see From SEND To Greater Depth: Taking Everyone On The Journey (And Getting Them All To The Destination) for more).
Hopefully the commitment to drawing on existing expertise will mean that current good practice will be heeded, and that provision for pupils working at greater depth (or the potential to do so) won't be another workload-heavy bolt on, but something which is genuinely valuable for pupils, and fulfilling for teachers to be involved in.
I feel hopeful about the future of greater depth provision, and am crossing my fingers for further involvement in the enactment of the government's promises as set out above.
Meanwhile, if this is something you know you need to get started with in your school, for the sake of your pupils, why not get in touch? Let's chat about what you could be doing now to meet the needs of your pupils who are working at greater depth, or who have the potential to be. All you have to do is:
Drop me an email
Have a phone call with me to talk about your school
We'll work together to empower you and your staff to enhance teaching and to enrich your pupils' lives
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