Lesson planning
This blog is response to a request from a colleague who is new to teaching - how do you cope with lesson planning?! For me, this is my favourite part of the job. I love planning lessons as it is the one time I get to be creative rather than encouraging creativity in others. But I still get into the position of overwhelm very easily, and that is with a lot of years of teaching. There are so many elements to a good lesson, that it’s hard to codify exactly what you should do, and it is certainly a skill you develop over time. Your lesson plans become reflective of you as a teacher, but it is pure experience that gets you to that point. So what follows is designed to be a starting point, not a definitive list. Step 1: What is the purpose of this lesson? This has to be the key starting point. It is easy to get swept up in great ideas that will be fun and engaging to do, but it they don’t actually support the things they need to learn then you are entertaining and not teaching! So start wi