This is seriously good news from someone I respect hugely, and yes, she works for OFSTED!
Guidance given to ALL inspectors will ensure that teachers do not have to fear what will be made of teaching the whole class together. Here is a quote from a news report, published today on the NCETM website:
“Jane Jones explained that both the new curriculum and the Ofsted handbook stressed that an objective of teaching was to create deeper understanding rather than to accelerate pupils into new content.
In the past, she said, differentiation was often achieved by a teacher preparing different activities or worksheets for different groups of pupils. Now there are other ways, consistent with the new curriculum and a mastery approach, of catering for different attainment levels within a classroom.
These could include giving pupils differing amounts of time using concrete resources to help them grasp concepts, and giving what she called the ‘rapid-graspers’ more challenging questions and problems to work on, and reason about.
She acknowledged that the whole class teaching model—a key feature of teaching for mastery—can sometimes look slower than usual. But she assured her audience that inspectors will not judge teaching and progress based on the speed of getting through content. They will focus on the depth of pupils’ learning – the impact of the teaching.”
Extract from the NCETM, https://www.ncetm.org.uk/news/46776