One lesson. One objective. Two or three versions of the task. This is the move you will use most.
Objective for every child: measure length in centimetres and compare what you find. Tap each tier.
Tiering means planning one lesson with two or three versions of the practice task. Everyone works towards the same objective, sits through the same teaching, uses the same vocabulary and comes back together for the same plenary. The only thing that changes is the task in the middle: how much support sits underneath it, and how far the thinking goes on top of it.
It works because it separates the destination from the route. A child who needs a worked example on the desk is not learning something easier. They are learning the same thing with a support that will come away later.
Tap the steps in the right order. Get one wrong and it will flash red.
Tiering is editing one task, not writing three lessons. The order you do it in matters more than people expect.
Tiering only works if you know who belongs where. You cannot differentiate for a readiness level you have never measured, and a seating plan from September is not a measurement.
This does not mean more assessment. It means small, frequent and immediate, close enough to the teaching to be useful. The exit ticket you collect today is the pre-assessment for the lesson you plan tonight.
Teachers have been burned by data systems that ate their evenings. Three questions and three piles is something a person can sustain in a real week. A single page per class beats a folder nobody opens.
None of this replaces your judgement. There will be lessons where, however carefully you have planned, a child in your room cannot reach the objective everybody else is working towards. That is not a failure of your planning and it is not something to paper over.
It is the point at which a modification becomes the right decision, and the honest thing is to name it as one. Write it down. Tell the parents plainly what their child is working on and why. Take it to your administration so the decision is shared and supported rather than carried alone in a classroom.
Every adjustment you make and record is also evidence of what that child needs, and evidence is what eventually moves a system. Until then, use the four dials as far as they go, be clear about where they stop, and make sure nobody ever has to guess what you decided or why.
This space is just for you. Nothing here is saved or shared, so write freely.