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 beginning teachers, especially at this stage in learning to teach. This is why we ask mentors to plan with them so that they can share their thinking and help reveal this process.
During university sessions, beginning teachers 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 beginning teachers 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 mentors need to ensure that they know, for example, the intention behind each IWB slide, the associated modelling processes and each planned activity so they are able to comprehend the learning journey children need to take.
Where beginning teachers 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, beginning teachers should not be planning by themselves. Mentors 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 beginning teacher becomes more proficient.
All teaching, whether whole class or small groups of children, must be planned and evaluated using the university template and kept in the beginning teacher’s teaching file on OneDrive.
The Lesson Plan Template
A copy of the lesson plan template and a version with notes are available for download from this page.
Detailed Planning Examples
The following are examples of the required detailed needed in planning a lesson. In addition to planning for effective teaching, this level of detail should also evidence that beginning teachers are planning to meet the needs of the children they teach.
Moving On
Further guidance regarding when beginning teachers can move away from planning using the university template can be found in Appendix D of the handbook, and included here for convenience:
If beginning teachers are to progress from lesson planning that is completed on the university template to another format, the following conditions should be met before this happens:
- The beginning teacher regularly plans effective lessons, which include explanations, modelling and scaffolding.
- Most of the strands T1-T10, and T8 specifically, are highlighted in the middle column of the tracker
- The beginning teacher evaluates each lesson to correctly identify the learning that has, and hasnāt, taken place
- The beginning teacher prepares lesson plans well in advance so they can be checked by the mentor
- The mentor is satisfied that in moving away from the university planning template the progress of the children will not be hindered
- The mentor is satisfied that the move will also be in the beginning teacherās best interests in their learning to teach journey
When not using the template, beginning teachers must ensure the following elements are included on the plans they teach from. These can be included as 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 childrenās learning and why this was)
- What impact will these observations have on your next lesson?