2. Challenge v differentiation
• What is challenge?
Difficult work that causes students to think deeply
and engage in healthy struggle out of their comfort
zone
• What is differentiation?
Harder or easier tasks allocated before the lesson
The tools to meet the challenge set
3. Idea 1: Scale up
• Teach just beyond what they are
expected to know/be able to do
• The anchor effect…start with something
difficult and everything else seems much
easier!
• Self-esteem and confidence
4. Idea 2: display exemplars
• Enlarged & annotated on display boards
• Gallery of excellence in the classroom or corridor
• Mounting work in frames makes a statement &
reinforces the value of excellence
• The message?
– This is what excellence looks like
– This is the standard I expect you to replicate
– Study it closely and you will see why it is excellent
5. Idea 3: layered writing
• Structured redrafting;
– Writing frames
– Sentence starters
– Questions
– ‘writer’s palette’ – having produced a first draft
the writer’s palette is introduced to scaffold and
extend students’ ideas
6. Making it manageable
• Focus on a set number of students each lesson
• Plan tasks that all students can be getting on
with that will allow you to spend time giving
some students individual attention
• Plan some questions and ‘now try…’ examples
and activities that you can use.
7. Mindsets
‘yet’
• Carol Dweck claims that ‘yet’ is one of the
most powerful words we could use. When a
student says ‘I can’t do it’ we should end their
sentence with ‘yet’.
8. Should every lesson be challenging?
• No.
• The journey should be challenging at times as
students begin to understand and use new
information and skills, but it is equally as
important to build in time to consolidate and
build on concepts.
• If we move on too swiftly we risk knowledge
gaps and misconceptions
