Bitesize Research: Differentiating For Students With SEND

By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone’s having a great week! Continuing with our theme on student-centred learning for T3, and following discussions with the SEN team here at WA, I was really interested in this article about differentiation for students with SEN by Sobel and Alston. Objectives: To propose a particular perspective on differentiation and offer strategies for this Summary:

• The authors maintain the central importance of differentiation but propose that strategies to do this well don’t need to be time-consuming for the teacher.
• They propose small adaptations and adjustments for inclusive teaching for SEND students.
• They suggest that teachers reframe their thinking about differentiation; making it about a series of routines and priorities that will definitely benefit SEND students but will in fact benefit the whole class too
• They suggest ‘chunking’ lessons into a series of phases (or routines), which could also act as a roadmap for some students with SEND
• Phase One: Transition, entering the classroom and preparedness to learn. This includes starting on a positive note, having seating plans, and using visual timetables of the lesson.
• Phase Two: Settling the class, and starting to learn. This includes making the implicit explicit by using visual prompts, routines around listening, and ensuring everyone knows what ‘I’m ready to learn’ means in this classroom
• Phase Three: Delivering and receiving instructions, and whole-class engagement. This includes checking for understanding of instructions, ensuring you have a written instruction as well as a verbal one, avoid vague or unclear statements e.g. ‘work quietly’ is an ambiguous phrase.
• Phase Four: A whole class of individuals working. This includes making writing more accessible, and managing distractions.
• Phase Five: Individuals fitting into groups of learners. This includes balancing group work in terms of the individuals and giving them explicit instructions for roles to play in the group.
• Phase Six: Finishing learning and assessment. This includes supporting the students to self and peer assess learning, clarifying understanding through overlearning, and providing a clear end of lesson routine.

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• How am I currently working with my SEND students in lessons?
• How might I refine my practice in line with some of the phases suggested?
• What might be important about reframing thinking around differentiation?

If you would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.