ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on practices in the Academy and how they were developed. It illustrates an account of the efforts of one department in the school to explore the use of collaborative professional development as a way of promoting experimentation in classroom practice in order to find better ways of responding to learner diversity. The chapter gives strong indications of the untapped potential within the school that could be mobilised to improve its capacity to educate all of its students, provided that the conditions are created for this to happen. It discusses the exam-focused culture and its implications for the planning and practice of teaching in relation to assessment. The chapter examines influences on classroom practice. It also illustrates the ways in which practitioners at Parkside were limited in relation to their influence over curriculum planning, teaching practices and forms of assessment.
