How to write a lesson plan for primary school (with structure and examples)

Lesson planning sits in an interesting place in the teaching profession. Do too little and you're underprepared; do too much and you've spent four hours writing a plan for a lesson that will take thirty minutes. Most experienced teachers end up somewhere in the middle — enough structure to teach well, light enough to adapt in the moment.

Here is a practical guide to writing a lesson plan that does its job without taking over your evening.

What a lesson plan is for

A lesson plan is a tool for teaching, not a document for an observer. Its purpose is to help you teach the lesson well — to have thought through the sequence, the questions, the likely misconceptions, and the moments where you'll need to check understanding before you're standing in front of the class.

Plans that are written for observers tend to be long, detailed, and not particularly useful in the classroom. Plans that are written to help you teach tend to be shorter, more focused, and more genuinely useful.

What to include

Learning objective — one clear statement of what pupils will understand or be able to do by the end of the lesson. Not what you will teach, but what they will learn. “Pupils will be able to multiply a two-digit number by a one-digit number using the grid method” is a learning objective. “To teach multiplication” is not.

Key vocabulary — the words pupils will need to understand and use in this lesson. Worth listing because it forces you to think about whether you've taught the vocabulary, not just assumed it.

Input / teaching sequence — how you will introduce the learning. Brief, sequenced, noting key questions and examples. This is the most important part of the plan.

Activities — what pupils will do to practise or apply the learning. Include differentiation notes.

Assessment — how you will know if pupils have understood. An exit ticket question, a targeted observation, a specific check-in.

What you'll need — resources, equipment, interactive whiteboard content. Worth noting because forgetting something is worse than over-preparing.

What to leave out

Anything that you wouldn't actually look at during the lesson. Long paragraphs of rationale. Full transcripts of what you'll say. Evidence-writing that serves the plan as a document rather than the lesson as a learning experience.

A note on planning for your class, not against an observer

The best piece of advice about lesson planning: plan for the thirty children in front of you, not for the person who might walk in. Those two things often align — a well-planned lesson for your class is also a well-planned lesson by any reasonable standard. But the focus matters.