At Kristin we are very aware that our students are not all the same. There is diversity amongst our students in terms of their first language, their cultural background, subject preferences, and an almost limitless list of other factors that can be used to compare them.

An area that we have been focusing on over the past few years, and will do into the future, is neurodiversity. This term, first coined by Australian sociologist Judy Singer in 1998, refers to natural variations in the human brain, both in terms of structure, and how it functions. As a biologist, this does not surprise me, considering that the human brain is one of the most complex found in nature, and is constantly developing and changing throughout life.

This variation clearly has an impact on how each of us perceives the world and also how we learn. What works for one individual will not necessarily work for others. Again, this is not news, but is something that education has been increasingly focused on over the past 10-15 years, recognising that differentiation in the classroom is critical.

I was reminded of this recently when reading about aphantasia, an inability for some people to voluntarily create a mental image of things. We assume that when we explain or describe something to somebody, they will visualise what we see. This is not always the case. Although first described in 2015, this has been recognised since the 1880s when psychologist Francis Galton asked his subjects, including one Charles Darwin, to visualise themselves at a breakfast table, only to find that some found this impossible.
What does this mean for us as teachers and parents? This goes beyond talking about learning styles and identifies that each of us is different, each will perceive the world differently, and each of us will learn in different ways. As teachers, we need to provide students with a wide variety of learning opportunities, so that we cater for as many as possible, preferably getting to know our students and what works for them. As parents, we need to recognise that what worked for us, does not necessarily work for our children and we need to be cognisant of this.
Kristin students are in a strong position with this. They have small classes where the teachers can get to know students as individuals, and they also have teachers who care for them as individuals and have a desire to enable each and every one of them to achieve at the best of their potential.