Video · Teachers Media
Coping With Different Abilities
Every mainstream classroom contains pupils across a wide range of prior attainment and readiness. The pedagogical challenge — often labelled "differentiation" — is designing lessons where every pupil is genuinely learning, without the teacher effectively running four lessons at once.
About this video
The differentiation debate has moved a long way in the last decade. The older orthodoxy — worksheet A for the lowest group, worksheet B for the middle, worksheet C for the highest — has fallen out of favour, and for good reason. The evidence on ability-based worksheet differentiation is weak; it tends to lower expectations for lower-attaining pupils, increase teacher workload dramatically, and produce class dynamics where the pupils who most need challenge get least.
The current consensus (from Adaptive Teaching frameworks, the EEF, the Chartered College and others) is roughly: teach all pupils the same challenging content, and adapt the way you support their access to it. This is sometimes called adaptive teaching to distinguish it from the older worksheet-differentiation model. Support might mean: more modelling, more scaffolding, better vocabulary teaching, more time on foundational concepts before moving to application, more targeted checking-for-understanding — but not different content.
For pupils with SEND, the adaptations may be more substantial and should be informed by their EHCP or SEN support plan. But the same principle holds: aim high, then design the support that makes the aim reachable, rather than lowering the aim.
Adaptive teaching moves that work
- High expectations, then scaffold. Same rich task, more support for those who need it (writing frames, model examples, more time, pre-teaching of vocabulary).
- Live checking-for-understanding. Whole-class response techniques so you know within minutes who needs re-teaching and who's ready to extend.
- Deliberate pairing. Sometimes strategic pairing accelerates learning; sometimes it reinforces dependency. Watch which is happening.
- Additional depth, not extra worksheets. Pupils who finish early do harder versions of the same task, not different tasks entirely.
- Pre-teaching for pupils likely to struggle. A short session before the lesson introducing key vocabulary can transform participation.
Discussion prompts
- What has your school moved on from in the last five years around differentiation, and what has it moved toward?
- When a pupil in your class is behind, is the default response to give them easier work or better support with the same work? What tells you which is right?
- How does your school's use of ability grouping (setting, streaming, in-class groups) map onto the evidence?
Try this in your classroom
- For one week, resist producing "differentiated worksheets". Instead plan the challenging version of the task and design specific scaffolds for pupils who need them.
- Try pre-teaching key vocabulary to two or three pupils the day before a lesson. Notice how their participation changes.
- Audit your own differentiation this half-term: how much time did you spend producing three-tier worksheets, and what could that time have been spent on instead?