Abstract

‘Personalised learning’ as a term has been in use for slightly less than ten years. It appears to have first been used in the USA and was subsequently expanded and deepened through work in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Personalised learning has become embedded in a wider argument for reformed public services that respond more directly to the diverse needs of individuals rather than impose uniform solutions on all people. The rationale of these principles is clear: to raise standards by focusing teaching and learning on the aptitudes and interests of pupils and by removing any barriers to learning. The operationalisation of personalised learning is still in its embryonic stages so that there is little evidence of its overall success. Nevertheless, there is substantial evidence that many of the components of personalised learning approaches have been successful in a variety of contexts around the world. The major challenges for governments and systems are recognised to different extents in various governments’ policy statements – some shallow; some deep. The challenge will be for governments and their departments to create a financial, professional and operational environment so that all the aspects of deeper personalised approaches can be implemented in order to avoid the dangers of simply implementing shallower and incomplete ‘cherry picking’ of ‘easy to implement’ elements. In this paper, the authors argue that unless deep views of personalised learning are implemented, hopes of attending to the diversity of all students will be a chimera.