Question to primary teachers in England, from a primary teacher in Scotland.

[OPeaches]

I've always wondered, is it true that you have to write detailed lesson plans for every lesson of every day?

That's the impression I've got from various forums. Sorry if I'm totally off the mark.

In my school, and in the local schools, yes.
For example, I plan 5 maths lessons for a week, and the planning is 3-4 pages. I've been teaching almost 30 years, it makes no difference to the expectations.

Depends on the school. Ive worked in a school where they demanded insane dailies, listing every little movement you made. It was hellish. Couldn't keep this up, ended up very unwell and leaving. They are now in Special Measures.

In current school we do a weekly outline on a sheet of a4. I then print out my powerpoints as they show the differentiated tasks and stages of working. I then evaluate my lesson by jotting on the powerpoint printout. I also whack in resources. The Head's view is that if the teaching is excellent and the results are excellent, she's not overly fussed about planning.
Infinitely more manageable and I am no longer a suicidal wreck of a human.

Same as SilverApples. But I don't see it as detailed, because it's been the same everywhere I've worked, and is less than I had to do on the BEd!

We are trialling a new approach in maths atm though, which is hard work in the initial instance, but should be easy when we come back to the relevant topics next time.

My school expects detailed plans for Maths and English (A4 page for each lesson), and plans for other subjects to be 'as detailed as they need to be'. We're a larger school and share planning between colleagues. The plans need to be detailed if we're giving them to others, but the advantage is that we are not all planning every subject. This week I'll be given Maths and English plans by others during the weekend, but I'm prepping the Science, Geog and Music for the entire 1/2 term.

Thanks for the replies.

We do termly forward plans which are handed into the head at the start of term. These plans show what topics etc you're covering in each curricular area and which CfE (Curriculum for Excellence) outcomes will be covered. These plan probably take me about 6 to 8 hours each term.

My weekly plan is one sheet of A4 which probably has no more than 100 words on it. It takes about 10 minutes a week.

I genuinely don't think I could keep up the pace of detailed lesson plans for everything I taught! Hats off to those who do.

That's what my planning used to be like in the 80s, OPeaches.
I think the level of obsessive detail actually hampers my teaching now.

I imagine it would SilverApples. I assume you don't conduct lessons with your plan in hand reading it at each step? Surely the act of writing the details down in no way changes what a good teacher does? I also assume it doesn't affect attainment, which at the end I the day is why our jobs boil down to (on paper anyway). I think if I spent all that time on planning I'd have no energy left for teaching exciting, interesting lessons.

According to the EIS, Scotland's biggest teaching union, head teachers have no right to see it have access to weekly planning, only long term planning.

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