The challenges that lie ahead.

So, I have a student in my year 9 class who is working at curriculum level 1. Just to put that into context, students should, ideally, be at curriculum level 4 by the beginning of year 9; curriculum level 1 is where a 5-6 year old should be working at. This student is 13 years old.

I have had a lot of professional development in literacy over the last few years, which gives me *some* confidence that I can actually make a difference to this student. I've also taught a lot of really challenging classes over the years with some students working at really low levels. And I certainly wouldn't want to see this student held back and in a class with much younger students. I do believe that a 13 year old should be learning with other 13 year olds, no matter how different they might be in terms of needs and ability.

Anyway, this year is going to be a challenge (as is every year...)

I need to embed differentiation into my planning and teaching (somehow...yikes!), as this will allow me to cater for the wide variety of needs in this class, including this particular student, as well as the ones sitting at the 'top' of the class who are working at curriculum level 4. This is something I will probably reflect on again in this blog. Hopefully at some point (soon) this year I will be able to say,  "I taught a cool lesson that was differentiated to meet my students needs and they all learned something and enjoyed the experience". I'm very worried that I might not though...