This book explores ways of teaching that are free from determinist beliefs about ability. In a detailed critique of the practices of ability labelling and ability-focused teaching, "Learning without Limits" examines the damage these practices can do to young people, teachers and the curriculum. Drawing on a research project at the University of Cambridge, the book features nine vivid case studies (from Year 1 to Year 11) that describe how teachers have developed alternative practices despite considerable pressure on them and on their schools and classrooms. The authors analyze these case studies and identify the key concept of transformability as a distinguishing feature of these teachers' approach. They construct a model of pedagogy based on transformability: the mind-set that children's futures as learners are not pre-determined, and that teachers can help to strengthen and ultimately transform young people's capacity to learn through the choices they make. The book shows how transformability-based teaching can play a central role in constructing an alternative improvement agenda. Following a foreword written by Clyde Chitty, the book is divided into three parts. Part One, Beyond Ability-Based Teaching and Learning, contains the first three chapters: (1) Ability, Educability and the Current Improvement Agenda; (2) What's Wrong with Ability Labelling?; and (3) The Learning without Limits Project: Methods and Approaches. Part Two, Accounts of the Teachers' Practices, begins with an introduction, and then continues with the following chapters: (4) Anne's Approach: "They All Have Their Different Ways to Go"; (5) Claire's Approach: "A Thinking Classroom"; (6) Alison's Approach: "An Open Invitation"; (7) Narinder's Approach: "The Promise of Tomorrow"; (8) Patrick's Approach: "Only Connect"; (9) Nicky's Approach: "Step Back and Look at the Children"; (10) Yahi's Approach: "Raising the Level of Trust"; (11) Julie's Approach: "Access, Security, Success"; and (12) Non's Approach: "The Bridge between Values and Practice." Part Three, The Core Idea of Transformability, presents the last five chapters: (13) Transforming the Capacity to Learn; (14) Purposes and Principles in Practice; (15) Young People's Perspectives on Learning without Limits; (16) Framing Learning without Limits Teaching: Contexts and Retrospectives; and (17) Towards an Alternative Improvement Agenda. A bibliography is also included.