Once you have written your long-term plan for the
academic year, the next step is to break it down into
more detail. Decide on teaching approaches and
activities for each unit in your long-term plan. These
ideas form your medium-term plan and include
programmes of teaching and learning activities,
practical activity opportunities, and key assessment
dates.
Your medium-term plan should be more detailed than
your long-term plan. A medium-term plan usually
contains ideas for the delivery and formative
assessment of the learning objectives.
Your medium-term plan can be used to create a
number of more detailed lesson plans (short-term
plans).
Cambridge has produced schemes of work for each
stage of Cambridge Primary English, Science and
Mathematics. Schemes of work can also be found on
the Cambridge Primary support site along with
many other resources.
Cambridge schemes of work provide one possible
order of teaching for the units and topics, along with
suggested activities and resources. You do not have to
use the scheme of work, but if you do, you will need to
plan the length of time that you will allow for teaching
of each topic based upon the time available to you.
In this lesson you will choose a scheme of work and
explore part of it in more detail. This should help you
to become more familiar with the Cambridge Primary
scheme of work, and also give you some teaching and
assessment ideas.
Before you start, look back at the units from the
Scheme of Work that we looked at in Lesson 2.3 or
choose a scheme of work for your stage
from Cambridge Primary support site. Choose a
unit for this activity.
1. Choose a learning objective.
2. Comment on the suggested teaching activity or
activities for the learning objective you have
chosen. As you read, think about:
1. Which of the activities do you think would
work with your class? Why?
2. Which activities do you think would not work
with your class? Why not?
3. To what extent do these activities encourage
students to become independent learners?
3. Write some notes about the following questions:
1. What changes would you make to use the
Cambridge scheme of work for these
learning objectives with your learners? Why
are you making these changes?
2. How would you ensure that you encouraged
your class to become independent learners?
3. What other activities do you know that would
work well for this topic area?
Remember: skills and knowledge need to be:
1. developed
2. applied
3. practised
4. secured
5. applied independently.
Share here with your group your notes about the
learning objectives you have chosen. Remember to
include:
· the changes you would make to use the scheme
of work for the learning objectives with your learners,
and why
· the resources you would use
· how you would make sure you encouraged your
class to become independent learners
· other activities you know would work well for
this topic area.
Learning Objective:
Recognise, identify, sound and name the letters of the alphabet.
Gather the items together. Learners sit in a circle with the items in the middle. Review or
teach the vocabulary for these items.
Assign a letter to pairs of learners or ask learners to choose a letter. Ask them to write the
letter in both upper and lower case on a label. Support learners as required.
Give each pair of learners a box. They stick their letter labels on the box.
Ask learners to find items that start with their letter sound in English and put them in their box.
Ask learners to tell the class which letter they have and what they have in their box. Correct
learners as necessary, for example if they have an incorrect item in their box. Ask the class
for the correct box for that item.
You could keep the boxes in the classroom with classroom items in them, so that learners
frequently go to the boxes to find things in your lessons.
Resources: Large boxes (one per letter); various classroom items and (optional) those brought from
home by learners. Items should match the letters chosen. Coloured pencils/pens, labels
4.3 Short-term planning and lesson plans
45 minutes
When we think about short-term planning, we mean
lesson planning, and adapting the lesson or the next
few lessons to meet the needs of the learners.
The lesson plan is the document, created by teachers,
which gives detail of what will happen in the lesson. It
is a practical resource which teachers can use to
prepare for their lesson and to which they can refer as
the lesson progresses. Actions, vocabulary, resources
and timings can be identified which contribute to
achieving the lesson’s learning objectives. Reflection
after the lesson is also a valuable part of lesson
planning.
Of course, this plan will be created in the context of
what is available in the school and the classroom. It
will reflect the time allocated for that lesson and even
when the lesson takes place in the school day.
The plan will be created by the teacher with reference
to what is known about the learners’ needs – what
they have recently achieved, what they need
particular support with, what they will need to
understand to enable tomorrow’s lesson to be
successful, and so on.
For these reasons, short-term planning always needs
to match the demands of unique situations. Support
and exemplars can be provided, but the teacher needs
to be in charge of making the decisions which
determine the scope and content of each lesson.
Remember that your plans are a working document.
You will need to be responsive to your learners and
adapt your teaching as required.
There are many ways of structuring a lesson. You may
already have your preferred way, or a way that your
school uses. Here is one approach to structuring a
lesson:
For each learner activity in your lesson it is useful to
consider the following stages:
1. Set the task. focus on a learning objective and
give instruction
2. Develop the success criteria with your learners
3. Monitor the outcome
4. Check against success criteria
5. Feedback and evaluate.
Think back over the lessons that you have
taught recently
1. Choose one lesson activity that you feel worked
especially well. Make notes on the following:
1. Why you chose this activity?
2. How did it engage your learners?
3. How did it help develop their learning?
1. For contrast, select one activity that did not go as
well as you expected. Make note on how you
might improve or rework this activity in future
lessons.
2. Share your notes with your group in the 4.3
Preparation for lesson planning group
discussion.
3. Read your colleagues’ notes.
1. Give two positive comments about each
colleagues' post.
2. Make one suggestion or offer a piece of
advice.
3. Ask a question to find out more or
clarify their idea(s).
Share your notes and your lesson plan
template with the class
When we are creating our own lessons, it is helpful to
use a lesson plan template. In this activity you are
going to look at a lesson plan template, compare it
with any templates that you currently use, and
develop an improved lesson plan template that you
can use in your future teaching.
Review the lesson plan template
Here is a blank example lesson plan template.
1. Look at the template and compare it with any
lesson plans that you already use. Write some
notes about the lesson plan template based on
the following questions:
2. In your experience, what are the key
sections of a lesson plan template?
3. How is the example lesson plan different
from lesson plans that you currently use?
4. Are there any parts of the example lesson
plan that you would add to your own plan?
5. Are there any other sections that you could
add to your lesson plan?
6. Think back over the lessons that you have
taught this week.
Share your notes and lesson plan template
with the class
1. Share your notes and a blank lesson plan that you
currently use in the 4.3 Lesson plan template
class discussion. If you do not use a lesson plan
template, try and make two or three
improvements to the example and share those.
2. Read your colleagues’ plans.
7. Are there any features of their lesson plans
that you would like to include in yours? - Tell
them.
If you have any questions or observations about any of
the information in this lesson, please come and share
them in the Lesson 4 class discussion.
For contrast, select one activity that did not go as well
as you expected. Make note on how you might
improve or rework this activity in future lessons.
Look at the template and compare it with any lesson
plans that you already use. Write some notes about
the lesson plan template based on the following
questions:
1. In your experience, what are the key
sections of a lesson plan template?
2. How is the example lesson plan different
from lesson plans that you currently use?
3. Are there any parts of the example lesson
plan that you would add to your own plan?
4. Are there any other sections that you could
add to your lesson plan?
5. Think back over the lessons that you have
taught this week.
Share your notes and lesson plan template with
the class
1. Share your notes and a blank lesson plan that you
currently use in the 4.3 Lesson plan template
class discussion. If you do not use a lesson plan
template, try and make two or three
improvements to the example and share those.