How to Write a Lesson Plan

A good lesson plan breaks the lesson into different sections, which can be systematically worked through. Writing a lesson plan should help you focus on what you want your students to learn, and how you would like them to do it. This preparation is hugely beneficial as it provides a structure for the lesson, allowing you to focus on teaching your pupils, and keeping them engaged. 

This blog contains free a lesson plan template, a free weekly lesson plan template and lesson plan examples. 

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What is a lesson plan?

A lesson plan is a guide of what the teacher would like the children to study in the lesson and how they will study it. A lesson plan helps to organise the lesson, by encouraging the teacher to think about the resources they need, the misconceptions that might arise and what instructional strategies might be needed to convey the lesson's teaching points. 

What makes a good lesson plan?

First and foremost you must have a clear and deep understanding of the lesson’s content and context.

Splitting the lesson plan into five segments is a good way to start:

1. Objectives and Outcomes
2. Materials
3. Content
4. ‘Stickability’
5. Assessment

Objectives 

Firstly think about your objectives for the whole topic, and then for each lesson. What is your main objective as the teacher? What key elements are you trying to get your students to do and learn?

When you have decided the objectives of each lesson you can then begin to think about learning activities to ensure these objectives are met. At PlanBee, we write our intended outcomes as assessment questions - these can then be used to check the student's progress and understanding of the topic.

Materials 

What teaching materials and resources do you have at your disposal? What can you use, and how can you use them to benefit the learning experience for your students? Using different resources to adapt how the learning is shared throughout the lesson is a great way of ensuring your students are fully engaged.

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Content 

Knowing your lesson objectives, the materials and the teaching resources you have available puts you in a good place to begin to plan your lesson’s content. Planning your lesson’s content is more to do with how you teach, rather than what you teach. Here’s where it’s good to annotate, highlight, change or scribble around the edges of your plan if need be – make sure that the information you need at your fingertips when teaching can be seen clearly.

Secure subject knowledge is key, so include any information you want to cover when working with your students. Consistent use of language, particularly technical vocabulary, will help your students make sense of new ideas and remember information. So find a place on your plan to include keywords and phrases, even if you’re just scribbling them around the edge!

Make sure you include key questions, too. Breaking up your input with philosophical questions, dilemmas or questions about your students’ points of view is a great way to shake things up and ensure everyone is really thinking about the learning.

Learn more about the art of questioning

Stickability

Stickability is about figuring out the fundamental part of the lesson you need your students to take away. What key skills, knowledge or understanding do you want your students to grasp?

In short, what should ‘stick’ with your students, and how can you help them retain the information they’ve learnt? Try asking students what stuck with them, you might be surprised at some of the responses! Asking this is a great way of quickly assessing the learning for your lesson (and finding out what your students actually thought they were learning!), which leads us to…

Assessment

Finally, assessment will help you know how effective your lessons have been, and whether you’ve met your teaching objectives. Refer back to those learning outcomes – perhaps you could write assessment questions based on them (like we do!), or consider creating some ‘fun tests’ (surely an oxymoron?) to help you determine whether or not your lesson plans have been effective.

How to effectively plan and write a lesson plan

Ask your students questions before you start:

Before you start a new topic ask your class a few simple questions to assess their knowledge and understanding before you begin planning your lessons.

This will help you find out what they do and don’t already know, allowing you to decide how to structure your subsequent lessons. Take a survey, ask students to draw a mind map or write questions they have about a subject.

You can make these activities as fun as you like - just remember that you’re doing it to gain an insight into your student’s strengths and weaknesses about the subject you’re about to teach.

Be clear about what you want your students to learn during the lessons:

Carefully think about the time you have for the lessons, the level of understanding the students already have in the topic, and how much you think they can learn within the time frame. You want to push and challenge your students while also being mindful of their workload and avoiding having to rush content because you are running out of time.

Think about what you want your students to take away with them at the end of the lesson; what knowledge is essential for them to grasp? Carefully consider the topic and decide what is crucial for your students to understand.

Make a list of key points that cannot be left out:

What are the key points you’d like your students to take away from the lesson? Concentrate on those key points to ensure the lesson is a success and your students have retained the right level of information.

Put your key learning objectives in order of importance so that you know which ones need to be covered as a priority, and which ones could be looked at another time if you run out of time.

Begin with an activity that gets your students thinking to keep them engaged. For example, getting your students to work together via an interactive activity is a good way to introduce a new topic. Interactive teaching is fantastic for engaging students, and getting what they’re learning to stick, which brings us to…

Adding in elements of fun to break up the lessons:

Plan fun, engaging lessons to keep your students motivated and keen to learn. Think about things that could evoke their interest; a fascinating fact, a story, a video or a game.

Different students respond better to certain types of learning, so it is a good idea to come up with a variety of ways to explain the topic so you can cover all bases. This doesn’t need to be a chore! Include opportunities for students to debate, discuss, draw, mindmap, use sticky notes to move ideas around in a physical space, draw flow charts, act out, write mnemonics – even sing or rap!

These ideas require little more than pens and paper or space. You won’t have to spend time crafting bespoke resources, and you’ll be handing responsibility for the learning to your students – everyone wins!

Use real-life examples and stories:

Consider using real-life examples or stories to explain the topic. Ask questions to encourage students to empathise, or consider an idea from a personal perspective. Think about how to keep your students engaged, and what they might need to help them understand the topic better.

Assess the progress of your students:

Include assessment and mini-plenary questions throughout the lesson. These will tell you if your students are on track, and remind them what they are supposed to be learning.

Your students' responses will provide a very telling indication of whether or not they have retained what you have taught them.

One effective mini-plenary task is to ask students to summarise what they have learnt. Once you have concluded the lesson you can give them a preview of what the next lesson will be about, and how it relates, to help them fit concepts together and gain a broader understanding of the subject overall.

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Give yourself plenty of time:

Timing is so important when it comes to planning your lessons. Be realistic and always factor in unexpected disturbances into your lesson plan. It is easy to run out of time and finish the lesson feeling deflated because you didn’t cover all the topics you wanted to.

Try to estimate how long it will take for each activity, and then allow extra time for each one. In the same light it’s a good idea to have an ‘emergency activity’ just in case you underestimate and run out of things for the class to do. Make sure you leave enough time at the end of your lesson to answer any questions your students may have. Above all remember, anything can happen in the classroom!

Sometimes lessons do not go as planned, so try to be flexible and adaptable to your students’ needs. Lesson planning is not easy, and each lesson will be different from the last – don’t shy away from rewriting upcoming lessons if the one you’ve just taught hasn’t gone so well.

There will always be surprises, and to keep your lesson fresh and interesting you will need to be thoughtful, creative and put the effort in. Remember, for every lesson that doesn’t go to plan there will be hundreds that do! A great lesson is one where students are engaged and learn something of value.

Use movement breaks wisely

Physical movement is integral to effective learning. Be mindful of how long you expect your class to sit and learn quietly. This expectation will change depending on the age and needs of your students. Whether you have woven active learning opportunities into your lesson or need to stop the lesson briefly for some emergency movement, you will need to make time to bring the children back together and get them ready for the next part of the lesson. Getting the whole class (and adults) to do five big regulatory breaths together after a movement break can be a game changer.

Learn more about using movement to support active learning

Make your plenary count

A lesson plenary should bring your teaching of the lesson to a conclusion and inform your planning for the follow-up lesson. When planning your lesson, think about what you want the children to know by the end of it and how you will find this out. Use this knowledge to inform your mini-plenary and main plenary planning. 

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