Inclusive teaching, learning and assessment: how to design for all
This guide provides principles and practical tips that you can apply to different contexts to make your teaching and assessment more inclusive, supporting all our students to thrive and feel a sense of belonging. One of our core values at Bristol is to be an inclusive and caring institution.
We have a legal duty under the Equality Act (2010) to provide inclusive learning, teaching, and assessment so that students reach their full potential. Our values and our legal duty are the reasons why we have set out practical ideas to support you to put inclusive practice into action.
What is inclusive teaching, learning and assessment?
Inclusive teaching, learning and assessment ensures all students have an equal opportunity to engage with and demonstrate their learning and reach their full potential regardless of their characteristics or background.
‘Inclusive learning and teaching is the intentional development of approaches that support all our students to thrive.’ (Advance HE Student Success Frameworks, 2024, p.2)
Hockings (2010) defines inclusive teaching, learning and assessment as:
‘the ways in which pedagogy, curricula and assessment are designed and delivered to engage students in learning that is meaningful, relevant and accessible to all. It embraces a view of the individual and individual difference as the source of diversity that can enrich the lives and learning of others.’ (p.1)
Why is it important?
We recognise that the Equality Act (2010) outlaws direct and indirect discrimination on grounds of protected characteristics. While we have a legal obligation to provide education in a non-discriminatory way, we want to go even further to ensure that our students are valued and thrive as individuals and in our education community.
At Bristol, we seek to make teaching, learning and assessment inclusive by design so that all students can engage with and demonstrate their learning, minimising the use of individual reasonable adjustments, through providing a supportive experience, and a good range of equivalent ways of demonstrating learning.
This is a core part of our Assessment Strategy and is encompassed in Bristol’s vision of providing an inspiring education and transformative student experience, which emphasises student agency.
Individual reasonable adjustments
Individual reasonable adjustments are the proactive and responsive adjustments to teaching, learning and assessment put in place for disabled students. The more inclusive we are in designing our teaching, learning and assessment, the fewer individual reasonable adjustments will be necessary. However, these will still be required for some students, even if a disability hasn’t yet been formally diagnosed.
If you suspect that a student may be disabled but has no formal diagnosis, please see the guidance on disclosure and information sharing and seek advice from Disability Services (disability-services@bristol.ac.uk).