Can research tell you how to plan your lessons? Some argue that it can, but the reality, as ever, is nuanced. 

While studies can provide some key principles that act as “best bets”, these should never be applied uncritically.

To be clear, there is no formula for the perfect lesson; lesson planning is individual. 

However, I have found these six key research findings - when approached with recognition of their limitations - to be a useful starting point to support better and more efficient planning.

1. Review prior learning

Barak Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction have been subject to criticism over the years, with detractors arguing that the principles oversimplify complex research and push teachers towards a “drill and practice” model of instruction. 

While the principles do have their limitations - Rosenshine himself explained they would not necessarily suit teaching in all subjects, at all times - I view his recommendation to include a review of prior learning in every lesson as very sensible. 

When planning a review of prior learning, think carefully about what your class needs more practice in. It is unlikely that different classes will experience identical challenges, so you need to tailor it really closely to the needs of the pupils in front of you. 

Centrally resourced materials such as knowledge organisers can support teachers in identifying the most critical knowledge to secure in recaps.

However, these tools should never be a substitute for properly diagnosing the gaps that a specific class is experiencing. 

You might plan a quick five-question quiz, each question requiring a one-word answer, or a “gap fill”, or a true-or-false activity.

Ideally, this should take no more than seven minutes to complete and go over as a class. 

Using a recap of prior learning will help pupils begin to remember more core knowledge about your subject, which in turn will help them to acquire new knowledge as they will have something to “stick” the new knowledge to. 

Hopefully, this means you will never hear the terrifying Year 11 comment “we’ve never done that before” as you introduce what you thought was a one-off revision activity on something you taught them yourself just last year.

2. Optimise cognitive demands

John Sweller’s work on cognitive load is another theory that is often accused of being oversimplified and applied with a lack of nuance.

However, the central idea at the core of Sweller’s theory is still useful for planning.

It suggests that our working memory can only manage a limited amount of information at one time, and so teachers need to think in terms of the “load” they are placing on students’ processing capacity during lessons: is it too high, too low or just right?

As psychology teacher and cognitive neuroscientist Michael Hobbiss explained previously in Tes, it’s helpful to “imagine attention as a pint glass that we always have to fill”.

“If we don’t fill it with task-relevant information,” he says, “then the remainder will automatically be topped up by other stimuli from the environment”.

‘There is, as Doug Lemov points out, a crucial difference between “I taught it” and “they learned it”’

There’s a lot more to load theory than this, but the key takeaway for planning is that teachers must be mindful of overloading pupils with information while also providing appropriate levels of challenge.

As the Education Endowment Foundation explains: “Managing cognitive load is not so much about reducing the amount of content covered as taking some of the strain off children’s cognitive capacity so that it can be directed specifically towards the learning goal.

“Optimising cognitive load in this way can sometimes involve increasing challenge or providing pupils with further contextual knowledge.”

When you are planning, consider how many new ideas you are introducing in your lesson.

If it seems to be a lot, think about how you can connect ideas closely with things you are confident pupils already know well, and then chunk those new ideas and break them down over the course of the lesson.

The EEF also notes that the use of worked examples, scaffolds and schema-based supports can be effective in reducing cognitive load and boosting outcomes - so it is worth considering working these into your lesson plan. 

3. Revisit your own curriculum knowledge

Johannes Metzler and Ludger Woessmann found in a 2012 paper that strong teacher subject knowledge leads to improved pupil outcomes.

Why? Because teaching isn’t just presenting pupils with material. There is, as Doug Lemov points out in The Coach’s Guide To Teaching, a crucial difference between “I taught it” and “they learned it”.

For example, I once covered a colleague’s Year 9 physics lesson. He had a teacher-made textbook expertly written to lead the children through their new knowledge.

All the same, the lesson was not successful. The pupils had questions about the material I just couldn’t answer because my knowledge was (humiliatingly, perhaps) not strong enough.

In my own planning, as an English teacher, it took me far too long to work out that the most impactful thing I could do before a lesson was to read the part of the book we would study together carefully and annotate it with my thoughts, working out the key bits I wanted to draw pupils’ attention to. 

The more rich and detailed your own knowledge, the better prepared you will be to manage pupil learning and address misconceptions.

This doesn’t mean you need to have a PhD or additional further education related to the topic. Indeed, the curse of knowledge can be tricky to shake - aspects we take for granted can seem unspeakably complex to our novice learners.

Rather than subject knowledge, deep curriculum knowledge is the key for teachers to prepare their lessons effectively.

4. Plan for questioning

Another Rosenshine principle advocates that teachers ask a large number of questions during lessons and check the responses of all pupils. 

Clearly, questioning is vital so that teachers know how much of the material pupils understand.

You might think that questioning can’t be planned, that it’s an on-the-hoof activity used responsively in the classroom. 

In fact, while reactive questioning is important, it is also vital to plan the key questions you will ask as part of your lesson preparation.

As you go through the material for the lesson, think through key aspects you’ll want to check your pupils have understood, aspects of prior learning you’ll want to ask pupils to connect, or things you might want to ask pupils to provide an example of to demonstrate their understanding.

5. Plan for misconceptions

Closely linked to questioning, formative assessment, as written about extensively by Dylan Wiliam, is a complex process.

However, it can be loosely summed up as activities undertaken by pupils that provide information to teachers, which teachers then use to modify their teaching to ensure pupils learn more.

When you plan your lessons, you’ll want to be mindful of when you are going to check if pupils understand but you’ll also want to have an idea of how you might respond if they don’t.

So, after you’ve planned your questions, as above, you might think: what next? If I do a whole-class response and they haven’t understood, then what?

‘Deep curriculum knowledge is the key for teachers to prepare their lessons effectively’

Digging into pupil misconceptions will be important; it isn’t usually enough to do the same thing again and expect them to suddenly understand.

Sometimes, it won’t be possible to respond in the moment to very complex misconceptions, but you can make a note as you teach to adapt your next lesson’s planning to cover off anything that didn’t land as you might have hoped in that day’s lesson. 

The success of your formative assessment hinges on identifying the most critical knowledge you need pupils to understand.

Having clarity on this before you start any unit - knowing the central concepts, facts, ideas and skills - will support your planning to ensure pupils grasp these.

6. Break practice down

K Anders Ericsson suggests that pupil performance can be improved as a result of carefully designed deliberate attempts to improve.

In other words, focused work that forces pupils to do things with their knowledge and improve their skill in a particular situation.

Ericsson’s work on deliberate practice has come under some criticism for not having the same impact in replication studies.

However, Ericsson himself has addressed this, explaining that his original study has often been misinterpreted.

He also worked with American organisation Deans for Impact to produce a document describing how teachers can “practise with a purpose and incorporate many of the aspects of deliberate practice”.

Whatever you’re teaching your pupils, think carefully about the tasks you’re going to get them to do to secure and practise new learning.

Most often, but not always, deliberate practice will look different from the final “performance”.

Such final tasks are usually complex composites; instead, pupils need to practise the individual components. 

For example, if pupils will write an essay in their assessment, deliberate practice will not be to write a whole essay. Instead, students should practise tasks that, taken together, support a strong essay.

In English, for example, constituent parts of an essay might include choosing suitable quotations; writing a topic sentence that explains a main idea clearly; and identifying key words in a quotation.

None of these aspects is the end goal for pupils but each is a small stepping stone on the path to the eventual “performance” of writing a great essay. 

Jo Facer is a former headteacher and the head of the National Professional Qualifications faculty at the National Institute of Teaching