2. High achieving Student 1 (On Green or Blue on BRAG ratings) Middle ability student 2 (On Green on BRAG rating) Over achieving Middle ability student 3 (On blue BRAG rating) Lower ability student 4 (on red or amber BRAG rating) In groups of 4, allocate every student a number 1 to 4

3. How to use your groupings For extending students 1 and 3 work together Allows them to make progress and extend their learning – can devise tasks designed to extend top end 2 and 4 work together Middle ability students explanations are pitched at a level that helps lower ability students understanding. This achieves extending the most able first while engaging lesser able with the content. SWAP groups - 3 and 4 work together. 3 will be confident of the skills and support 4 1 and 2 work together. This is a chance for 2 to be extended The benefit is students do NOT realise they are working based on ability- to them there is no pattern as tasks and pairs change regularly depending on the task. For some examples of tasks etc read on

4. Supporting Literacy with music and the Pause game Using lengthy text - Break a page of text up into 4 sections Allocate each student a section. (All number 3s read the first paragraph, all number 2s read the third etc) Identify those sections with more complex terminology for most able to tackle Play music to signify the start of the reading exercise (Less confident students feel less self conscious reading with background noise) Students read their section aloud to their group Every time they reach a Key point – the others use a Buzzer or shout Pause Group then discuss -is it a key point? if it is, they write it on a post it and place it in the middle of the table (Teaches skim reading to less able- improves content understanding) Can sort the key points into categories and use them to support extended writing later

5. Extended writing – Using groupings to understanding the difference between Describe and Explain Initially give “describe” tasks to 2 and 4 (only initially) – builds confidence “knowing the content” “Explain” type tasks to 1 and 3 to extend their understanding Group of 4 then discuss the difference between the 2 sets of answers. Ask students which information would you use for 2 given exam questions?- one of each type? Target your questioning - Get a selection of 2s and 4s to tell you why the describe answer isn’t enough to get full marks for an “Explain” question Together as a four identify some phrases to use to ensure you explain “This happened because….” “This clearly shows….” Write them out on post its or show me boards- place them in the middle of the group to support extended writing.

6. Other uses Differentiation (without the kids knowing) All number 1s do question 1, No 2s do Question 2 etc Everyone has a piece of the answer Share it with the group Just for fun Team games Each lesson a different number gets to guess the image as a starter or gets to choose the category of plenary question, pick the quiz type etc– can keep a score of points for each table of 4 etc. Creates real team spirit