#167: The ‘boring’ differentiation strategy you need to be using in 2026 to improve low-level behaviours | The Differentiation Series: Part 3

Okay, I'm going to say something that might surprise you.

The most powerful differentiation strategy I know is also the most boring one.

No fancy tech. No elaborate lesson design. No creating multiple versions of anything. Just one simple, evidence-backed approach that, when you actually use it, has the power to dramatically reduce the low-level disruptions, work refusal, and off-task behaviour that's making your days harder.

Welcome to Part 3 of the differentiation series, and today I'm giving you a front seat to scaffolding, what it actually is, when to use it, and the dead-simple framework I use to implement it in any lesson, in any subject, with any group of students.

Let's roll the tape on the I-We-You model, because once you get this, you're not going to be able to unsee it.

If you haven't listened to Parts 1 and 2 yet, I'd really encourage you to start there, this episode builds on both of them and will make a lot more sense with that context in place.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why scaffolding is the "boring" strategy that's actually classroom management magic
• What scaffolding actually is, and the stepping stones analogy that makes it click
• When to use scaffolds and what they can look like across different subjects and tasks
• The I-We-You model: the three-phase teaching framework that builds student skills and confidence before they ever work independently
• Why assumptions about what students "should" be able to do are quietly making your classroom harder to manage
• How the I-We-You model reduces the constant stream of "what do I do?" questions during independent work time
• Why this isn't extra work, it's just really good teaching
• How to access Claire's full Differentiation Toolbox and 50+ Canva scaffold templates inside the Behaviour Club

Resources mentioned:

• The Behaviour Club — full differentiation training + 50+ Canva scaffold templates: https://www.theunteachables.com.au/tbc

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website

Transcript

Welcome And Series Recap

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi there, teachers. Welcome to the Unteachables Podcast. I'm your host, Claire English, and I am just a fellow teacher, a toddler mama, and a big old behaviour nerd on a mission to demystify and simplify that little thing called classroom management. The way we've all been taught to manage behaviour and classroom manage has left us playing crap control, which is not something I subscribe to because we're not dancers with teachers. So listen in as I walk you through the game-changing strategies and I mean the things that we can actually do in action in our classrooms that'll allow you to lean into your beautiful values as a compassionate educator and feel empowered to run your room with a little more calm and dare I say it, a lot less chaos. I will see you in the episode. Hello again, lovely teachers, and welcome back to part three of my series on differentiation. This one is the boring differentiation strategy you need to be using in 2026 to improve low-level behaviors. In part one and part two of this differentiation series, we've spoken about why students don't just get on with the work even when it's totally doable, like what's happening with their stress response, what's happening in the brain, what's happening when we're getting all of these disruptive, low-level, like off-task behaviors when we're like, why can't you just do the work? And then last episode, I introduced you to my differentiation toolbox. So if you haven't listened to those first two episodes for the series on differentiation, please go and listen to those first because they are a really good base for this third part here. All of these build up upon each other. This episode, I am digging into one part of that differentiation toolbox I took you through last week, which is scaffolding. But I want to be really transparent here. The best way that I teach this stuff is by handing over the exact scaffolds and skills to you, showing you, ironically,

Behaviour Club Tools And Templates

SPEAKER_00 2:00

uh, modeling that for you. So if you're in the behavior club this month, we are talking all things differentiation. So I have got the differentiation training in there that will go really deep into what I'm talking about here on the podcast. But also, I have all of the Canva templates, scaffolds that you can take into your classroom and use immediately to help you implement differentiation in a way that is effortless. My bag is just about making it as easy as possible to get you from point A to point B without putting the extra work in to support you with the knowledge around it, but then also support you with the actual stuff to take into your classrooms. So you're not spending your whole Sunday putting this into action. So if you're in the behavior club, make sure you go in there and download all of those templates. Um, but if you're not in the behavior club and you're like, oh gosh, like I really do need this. This has really resonated with me. I'm really struggling with those low-level disruptions in the lesson. Uh, I know that it's connected to the learning in some way. I don't know how to differentiate in a way that's not adding like hours and hours of time to my plate, then you can check out the behavior club. Head to thedushonteachables.com forward slash TBC. We're not always open. So depending on the time you're listening to this episode, you can either jump on the wait list or jump straight in with me and I will support you through this whole process and anything else you're struggling with with classroom management. So, on to today's tool in my differentiation toolbox. It is boring, it is a run of the mill, which is why I have said the boring differentiation strategy you need to be using in 2026. But it is simple and it is powerful. It's one of those classroom management magic things that I talk about. But even if you've heard of this before, it's so worth listening to this episode and reminding yourself of things like this that really do get lost in the noise of the everyday, or maybe it's even getting lost in the noise of we have to be more innovative, we have to do this, we have to do that. But mate, the boring stuff is the magic stuff. Like the predictable, the consistent, that stuff is really magic when it comes to class

Why Scaffolding Is Classroom Magic

SPEAKER_00 4:10

management. So I think we all need a reminder to just get back to basics. And it is scaffolding. Scaffolds are just temporary supports that we put in place to help students complete a task that they can't yet do independently. So when to use scaffolds, we use them when we're teaching students a new skill, when we're expecting a certain piece of work from them, something that's structured, when we want to guide their thinking, analysis, or problem solving. Anytime that you are expecting something from your students that is particular, that requires a skill of some kind, like pretty much any time you're getting students to do something, you can think of a scaffold to help them get there. Uh, so think of scaffold as like a bridge between I can't yet and now I can. When I'm thinking about um teaching and learning and teaching students skills, I imagine that I'm standing on one side of a stream, and I've got my students standing on the other side of that stream. And I need to bring my students to where I am to be able to get them to learn the skill that I want them to learn. So, in order to do that, I have to create little pathways across the stream, little stepping stones across the stream that they can hop onto and then they'll eventually get to me. So just a little bridge between I can't yet do this, and then I'm here with you, I've got it, like let's do this. So those little stepping stones are the scaffolding that we use when it comes to teaching and learning, when it comes to that differentiation. It really is just a way to, yeah, bridge that gap, to reduce the overwhelm and guide students towards that success that you want them to have. And it's just something that breaks complex tasks that we might have for them. So big goals that we have for them, whether it's writing a paragraph, an essay, doing a certain report, you know, thinking about something in a certain way, being able to identify techniques or whatever it is. It's just a way to break those things into simple, achievable steps. The goal is eventually that students won't need that scaffold because the skill has been hardwired. So eventually the student will know the path to take across the river. Like, you know, that river is no longer there. Like they're over the other side, we're all good, they don't need support anymore. Examples of good scaffolding, things like writing scaffolds. Um, so this can take so many different forms, whether it's like an Oreo like opinion writing scaffold, the burger

Practical Scaffold Examples That Help

SPEAKER_00 6:45

paragraph, essay writing scaffolds, science, like lab report scaffolds, like anything that we have there for them where they can go through and it guides their writing. Uh cheat sheets, so cheat sheets that have like formulas on there or like prompts to help them do a certain task or to think in certain ways, uh, sentence starters, uh, analysis tables, so um, you know, tea tables, pea tables, uh, think charts, thought organizers, like live modeling of how to complete a task, or any other support that helps students meet the outcome. Any other way that we can create like a little stepping stone to help them get across that stream. So some students might need a heck of a lot more. They might need a writing scaffold with a cheat sheet there, with live modeling of that task, and they'll have all of the things there because they're really struggling and they need all the pieces to kind of fit together. Other students are a little bit more ahead in their journey, so they just need a writing scaffold, not even with any sentence starters on it. They just need a little bit more of guidance around like, I don't want to, I don't want a blank empty page, uh, but I know how to fill this in. It really is to just shave that away. But a rule of thumb that I generally use is that whatever we want our students to do, we need to first teach them how to do that. And sometimes we can make a lot of assumptions about our students and what they can do and can do independently. We always are making assumptions about our students and being able to kind of bring it back to that one philosophy of what I want my students to do right now, I need to teach, is just a really clear and simple way of thinking about it. Um, a great way to explore this is through the I Wii U model. So every time I teach them a new skill or do something like that, it's through that I Wii U. This is what the model looks like. Me is the first one. So I. Um, so it's about watching me do it. This is you modeling. This is you at the front of the room with a blank board or a projected scaffold up saying,

Teach With The Me We You Model

SPEAKER_00 8:55

like, here's the paragraph scaffold. This is the one you have in front of you right now. This is how I'd work through this math problem. This is how you'd compose a short answer question. This is where the simile is. At this point, students are just watching you. They've got no pens in their hand, they're just seeing what doing that thing looks like. Then you move on to the we. So you've done I, you do we, then you build something together. You joint construct. So this might sound like, all right, we're gonna do it together this time. What's the first thing we do? What kind of language do we use in our opening sentence? What kind of sentence can we write here? You're just leading the construction of the task, uh, and you're strategically asking students for the ideas and even getting some up. Like I get students up. Here's the marker, right up on the board. Like, yes, excellent. Do this, do that. Um, and they're contributing, they're putting that together. So you're facilitating it, but they are doing it. And by the end of that we phase, you've built a full successful bottle of that task together, whether it's the paragraph or a solution, a sample response. And what you're actually doing in this we part of the process is you're hardwiring that skill, you're building student confidence, and you're building their familiarity in the tools or the scaffolds or the process that you're using. Once you've done the I and the we, then it's their turn. You go to the you. Only then do we move into doing it independently because by this point they've seen you do it, they've helped build it, and now they're far better equipped to tackle it alone. Not every single student is going to be able to do this. There's still going to be support that's needed. You're still going to be actively supporting during that you time, especially if it's the first time they've done a particular thing or used a particular scaffold. However, once you've done the me and the we, you are going to have far less trouble just moving around the room and supporting students. It's going to be far less demanding than if you just launched into it without that me we process. Over time, their skills are going to increase and their familiarity is going to increase. So that me might shrink. So some days you'll just jump straight into let's just recap on things by doing one together. Or you might say, you know, this one, off you go, and you might just have to support a couple of students. But the key is that when a task or a tool or something is new or a skill, it gets that full me Wii U treatment. It's not just a quick, like, you know, oh, explanation, off you go. You go through that whole process. And through that, you will be able to be building students' skills. You're going to be like, if you don't have anyone supporting you in the room, like in a mainstream setting, I rarely ever had a teaching assistant or a learning assistant. So if you're there by yourself, you don't have the capacity to split yourself into 20 different teachers and go around to every single student in the room and help them with the questions that they have. When you're going through this process as well, it's going to be helping you get students where they need to be. So you're not getting questions constantly. What are we doing? Like, how can I do this? I need help. Where do I start? You've got that kind of built into the lesson. This is just good pedagogy. It's just good practice. It's not you sitting down with a lesson and thinking, okay, well, I've got this. How am I going to create this same lesson for levels one, two, three, four? It's not that kind of differentiation. This is differentiation that is

Sustainable Differentiation That Sticks

SPEAKER_00 12:40

sustainable. It is just good teaching and learning. So go and give that a try in whatever way works for you in your context. Don't overcomplicate it. Just do it first, get them to do it alongside you, and then send them off to do it alone with your other scaffolds and differentiation in place from that toolbox. Keep it simple, follow that me with you, and just give it a try. However, of course, if you do want to watch my entire differentiation training and grab that entire toolbox because there are more things that you need to embed into your lesson to help that differentiation in like the best way possible. I did create that scaffold library last month with, so I think last month, by the time this goes live, with 50 plus teaching and learning, thinking analysis scaffolds inside, Canva templates. You can just use immediately, edit for your context. You will find that inside of the behavior club. So come on in if you need more support with this stuff. I try to make it as plug and play, easy, time friendly, or teacher-friendly as possible. Then come and join me inside of the behavior club. It is v-unteachables.com forward slash TBC. You can either just jump right in with me or join the wait list and you can see when doors open next, depending on what time of the year it is. But I am so excited to support you. If you're one of my behavior club is listening, go and grab that now. Don't delay. Like just go and start using these scaffolds because they really are a bit of classroom management magic.

Final Tips And How To Join

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And that is all for today. That is all for my differentiation focus. And I'll be back next week with some more classroom management goodness. Until next time, make sure you're sprinkling that classroom management magic all over the place through your me, we, and you and all of your other differentiation, your proper, sustainable, achievable differentiation strategies. And I shall see you next time. Bye for now.