Lesson Planning

Supporting Trainees in Planning

Planning needs to be considered a process, rather than a product. It is complex with many layers and is inherently invisible. It needs to be thought about carefully in ways that are not always easy for trainee teachers, especially at this stage in learning to teach. This is why we ask CMs to plan with them so that they can share their thinking and help reveal this process.

During university sessions, trainees have started to develop an understanding of how and why the various facets of a lesson should be incorporated into a plan. Based on inclusion, these have included such things as questioning, modelling, explaining and adaptive teaching.

Where trainees are working from detailed school planning, that have much of the content and learning activities provided, they will need support in translating this into a lesson plan using the university template. They may be unable to read these plans in the same way as an experienced teacher, so CMs need to ensure that they know, for example, the intention behind each IWB slide and each planned activity so they are able to comprehend the learning journey children need to take.

Where trainees are working from school plans that are less detailed, they may need support in learning how to create or identify appropriate learning objectives and activities before they can complete the lesson plan using the university template.

Either way, trainees should not be planning by themselves. CMs should plan with them, sharing their thinking as they help reveal the complex, and invisible, process that is planning. Spending time to do this together is therefore recommended. The amount of time spent together should reduce as the trainee becomes more proficient.

The Lesson Plan Template

A copy of the lesson plan template and a version with notes are available for download from this page.

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At a stage in each placement, trainees will no longer need to use these templates. Regardless of the format they use instead, the following guidance must be followed.

Quick Reference

When not using these templates, trainees must ensure the following elements are included on the plans they teach from. These can be included within annotations where necessary.

  • Prior learning
  • Notes from previous lesson(s) (if appropriate)
  • The bigger picture (How the lesson fits into the sequence / medium term plan outcomes / purpose and context)
  • Learning objective
  • Success criteria/steps to success
  • Resources
  • Vocabulary
  • Pre learning opportunities (if appropriate)
  • Possible misconceptions (How will these be addressed during the lesson?)

Each taught lesson should be evaluated against the following headings:

  • What did the children learn in your lesson? (Was this new learning or reinforcing existing learning? Did this differ from what was planned? Etc.)
  • Do you think that all the children made progress in this lesson? How do you know? (Give examples of particular children. Identify particular parts of the lesson that had a positive impact on children’s learning and why this was)
  • What impact will these observations have on your next lesson?