Within the context of Malta, differentiated teaching
pervades the National Minimum Curriculum (NMC)
published in 1999, in 11 of 15 principles that the
NMC supports. The study seeks to explore how
well prepared and equipped the teachers are with
the necessary skills to fulfil a differentiated teaching
approach. The aim of this research study was to explore
the current pedagogical procedures teachers are
adopting in order to ensure curriculum access to all
students, and to what extent these actually reflect
differentiated instructional strategies.
Data was collected through questionnaires. All
teachers in the school were asked to participate and
the response rate was high. The results are therefore
representative of this particular school but cannot be
generalised to the whole teaching population.
It was found that many teachers were taking an
individualised role to teaching, and in the future the
school will need to adopt policy decisions and a
School Development Plan (SDP) which feature
differentiation. Such an approach will be needed in
order to encourage the teachers to utilise strategies
that reflect a differentiated approach to teaching
within a whole school context. In-service training will
be required to enable teachers to be made aware of
the varying ways of responding to the needs of all
students through differentiated teaching approaches
in order to provide paths to learning so that the
classroom becomes a ‘good fit’ for varied learners.