Differentiation, or ensuring that all children are getting the right level of challenge, can be one of the trickiest things to do as a teacher. Here we take a look at three traditional differentiation strategies – and another one which can be both easier to implement and more effective.

Traditional differentiation strategies

1. Differentiation by task

Can be very effective, but time-intensive.

This differentiation strategy involves giving each child a task which is tailored to their ability. This is a good strategy but is very time-consuming. Firstly, the activities themselves need to be planned and prepared in advance of the lesson. Secondly, the teacher needs to monitor every child throughout the lesson, and move them on to different activities as appropriate.

2. Differentiation by outcome

Takes much less time and preparation but can be less effective.

Another, less time-consuming differentiation strategy is ‘differentiation by outcome’. This can entail giving children the same task, regardless of their ability, and expecting better results from more able children and worse results from less able children. While this does save time, and is appropriate in some situations, this strategy can lead to ‘teaching to the middle’, and neglecting children who are more able or less able than this targeted middle group.

3. Differentiation by support

Can be effective but can depend on additional adults.

This differentiation strategy is an improvement on ‘differentiation by outcome’, and involves giving children the same activity, but providing them with different levels of support. This can involve support from people, such as other learners, teachers, teaching assistants or additional adults. It can also involve the use of supporting learning materials, such as word banks in Literacy or number lines in Maths.

A new differentiation strategy

Here’s a synthesis of the above differentiation strategies which is both easier to prepare and teach, and more effective. I’ve used a lower KS2 Maths lesson on Column Addition as an example.

The Preparation Bit

Prepare three, or perhaps four activities. Call them Bronze, Silver, and Gold. And maybe Platinum.

The Bronze activity

This activity should be very easy- the least able children should be able to perform this activity without the teacher’s direct support. The reason it should be easy is to build confidence in the less able children. For example, children might add 2 2-digit numbers carefully involving no carrying of 10s, supported by a number line.

The Silver activity

This activity should be reasonably straightforward and achievable by the ‘middle’ of the class with no further support. It should be very similar to the Bronze activity in content, but slightly more challenging. For example, children might add 2 2-digit numbers with some carrying of 10s.

The Gold activity

This activity should be an extension of the Silver activity, but this time there should be a sizeable leap in challenge. You might challenge children to extend their strategy – ask them to do something which you haven’t taught them how to do yet. For example, children might add numbers with more than 2 digits, or more than 2 numbers, or decimals, or numbers with different numbers of digits.

The Platinum activity

This should be as free-rein as possible. For example, can children write their own word problems which can be solved using today’s strategy, with a view to challenging the class at the end of the lesson?

The Teaching Bit

This is where it gets different.

1. Give them all of the activities.

Give every child access to all of the activities – they might be on an interactive whiteboard or handout. Explain to the whole class what each activity involves and make sure that they understand before moving on. This part can take a bit more time than other differentiation strategies, but it is time well spent.

 2. Let them choose their starting activity.

Instead of making this decision yourself, let the children choose which activity they are going to start on. When children choose their starting point, they are assessing their own learning and levels of confidence. In addition, it takes very little time on your part, marking a rapid transition from the input to the activity.

3. Let them work together.

Sounds obvious, but let the children talk about their learning. The simplest way of doing this is pairing up with a buddy. An advantage of this is that children don’t need to be in ability groups. Are we going to start on the same activity? What do we need to be able to do in order to move on? These conversations are excellent at consolidating learning.

4. Let them choose when to move on, or move back.

Rather than running from child to child or group to group and telling children when to move on (I call this the ‘spinning plates’ differentiation strategy), let each child choose when to change activity whenever they want to. Why? Most importantly, when a child makes the decision to change activity, or not to change activity, they are constantly assessing their own learning. What’s more, this completely frees you up to talk to children and spend almost the whole lesson assessing children’s learning. A great way of doing this is by eavesdropping on their conversations.

5. Let them explain their decisions during the plenary.

What’s even better than a show of hands or traffic light cards? Get the children to explain their learning journey to their buddy and to the class. For example, a child might say, “I started on Bronze because I thought Silver was too easy, but after I did a couple of the sums I thought it was too easy. I asked my buddy how to carry a ten. He showed me how to do it and I can do it now.” Getting the children to think and talk about how they learn can be extremely powerful.

Phew. I hope you’ve found this differentiation system useful. I didn’t invent it, and can’t take credit for it, and I don’t use this formula in every lesson, but it’s simple, it’s fun, I’ve used it a zillion times and it works. Please try it out and improve upon it.