**Calling Teachers-Differentiation I am tired ....

[saintpeta]

of making the resources for each lesson....what are the short cuts teachers help I'm new to this HA/MA/LA yes everyone has a different ability but surely its not fair to be constantly bolstering the LA, the MA largely getting left out and the HA doing stuff on their own....What about everybody doing the same work and EVERYONE LA included having to do extra at home to CATCH UP. I may be ranting but if my son was not doing well I would be doing stuff with him to get him up to scratch with the class and curriculum. I feel aggrieved that as far as I can see pots of money poured into the lower ability with all the reading writing and support they have, and nothing much for those who are doing well. Its not fair. (Rant over-hard week. And perhaps on the normal distribution bell curve we are going to have people on the lower end - can we not just accept this? so that I may just teach one lesson please...

You sound lovely![smiley]

And how can you do catch-up work if you can't actually understand the level of work you are asked to do?

You are right of course, parents should teach the children who are struggling most, afterall parents are well qualified to teach, understand the curriculum and know all about the latest methods of working.
No idea why we bother training teachers....it's clearly an easy job and when you can't do it, you off load the difficult bits to someone less qualified.

It's not a question of lower ability children simply "doing a bit extra at home to catch up" ! It's a question of doing your job, which is to cater to all the children in your class of whatever ability and ensuring that they reach their full potential, not ignoring the middle and higher ability children and simply concentrating on the less able, or teaching to some mythical "mid point" just to make your life easier. My children range in ability from L1A to 5B and I'm paid to do the best I can for all of them, to make sure they are all supported, engaged and stretched. It is not an easy job, wouldn't it be lovely to have a class all working at exactly the same level! But life isn't like that and neither is teaching.

Good luck with your teaching career.

"MA largely getting left out and the HA doing stuff on their own"

Why? Why aren't you planning to support MA and extend HA? Neither should be working on their own all the time.

"Good luck with your teaching career."

That is the most scathing putdown I have ever read on Mumsnet.

I have a mixed age class with a HUGE ability range - you have to cater for every child in the class. Yes it is hard work - teaching is a vocation and you have to care about the experience that every child in your class is having. There are no short cuts, just hard work!!

I think you need to plan some activities that your LA groups can do alone to allow time for you to support you MA and HA groups or they won't make the progress they need to. Use your TA to support/extend different groups also.

Differentiation is hard but necessary. It is not a case of all the children catching up to the same level, but of every child reaching their full potential.

Making the resources is hard at first but it gets easier. Put the effort in now and you can re-use some things next year.

Maybe she's secondary. They don't do differentiation in secondary, do they?

( Don't mean it, honest! I know secondary ccolleagues work just as hard as us poor primary ones!)

As a secondary trainee....
There are two ways of differentiating, by taks and by outcome. Outcome is the easiest, but is frowned on if you do too much,e.g. set everyone a story to write on Henry the eighth and Anne Boleyn's wedding from the point of a page boy. The high ability should include lots of hisorical gossip, the LA might stick to a few facts about the life of a page boy.
However even here you might need to provide writing frames for the LA.

Now as a secondary teacher I can tell you that even when set, you do have to differentiate by ability. I do considered HA, MA and LA for all my sets, of course the HA of one might be the MA of another, but they still need differentiating. Also there are those with SEN and EAL.

Actually so far the key for me is.."Asessment" making sure I know what they can do, what they don't know, and then thinking how to help. For my HA who have already got it, either present the material in a different way or ask them to us higher level thinking skills.

Good luck!

"There are two ways of differentiating......However even here you might need to provide writing frames for the LA."

Ah, but that's a third way - differentiation by resources.
If you're lucky enough to have a TA that's differentiation by support.
If you set the same task, but expect HA to complete it more quickly, that's differentiation by timing.
Right, am boring myself now.

What about those children who have special needs that mean they simply don't understand the work they're being set? No amount of catch up at home is going to help with that, I'm afraid, and God knows we parents try our best.

My experience, and that of many other parents of children with SNs, has been that most teachers are underqualified to recognise the kinds of support their children need to help them learn. Unfortunately the OP seems to be confirming that.

I gave this to all our staff to show some of the many ways it is possible to differentiate in class

Input differentiation
The pupil or group of pupils are given the input in a small group with differentiated re-sources. This can be done in addition to pre-tutoring; if the need arises.

Task differentiation
Groups of pupils are given a differentiated task that still meets the criteria of the learning intention. Structured handouts may help to break down the task into smaller steps and a mid-point plenary could be used to check everyone is on task.

Resource differentiation
Depending on the pupil?s stage in language development resources could be differentiated to meet their needs i.e. 3D objects, photographs, pictures, clipart or symbols. Magnetic letters and/or key words on pre-cut paper could be used as an alternative means of re-cording for those who struggle with writing. Other methods of recording could also be considered such as mind maps, flow charts or hand-held audio recording devices.

Group differentiation
Depending on the task, matching similar learners together can be effective. Or in some cases pairing a stronger learner with one who needs additional help can also prove beneficial.

Support differentiation
This involves the effective use of additional adults in the room to support individual pupils as well as encourage independence. It is sometimes useful for additional adults to move between groups.

Turn differentiation
Asking questions and going around the class; so as to deliberately ask those with learning difficulties last. This gives those children a chance to hear others and figure out what it is they are required to do.

Outcome differentiation
This level of differentiation involves appropriate expectations being linked to marking/feedback. This approach could be used to support post-tutoring.

I'm a fan of turn differentiation for whole class teaching

Actually streakybacon I have a lot of sympathy for you. My children have at various times been sent home work which they haven't completed in school. It still makes my blood boil.
Unless kids are messing about (in which case lets be honest you have behaviour issues) then they should be able to complete their school work in school. If they can't you need to differentiate more etc.
Homework is supposed to be extra, a chance to build on skills in school or prepare for the next lesson.

Children with special needs are frequently working extra hard to do what they do in class, so need more of a rest at home than those high fliers who complete everything you can throw at them in class.

Of course there is the fact that in a truly mixed ability class, there could be some children who's ability is so far below the class norm that teacher's don't have the time/aren't trained to teach them. So these pupils are being being failed massively if the teacher does not have support in meeting their needs. (I mean 3 or more NC levels below the average for their age.) The same might also be said for any extremely gifted.

However, I assumed the OP was a trainee or NQT, overwhelmed by the burden of planning.

Great resource mrz - have forwarded to the HT for distribution!

Differentiated questions which can be accessed at different levels by the different abilities so that you'll get the obvious answer from a LA pupil but a more nuanced one from a HA pupil. Also work out what you want them to learn and how you are going to get them there. Must, should, could for your objectives, and peer tutoring as well can help. Geography, get those who can do grid referencing to teach those who can't.

I have a mixed abilty group with pupils just getting a level 3 to those easily getting a level 7 and everything in between.

It is exhausting, because I passionately believe that the more able pupils should not be left to do their own thing, I have to plan about 3 lessons and 3 homeworks every week.

But it is your job, I use the holidays to plan my core lessons and then differntiate as I go on.

Are you primary or secondary Katy?

OP, which subject and primary or secondary? We all might have stuff we can email you, or suggest websites we use. Don't work harder, work smarter!

DD3 is dyspraxic and we found that in secondary school the bright children were well catered for and we had to push to get her the support she needed.

Excellent! Thank you for all your replies, especially the helpful ones, it has shown me that in the UK system differentiation is the key.

Secondary, I have got much better at using websites and avoiding remaking the wheel, It was our first year through so hopefully next year will be easier.

I think my problem is that I dont believe in mixed abilty teaching so it feels even harder if that makes sense.

I really didn't like mixed ability; setting is so much more efficient for the teachers and effective for the students.

Can I just thank MRZ - that is one of the best explanations I've seen.

Hard for teachers though, no?