Aibu to think that primary not differentiating work is not an effective strategy

[scittlescatter]

Is this normal? Is there evidence behind it?

Surely it does a disservice to the more able, as well as the less able.

My DC's school does this. Absolutely no differentiation, ever. Sometimes, there is an optional challenge.

I'm not keen as I think it leads to poorer behaviour (children who aren't set appropriate work are more likely to mess about) and doesn't reach the more able resilience, as they get used to not being challenged.

I was always lead to believe that Ofsted expect to see 3 levels of differentiation. That doesn’t guarantee that it‘s right of course...... have you asked the school?

This seems really strange, I'm secondary and you def wouldn't get away with not differentiating -it would be flagged in observations and book scrutiny let alone meaning pupils weren't learning at a suitable level.
Are they in different classes for maths and English which are already streamed?

Absolutely no streaming or differentiation. I have asked the school: this appears to be school policy.

It's not meeting individual needs and is almost certainly against the Equality Act of 2010. Also, lack of differentiation leads to an increase in behaviour incidents and increased inclusivity.
This sort of primary practice boils my piss 😡

We use a resource called White Rose Maths. The children have the same work to do, but the differentiation comes with the progressive difficulty of the tasks in the same sheet. Therefore, highest attainers would get all the way through the tasks and be exposed to some very challenging work. All of these children get some wrong, so the challenge is appropriate. Middle attainers would get through perhaps half and may need more support from me. Lower attainers would have support if necessary and would use practical resources for longer.
Our higher attainers are absolutely flying with this work. Lots working at greater depth. Perhaps your school is using a resource like this?
We also no longer stream. Those children who would have been in the bottoms set are soon much better. It hasn’t affected the higher attainers.

Very often the differentiation is the level of support the child receives to complete the work, so the more able complete work independently and the less able work with a teacher. Is this what is happening ?

Ofsted certainly don’t pre-determine what level of differentiation is appropriate. The key phrase in the Teacher’s Standards is only in fact “know how and when it is appropriate to differentiate”, and that is far from saying a lesson should always contain differentiated resources or teaching. That’s an expectation that seems to be going out of fashion.

With that said, it’s hard to believe a policy of never differentiating could work for all children.

It depends what you class as differentiation.

Differentiation can also come under seating strategies, questioning, the alternative explanations, any support sheets, whether the exercises in the material are structured to get progressively more difficult so different students get to a different level of challenge without having the achievement of weaker students capped.

Thankfully many schools (at least secondary) have moved away from the nutliple tables of students, multiple different tasks for every lesson.

We’re told to not differentiate anymore; instead, we teach to the top and scaffold support down. Are you sure that it isn’t that OP?

Differentiation by task is on its way out where I teach. I sit all children mixed ability (Y4) so there's no ' clever table' or 'thick table' as one child put it. Lower ability children aren't demoralised by always being given less challenging work. More able children move on to the challenging task pretty quickly.

My DH teaches the Singapore maths/maths mastery approach at his primary school. He seems to be finding it effective so far.

When were they last Ofsteded?

Differentiation by task is not used in many schools now because of the workload it caused. Also studies suggested that there is no aspiration to improve. Once the task is finished many pupils think they’ve done and won’t start a new one. The comment about White Rose maths is what many schools are doing. I work with a school who doesn’t tell the children their levels - it encourage s them not to work to what THEIR perceived ability is and go beyond it.

Our school does differentiate and it is still completely inadequate. Dd is incredibly frustrated, isn’t learning to work hard, and is developing disdain for her classmates who have to work to learn material way below her current level. For individual projects, teachers have occasionally allowed her to change the parameters so she can do something more challenging, but that doesn’t change the fact that at best the higher groups are working one grade ahead. I can’t fathom how awful it would be if the school didn’t differentiate at all.

Really interesting comments, thank you. They do teach a Singapore maths method I believe. Does this make a difference?

The last Ofsted was a few years ago, and I'm not sure if this policy of not differentiating is since then.

If you go on the Maths No Problem website there's a lot of evidence and theory on there. DH was initially sceptical, but he's finding it better than the traditional top/middle/bottom now he's got into teaching it. mathsnoproblem.com/en/mastery/what-is-singapore-maths/

It's all rooted in the theory of 'mastery'.

Most good teachers naturally differentiate through questioning but generally it's now differentiation through outcome e.g. set a vey high expectation then anything just under that is an acheivement.

I don’t differentiate by outcome anymore and haven’t for many years, after seeing it not work and reading different strategies. Not least because having different levelled activities is incredibly demoralising to pupils, whatever ability they are. I won’t put children through that anymore.
I now differentiate from the ‘top down’. All work is challenging starting from the top/main purpose and all pupils work towards the same goal/objective. However, I provide support in many different forms (some of which mentioned by LolaSmiles above) in order to support pupils who need it to access that material, appropriately.

My son’s teacher last year individually differentiated, he was amazing.

His teacher this year gives the same work to the class, then writes a ‘challenge’ on the board for when it’s finished. My son is incredibly bright (like weirdly clever, nothing I’ve done he’s just ended up like that!) so he finishes the challenge quickly I’m every lesson. I’ve asked what he does when he’s done the challenge and he helps his friends finish their work - this is what both he and his teacher have told me.

I think it’s ridiculous, he’s 6 years old and because they can’t sit them at ability tables and give them extension work he’s being used as a teaching assistant - it’s not stretching him and it’s leaving the kids who are struggling without adequate support. My kid’s bright but he’s not good enough to teach other 6 year olds, at best he’s going to just be telling them the answers which helps no one 🤷‍♀️

I teach secondary not primary (and science not maths) but I don't have different tasks for different abilities.

Generally, I set work that challenges the most able and then use a variety of support/scaffolds for those who need it.

I find it works well and pushes all and as a result, our lower attainers are achieving much better than they were previously and the higher attainers still attain highly and progress.

I also differentiate by feedback so if two children have written an answer to a question, my feedback to a more able child might be to give an explanation for their reasoning or make a suggestion about another situation using their knowledge. For a child who is finding it hard, a make focus on use of key words or structuring answers.

I had an issue with this. My eldest son is really gifted at maths and reading (so far), yet the only way his class teacher has differentiated is by moving him, so in nursery class, he did some reading and number work with reception. Now he is in year one and he does number work with year 3 and reading with year 2. I have been in this week to discuss it as I’m not happy he is essentially leaving his peers - as a secondary school teacher I have to differentiate for several different abilities and I think they should be differentiating for him within the class too.

Ah OP, I see your school are doing a Singapore maths method of teaching. Which one? Is it White Rose? If so, you have no worries. Your child will be challenged.
I’ve been teaching over 20 years and it’s much better than the old ‘three levels’ differentiation method. All children do well and the highest attainers are stretched.