ABSTRACT
In Chapter 7 there was a description of the Teacher Education Project's research into aspects of mixed-ability teaching. It emerged from this general survey of current practice that teachers saw exceptional pupils, both bright and slow learners, as the source of a number of classroom problems. Clearly, these pupils required some kind of special treatment: in Warnock (1978) terms they had ‘special educational needs’ of varying kinds. The underlying philosophy of mixed-ability teaching is that each child, not simply the most and least able, can be given appropriate attention rather than being lumped crudely with others as ‘A’ stream, ‘remedial’ or ‘average’. So it seemed logical to suppose that from a practical teaching point of view teachers were evolving ‘strategies’ to cope with the varying needs of pupils at the extreme ends of, and across, the ability range in mixed-ability classes. A research and development project such as the Teacher Education Project was interested to investigate these practical procedures in order to extract some implications for teacher training, both initial and in-service.
