Differentiation in a Class of 60: What Actually Works

Every teacher training on CBE says the same thing: differentiate, meet each learner at their level, plan for individual needs. Every teacher in a class of 55, 60 or 70 hears this and quietly concludes it was written by someone who has never stood in front of that many children with one box of chalk.

They are half right. Differentiation as described in training is impossible at that scale. Differentiation as practised by teachers who actually manage large classes well is something quite different, and it is genuinely achievable. This guide sets out what it looks like, with methods that cost planning time once and then run every day. Information current as of Term 3, 2026.

Reframe it: three groups, not sixty learners

The competency-based assessment bands already do the sorting. In any strand, your class contains learners who are Below Expectation, learners who are Approaching or Meeting it, and learners who are Exceeding it. That is three groups, and they are the unit you plan for.

The groups are not fixed. A learner who exceeds in number work may be below in written expression, and the same child moves between groups as the term goes on. But at the point of planning any single lesson, you are designing for three levels of one task, and that is a manageable job that most teachers can do in ten minutes once the habit is there.

All three go on the board at the start. The learners choose their entry point, with your steer where needed. Nobody waits for you to reach them, nobody finishes and sits idle, and you have written one lesson plan with three lines added to it rather than three lesson plans.

A worked example: Grade 7 Mathematics, algebraic expressions

Notice that the stretch is not simply more questions of the same kind. Fast finishers given ten more of the same problem learn to slow down. A stretch has to ask something different: apply it, explain it, or connect it to something else.

Use the class as the resource it is

Sixty learners is a problem for marking and a gift for teaching. In any strand, at any moment, there are learners who understood it twenty minutes ago. A learner who has just grasped something is often a better explainer of it than a teacher who grasped it twenty years ago, because they still remember what was confusing.

The structure that works is pairs, deliberately mixed. A learner from the exceeding group sits with one from the approaching group for the practice phase of the lesson, with a clear rule: the stronger learner may explain but may not write in the other's book. Rotate the pairs fortnightly so nobody is permanently the helper or the helped.

Two cautions. The exceeding learner still needs their own stretch, or peer teaching becomes their whole lesson. And the pairing should never be announced as strong and weak. Announce it as pairs, mix them visibly across the ability range, and the learners work out the rest without the label.

Differentiate the marking, or drown

Sixty exercise books a night in nine learning areas is not possible, and pretending otherwise produces the thing every large-class teacher recognises: a pile of unmarked books and a growing sense of failure. The answer is to stop treating marking as one activity.

Whole-class feedback. Read a sample of twelve books, not sixty. List the three most common errors on the board the next lesson and reteach those. Every learner gets feedback on the errors that matter, and you have read a fifth of the pile.

Rotation. Mark twenty books in depth each lesson, on a rota. Every learner gets detailed marking once every three lessons, which is more useful than a tick every lesson.

Self and peer marking. For anything with a definite answer, put the answers up and let learners mark their own or swap. Then collect only the books where a learner has flagged they are stuck. This is not laziness. A learner who marks their own work sees the mistake while they still remember what they were thinking, which is the moment feedback actually works.

Take Mrs Wanjala, a Grade 5 teacher in Kakamega with 64 learners

Mrs Wanjala had been told to differentiate at every training she attended and had concluded it was a fantasy. She taught to the middle, marked what she could, and watched the top ten learners get bored and the bottom ten fall further behind each term.

She changed two things in Term 2 of 2026. Every Mathematics and Science lesson went on the board in three layers: the task, a worked first example beside it, and a stretch question beneath it. And she stopped marking every book, moving to a rotation of twenty with whole-class feedback on the common errors.

Her planning time went up by about five minutes a lesson. Her marking time fell by more than half. By the end of the term her progress records showed movement at both ends of the class for the first time in two years, which was the thing that had never happened when she was teaching to the middle. Her own description was that she had been trying to do sixty things and had replaced them with three.

Making the three layers work in languages and the humanities

The worked example above is Mathematics, where a scaffold and a stretch are easy to picture. Teachers of English, Kiswahili, Social Studies and Religious Education often assume the method does not transfer. It does, with one adjustment: in these learning areas the layers differ by the amount of structure provided, not by the difficulty of the content.

Take a Grade 8 English composition on the topic "A day I will never forget". The core task is the composition itself, four paragraphs, pitched at Meeting Expectation. The scaffold is a paragraph plan with the first sentence of each paragraph already written, so a learner who freezes at a blank page has somewhere to start. The stretch is the same composition with a constraint: it must open with dialogue, or it must be written from the point of view of someone else present that day. The content is identical across all three; what changes is how much of the thinking has been done for the learner and how much extra thinking is demanded.

Social Studies works the same way. Core: explain three effects of soil erosion. Scaffold: the three effects named, learner explains each. Stretch: rank the three by seriousness for a farmer in your county and justify the ranking. Once you see the pattern, it takes about a minute per lesson to generate, and it works in every learning area on the timetable.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Trying to differentiate by writing separate plans. It cannot be sustained and it was never what was meant.
• Stretch tasks that are just more of the same. They teach fast learners to slow down.
• Announcing groups by ability. The learners will know anyway; the label is what damages.
• Marking every book every night. It produces exhaustion and a backlog, not better feedback.
• Leaving the exceeding learners to teach all lesson. They need their own challenge too.
• Fixing the groups for the term. Learners move between bands by strand and by week.
• Waiting for a smaller class. Sixty is the class. Plan for it.

Materials that carry the load

The three-layer approach depends on having a worked example and a stretch question ready for every lesson, and that is exactly where prepared material saves the most time. Our editable lesson plans and notes give you the core; the revision papers and marking schemes supply both the stretch questions and the answer keys that make self-marking possible.

For the assessment side, the rubrics and progress trackers keep the three groups visible from week to week. Our guides to writing lesson plans in KICD format and Term 3 record keeping show how the layered plan fits the paperwork an assessor will look at. The curriculum designs are free from the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, and Somo will draft a scaffold or a stretch question on any sub-strand in a few seconds when you are planning at night.

Frequently asked questions

Is three layers really enough differentiation?

For a class of sixty with one teacher, three well-designed layers is more differentiation than most learners have ever received. It is also sustainable, which matters more than any plan that is not.

How do I stop learners always choosing the easy option?

Steer. Name the learners you expect on the stretch task at the start. Most rise to being named; the few who do not are the ones you spend your time on.

Does peer teaching hold back the stronger learner?

Explaining something consolidates it, so a short explaining phase helps the stronger learner too. It holds them back only if it becomes their whole lesson, which is why they need a stretch task of their own.

Will an assessor accept a rota instead of nightly marking?

Assessors look for evidence that feedback is happening and that it changes what learners do. A rota with whole-class feedback shows both more clearly than sixty ticks a night.

What about learners with special needs in a class this size?

The scaffold layer is where most adaptations live, and it costs nothing extra to make it richer. For learners with identified needs, see our guide to special needs support in CBE.

How long before this becomes routine?

About a fortnight. The first week the extra layers feel like extra work. By the third they are simply how the board is laid out.

In summary

Differentiation in a class of sixty is one lesson with three doors: a core task everyone attempts, a scaffold for those who are stuck and a stretch for those who are not. Use the class as the teaching resource it is. Mark in rotation with whole-class feedback rather than sixty books a night.

None of it needs a smaller class. It needs about five extra minutes of planning per lesson, and it returns those minutes many times over in marking time and in progress records that finally move at both ends of the room.