1. Planning. A Thread.. Start with the curriculum and decide what will be taught in the lesson. This could be one thing, less than one thing or more than one thing. It depends on what is to be taught and the group..
2. Identify the resources you’ll use. This could be a textbook, a book, a booklet or a worksheet. If there isn’t a resource that adequately supports the curriculum sometimes I develop one. This is time consuming, whis why centralised resourcing can be a godsend but..
3.. be wary of using loads of resources as this can get messy and can easily lead to pupils losing focus navigating reams of paper..
4..Decide what format pupil work will take. For me this is predominantly work in exercise books which mirror the format of my own planning exercise book which I display using a visualiser..
5. Use the curriculum to identify what is really core in the resource. What is it essential students leave knowing? What gaps in knowledge will prevent them progressing?
6. Decide on best way to teach core knowledge. Most of time for me in history this is reading prose, elaborating and clarifying, discussing questions and answering them. But not always – e g using map to learn about events of the Abyssinian Crisis is often a better main method..
7. Identify particularly tricky concepts and decide how best to explain. Might mean thinking of a metaphor or analogy. Might involve using a diagram. Sometimes might involve listening to music or looking at a photo. If something is very tricky or new to me then I script..
8. Decide on tasks and how these support understanding and consolidation of core knowledge. Might involve answering questions verbally, bullet point notes, spider diagrams, tables, cloze text, extended writing..
9. Sometimes there may be a choice (e g bullet point notes or spider-diagram). Avoid tasks that allow simple copying or replication of what is in resource.
10. Decide upon timings for each task. Which may need more time depending on how things go? Build potential for increasing time into timings.
11. Decide upon check for understanding methods based on the core knowledge. When should this happen and how? How can I be as sure as I can be that everyone in my class knows what they need to know? This could involve..
12.. sampling work while circulating the room (who to especially check on?), cold-call questions (who to ask what?), hands up questions (who to avoid asking all the time?), choral response and mini-whiteboards. Knowing a class becomes very important here..
13.. need to know who should be hitting core and who should be operating well above this ‘floor’. Need to know who needs thinking time and who you need to check is paying attention. Need to know if anyone has anxiety which makes them freeze at cold call and who will thrive on it.
14. Anticipate areas that are likely to be hard to understand and grasp and consider how to re-teach these if pupils struggle. What will you do if they don’t get it?
15. Plan for less than you think you will get through but have more glorious hinterland in reserve. This allows time for the lesson to breathe and for plenty of time to properly check for understanding and re-teaching without feeling panicky about the time.
16. If you do finish earlier than planned teach deeper (not beyond) your plan or stick in a quiz based on what was learned in the lesson or before. Time on retrieval is never wasted.
17. Decide what core knowledge should form basis of future retrieval practice. Make this logical. E g if lesson is about impact of Wall Street Crash on Germany makes sense to make the Dawes Plan focus. Retrieval shouldn’t be random – should be informed by what about to teach.
18. Planning in exercise book makes this neat as if tasks set are based on what’s really core you can flick back and find content for retrieval easily. Don’t worry too much about consistent pattern for how far back you go..
19. but probably a good idea to audit yourself every now and again to make sure you are covering all the stuff that needs to be remembered. I work really roughly to Nuthall's rough rule of three. Or at least I think about it while planning a lot..
20. Don’t be too precious about your plan (exercise book or whatever) use it to make live notes of what worked, what didn’t, what you need to follow up on etc. You can then refer back to these easily when planning future lessons.
21. All of this is much easier to do if you know the curriculum well. The reason planning takes me a fraction of the time it used to is I just know more history now from reading, going to lectures, podcasts etc. There's a line in Peaky Blinders when someone complains..
..about paying for a service that only takes ten minutes. The response is it took years to learn to do the task in ten minutes and the payment is for the years not the minutes. A long term investment in improving subject knowledge is a good investment.
