Maths

Jane Jones HMI, National Lead for Mathematics talking to Craig Barton about differentiation

Mr Barton Maths podcast, 3/1/18

54:39 – 1:01:40 (Some text has been paraphrased)

Transcription by Gary Setchell

A link to a PDF can be found here

Craig Barton: What would you say good features of differentiation are in a maths lesson?

Jane Jones: I think differentiation has changed - or people’s understanding of it perhaps might be changing at the moment - because of the advent of mastery and the new National Curriculum. So, if I start with some of the historical differentiation . . . in the past, I think what was considered to be high quality differentiation was to have different groups of children within the same class perhaps doing different bits of mathematics. Certainly, in a primary classroom there used to be three or four different groups of children doing different bits of mathematics. In secondary classrooms, quite often one group would be set extension work, others would be set core and others would be set support or something like that, and sometimes those looked like different bits of mathematics. Our previous curricula have all been overlapping in terms of the content for different key stages so it was quite acceptable, once upon a time, for pupils to follow different trajectories through the National Curriculum. It seemed to be fine that the lower attainers wallowed, doing levels 3, 4 and 5 through most of their secondary career. So, this idea that different children did different bits of mathematics was prevalent.

With the current National Curriculum, it states that pupils will move through the curriculum together generally – that’s not an exact quote but it’s words to that effect. Sometimes people have said to me, “Oh, that means you don’t need to differentiate and you teach all the class; keep them together; teach them the same stuff and therefore we don’t need to differentiate.” I don’t think that’s correct. My theory is that differentiation now is about how you enable all the pupils in the class to engage with the concept or technique you are teaching that day. That will be about supporting those who find it difficult or who have stumbling blocks with that particular topic and making sure those who have grasped it rapidly can go deeper and are challenged to think harder. But it’s not about accelerating some children on and allowing others to fall behind. There is this sense about keeping the class together, but differentiation is about support and challenge or depth for pupils. That’s different to what it used to be.

Craig Barton: From the lessons that you’ve seen, is differentiation a big stumbling block . . . Is it a key defining feature of where a lesson goes well?

Jane Jones: Certainly, for the primary teachers I’ve seen and heard and talked with, it’s how do you challenge those who’ve got it quickly – who’ve got it securely – how do you go deeper? I think that’s where teachers have more difficulty. It is important that all pupils get sufficient practice and sufficient mastery of the techniques but giving children the opportunity to think harder and deeper. I think that’s the challenge. I think the reason it’s difficult is because that is dependent on the teacher’s subject knowledge and pedagogic skills to know how to deepen and challenge those pupils.

Craig Barton: . . . I had made the mistake of almost pre-differentiating before the lesson. Josie always gets things right, so I’m going to make sure I move her on to this. Jen always struggles, so I’m going to give her this support worksheet. But, of course, you’ve no way of knowing until you teach the lesson. Even then, trying to make that call as to who needs support and challenge is difficult, isn’t it?

Jane Jones: I quite agree. One of the things that’s really important for teachers to be doing – and I do think teachers have got much better at this over the years I’ve been doing this job – is circulating and picking up those clues from what pupils are doing in the classroom . . .

. . . this links in to what we were talking about before – choosing questions carefully. So, if you know that you’ve put in a couple of questions that will expose common misconceptions or common difficulties, you can see which pupils are having those difficulties. Then, you can intervene or ask a question. So, picking up those clues as to what children are thinking, and using those in the next steps of teaching I think is often the secret to success in teaching.