Stop Tiering Your Students…And Your Adults!

Paul McCartney and John Lennon (1965) wrote these compelling lyrics:

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down

And I do appreciate you being 'round

Help me get my feet back on the ground

Won't you please, please help me

Each and every one of us as classroom teachers, educational assistants or leaders can empathize with the sentiment of needing help and reaching out to see if anyone else has ever been in similar circumstances either personally and professionally.

One of the main purposes of developing a continuum of supports as part of your Collaborative Response is to answer that cry for help. The continuum of supports is ultimately intended to support school teams in their work by articulating, sharing and documenting effective practices to support the needs of students.

The continuum of supports is a framework designed to articulate how we address the diverse needs of ALL of our students beginning with effective classroom instruction. Its purpose is to create a clear, structured approach to support, ensuring that every student receives the right level of assistance based on their unique needs within the context of areas of focus.

The alignment of the continuum of supports with areas of focus (typically from your school improvement plan) ensures that the continuums developed are specific enough to be actionable within the classroom. Literacy, numeracy, wellness, social emotional wellbeing, attendance and executive functioning are a few areas of focus that schools employ to develop their continuums of support. Here are several continuum of support samples contributed by our partners.

A continuum of supports is a multi-tiered system that offers various levels of assistance to students, depending on their needs. In Collaborative Response, a continuum of supports includes four tiers as seen in the poster below:

  1. Tier 1: Universal Supports - These are strategies and practices that are implemented for all students in every classroom. The goal is to provide high-quality instruction and support that meets the needs of most students.
  2. Tier 2: Targeted Supports - When students need additional help, Tier 2 provides classroom supports. These are more focused and often involve small group instruction or specific strategies that address particular needs. Differentiated instruction is essential at Tier 2 as we provide individualized support for students in the classroom based on their current key issue in specific areas of support (literacy, behaviour, etc.).
  3. Tier 3: School Supports - For students who require more intensive support, Tier 3 offers individualized or small group interventions at the school level. This may involve more frequent, specialized instruction or support beyond what is available in the classroom.
  4. Tier 4: Intensive Supports - Tier 4 provides individualized and intensive support typically articulated in an IPP (individualized program plan). This level includes services provided by external professionals, such as speech-language pathologists or psychologists, who offer specialized support for students with significant needs.

Using this four tier model, we can assure that all supports are provided to meet the needs of any or all of our students. We do not, however, place students on the continuum to serve as a label. All students (and all adults for that matter) have jagged profiles and may be provided with supports from Tier 3 for one focus area but Tier 1 for other areas of focus. With that in mind, the supports that we are providing to a particular student is critically relevant! Essentially, we tier the supports…not the students!


Tiering Supports for Adults: A New Perspective

Recent discussions have led us to realize that the same principles used to tier student supports can also be applied to adults in the educational setting. This means we should be focusing on how we tier the supports available to our staff, not just the students. Here’s how we can think about it:

  1. Tier 1: Universal Professional Learning - Just like in the classroom, all staff should have access to universal professional learning opportunities. This includes ongoing training, resources, and general support to help them in their roles. Professional learning events arranged for the entire school staff would serve as Tier 1 support.
  2. Tier 2: Targeted Professional Support - For staff members who need additional help, targeted support might involve exploring a number of differentiated strategies that could support individual students in their classrooms. The Collaborative Team Meetingis an excellent avenue for responding to the need for support as teachers identify a key issue in their classroom followed by a collegial brainstorm and sharing of ideas and practices that every team member can take away and implement in their own classrooms. The collaborative team process allows every team member to engage as an expert (sharing their own successful strategies) and as a learner (gathering new strategies from their colleagues).
  3. Tier 3: Schoolwide Professional Support - In cases where staff need more intensive support, this might involve direct coaching or one-on-one assistance from a school specialist. For example, this could be a school literacy coach working with a teacher to enhance their literacy instructional skills. This level of professional support is directed by the School Support Team determining what types of support is required for classroom success. This may be in response to a specific student or perhaps to a specific need of a staff member (i.e. classroom management might require additional support or a child requiring an articulated behaviour support plan).
  4. Tier 4: External Expertise - Sometimes, schools might need to bring in external consultants or specialists to provide high-level, intensive support for staff. This could be to provide specialized training or to address unique challenges that require expert knowledge. For example, a school may identify that they have an increasing population of students diagnosed with autism and the school might request the assistance of an educational psychologist to provide an overview and specific strategies for supporting students with autism. It may also be support for one individual teacher who has a student with cerebral palsy and requires an occupational therapist to work with the teacher and their paraprofessional to provide the best level of support for that particular student.

Using this understanding of supporting the adults in the building through a continuum of supports, we are assuring that each adult has the level of support required regardless of the circumstance. And just as with students, the adults do not receive a label of the level of support they need but rather are uplifted by the provision of collaborative levels of support to address the needs of each adult in the building.

Just as students have diverse needs and strengths, so do our staff members. Recognizing this and applying the continuum of supports to adults can enhance overall effectiveness and foster a more supportive work environment. Whether it’s through universal professional learning, collaborative team meetings or targeted support, ensuring that all staff members receive the appropriate level of support is crucial for their success and, consequently, for the success of their students.

Aligning our approach to tiering and expanding it to include the supports available to adults in our schools can make a significant difference to staff looking for help. By clearly defining and differentiating the levels of support, we can create a more responsive and effective environment. We encourage you to reflect on your current continuum of supports and consider how you can better address the needs of both your students and your staff.

Please reach out to share your insights, challenges, and triumphs along with your questions, resources or suggestions related to this concept. Connect with us at questions(at)jigsawlearning.ca or lorna.hewson(at)jigsawlearning.ca.

Resources Available!


Overview of Continuum of Supports



Author: Lorna Hewson