Ensuring support and challenge for all students in mixed attainment classes

1. Ensuring support and challenge for all students in mixed attainment classes Helen Hindle @helenhindle1 www.growthmindsetmaths.com www.mixedattainmentmaths.com mixedattainmentmaths@gmail.com

2. Mixed Attainment Mathematics classrooms should be places where pupils believe that:

3. The structure of mixed attainment maths lessons in my department. • Starter Activity – • Differentiated and / or ‘Open’. • All pupils must be able to contribute. • The starter activity should lead to a class discussion in which pupils share their ideas and methods. • This starter activity should provide the explanation for the main task. • Main Activity – • Differentiated, Low Threshold - High Ceiling or Inquiry. • Pupils choose their activity by referring to their Learning Journey. • Pupils must be given the opportunity to self select their activity but this must be monitored by the teacher so that pupils that select inappropriately can be redirected. • Plenary • Brings the class back together – what have we learnt? • Plenary should be followed by pupil reflection on their learning.

4. When choosing their activity pupils should be encouraged to think about the following questions…… Q What are you learning about today? Q Where are you on your Learning Journey? Q Where are you trying to get to on your Learning Journey? Q How will you get there?

5. Carousel Activity In your groups you are going to look at the starter activity and the main activity for three different lessons:- Fractions Sequences Surface Area and Volume

6. In your groups discuss the following:- Starter Activity How might your lower, middle and higher attainers respond? Main Activity What questions might you ask pupils whilst circulating the room? Plenary How would you end the lesson? How would you and your students know that they have made progress?

7. Mixed Attainment Mathematics classrooms should be places where pupils are given opportunities to: • question and conjecture • talk to each other and the teachers about ideas • work on tasks that challenge them • work on tasks that allow them to problem solve and reason mathematically • reflect on what they have learnt and how they learnt

8. Questions to stretch students thinking (of any ability) • (About a conjecture) is this always true, sometimes or never true. • Can you convince me? (about a statement) • Can you think of any exceptions? • What Maths skills do we need to know in order to help us solve this? • Could you represent that in some sort of picture? • Does anyone have the same answer but a different way of explaining it? • What if the problem was like this? What has changed? / What has stayed the same? • Where are the pitfalls/problems/ traps in this question? Differentiation: From the archives @mrlyonsmaths

9. Teaching mixed attainment maths classes isn’t difficult, it’s different.