20 ways to widen the ‘gap’ in your classroom

1. Make homework optional
2. Create resources for different levels/grades of students
3. Only teach certain groups of students the tough stuff
4. Take under achieving students out of one subject to catch up with other subjects
5. Allow absence without any action
6. Don’t make students catch up with work when absent
7. Make judgments/decisions using student data/hearsay, before you’ve met them & seen what they can do
8. Treat PP/LAC students differently (marking their books first won’t close a gap)
9. Think that an SEN student cannot learn the same and in the same way as non-SEN (in the majority of cases)
10. Don’t check students’ work regularly and hold them to account for incomplete/unsatisfactory standard or work/presentation
11. Use marks/grades/levels on student work
12. Talk about attainment instead of improvement
13. Leave a piece of work unimproved by the student
14. Tell them they’re weak/lesser/in a bottom set
15. Assume they know how and what to learn
16. Assume that if you’ve said something once, it’s enough
17. Have discussions about groups of children instead of individuals
18. Don’t follow through things you say you will do with students
19. Don’t follow school systems with a student/s because they’re a ‘special case’
20. Don’t ever contact home or involve them in the student’s learning.

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