Planning a school year

1 Start with the calendar

Everything else in your plan depends on the days you have. Get your district's calendar for the year and copy the fixed dates onto one page before you think about content. A school year planner shows the whole year at a glance, and the school calendar maker builds a printable calendar with your own dates.

• The first and last day for students.
• School holidays and breaks on your district calendar.
• Teacher workdays and professional development days.
• Early release days and late starts.
• The end of each grading period and the report card dates.
• Family conference dates.
• State and district testing windows.
• School events that take a day or a morning: field trips, assemblies, picture day, field day.

Mark these in one color. Everything you add later, units, assessments and projects, goes around them. When a new date arrives during the year, add it to the same page so the whole picture stays in one place.

2 Count the days you will really teach

The number of school days on the calendar is not the number of days you will teach new content. Some days are lost to testing, assemblies, the first week of routines, the last week of the year, and the unexpected days that every school has. Plan with the smaller number, and the year will feel less rushed.

1. Count the student days in each quarter or grading period from the calendar.
2. Subtract the testing days and the days with events that take most of the day.
3. Subtract the first week, which goes to routines and getting to know the class.
4. Subtract the last week or two, which go to end-of-year activities and packing up.
5. Subtract one buffer week per quarter for the unexpected.
6. What remains is your planning number for each quarter.

Write the planning number for each quarter at the top of that quarter on your year planner. It is the budget you will spend on units.

3 Map your units across the year

Next, lay out the units for each subject. Start with what your school expects you to teach: the curriculum materials, the standards for your grade, and any pacing guide your district provides. If your school sets the order and the pacing, follow it and use this step to see how the units fit your calendar.

1. List the units for one subject in the order you will teach them.
2. Estimate the number of teaching days each unit needs, including its assessment.
3. Place the units on the year planner, filling each quarter up to its planning number.
4. Repeat for each subject, and look across subjects for units that fit well side by side, such as a science unit on plants alongside nonfiction reading.
5. Check that each unit ends before a grading deadline, not across one.

Use a unit planning page for each unit: the goals, the main lessons, the assessment, the materials and the vocabulary. You don't need every lesson written in July. A one-page outline per unit is enough to start, and you fill in the lessons a week or two ahead.

If you have taught the grade before, start from last year's plan and your notes on what took longer than expected. If you are new to the grade, ask a colleague for their year plan. Most teachers are glad to share.

4 Pacing and buffer weeks

Pacing is the hardest part of a year plan to get right, because you can't know in July how quickly a class will learn. Build in room to adjust from the start, rather than hoping you won't need it.

• Leave one buffer week in each quarter, with nothing new planned. Use it to catch up, reteach, or extend a unit that is going well.
• Put the buffer week just before a grading deadline, where a delay hurts most.
• Mark the units you could shorten if you fall behind, and the ones you can't.
• Mark a few lessons as optional, so you know what to drop first.
• Plan the weeks just before and after long breaks lightly. Many classes need review after a break.

When you fall behind, decide early what to cut, rather than racing through everything. It is better to teach most of the units well than all of them in a hurry. Talk to your team or your mentor before cutting anything the next grade depends on.

5 Assessments and report periods

Put assessments on the plan as soon as the units are placed, working backward from each grading deadline. A test the day before grades are due leaves no time to grade it, reteach or let a student who was absent make it up.

• Schedule each unit assessment at least a week before the end of the grading period.
• Space big assessments so two subjects don't test on the same day, especially in the upper grades.
• Plan quick checks inside each unit, such as exit tickets, so the unit test holds no surprises.
• Leave time after each unit test to reteach before the next unit starts.
• Mark when report card comments are due, and plan a lighter week for yourself before that date.
• Mark family conference dates, and plan to gather work samples the week before.

Follow your school's grading policy for how many grades each subject needs per period and what counts toward them. If it asks for a certain number of grades, spread them through the period instead of collecting them all at the end.

When report card time comes, a bank of report card comments and the grade calculator save hours.

6 From the year to the month to the week

A year plan is only useful if it reaches your weekly planning. Work down in three steps, each on its own page.

1. The year: units and fixed dates on the school year planner. You check it once a month.
2. The month: a monthly calendar grid for each month with the units, assessments and events. You fill it in at the start of the month.
3. The week: a weekly lesson plan grid or a lesson plan template with each day's lessons. You fill it in the week before.

Each Friday, look at next week against the month: are you where you planned to be? If not, decide now whether to use buffer time or shorten something, before the gap grows.

Keep the three levels in one place, a binder or one folder on your computer, so you never have to search for the plan. Many teachers keep the year planner on the inside cover where they see it every day.

7 The rhythm of a school year

A school year has seasons, and planning for them makes each one smoother. These are the patterns most teachers learn to plan around.

• The first weeks: routines first, content second. Plan lighter units for the start, and teach how the room works.
• The fall: the longest stretch of steady teaching. Put your most important units here.
• Before and after long breaks: attention drops before a break and routines slip after it. Plan review and a short routine reset for the first days back.
• Testing season: lessons are interrupted and students are tired. Plan review, shorter lessons and more movement.
• The last weeks: finish the last unit early, then use the time for projects, review and reflection on the year.

Plan a few things to look forward to across the year: a project, a class event, a field trip. They help students and you through the long stretches, and they give the year a shape that students remember.

Plan your own workload too. Mark the weeks when report cards, conferences and big assessments land close together, and keep the lessons in those weeks simple. A week of well-worn lessons you have taught before is a kindness to yourself when the grading pile is at its highest.

8 Check in monthly and reflect at the end

A year plan is a draft. Check it once a month and change it when the class needs something different. The point is to make good decisions early, not to follow the plan exactly.

• Are you on pace for the end of the quarter? If not, what will you shorten?
• Which unit is taking longer than planned, and why?
• Are any students falling behind in a way the plan should change for?
• Are the next month's assessments still before the grading deadline?
• What have you added to the calendar since last month?

Write notes in the margin of your year plan as you go: what took longer, what was too easy, what you would move. At the end of the year, spend an hour with those notes and adjust the plan for next year while you still remember. A weekly teacher reflection on Fridays makes the end-of-year review quick.

Next year's plan then starts from this one, and planning the second year takes a fraction of the time the first one did. Keep each year's plan, with its notes, in the same binder or folder, so you can see how your pacing has changed over several years.