Emergency Lesson Plans

Imagine the scene: you've had a call from the supply teacher agency, or from the school, at 8:45am, and, not hopeful of any work that day, you're still in bed! They didn't have time to tell you which year group on the phone and you just grab a banana and you're off. You arrive to find no planning. You've got just a couple of minutes to prepare for the first lesson, before the children come back from assembly, and then you'll be spending breaks/lunchtime preparing for further lessons. You have no passcode for the photocopier, and no resources. The teacher is at home ill, and cannot be contacted, and the TA has been away all week and doesn't know where they're up to, but tells you to keep an eye on little Tony as he's very excitable.

What do you do?

First of all - breathe!

Then, fire up the computer and click on www.supplybag.co.uk, go to In School, then Emergency Lesson Plans.

You could do worse than taking another breath now.

That's better.

Take a look at the table. Try to stick to the children's timetable as much as possible, where one is available. If not, you must do both literacy and numeracy, preferably in the morning, so click on the relevant year group and take a look. In the afternoon, I'd personally go for 'topic work', Science, History, Geography, or RE for an hour, with a PSHE and story thrown in for good measure before it's home time and you get an opportunity to breathe again.

You will hopefully appreciate the format of these 'lesson plans' when faced with the situation above.

These lesson plans written specifically with supply teachers in mind. They'll seem quite sketchy, open-ended and vague, but they are intended to be that way. They are lesson starters, rather than full lessons, as they can then be adapted in any way necessary to ensure the children in your care achieve the desired learning objectives. Many supply teachers will be looking for inspiration and ideas rather than full lesson plans, starting points that they can quickly and easily build a day's work out of, or just something to fill that extra half hour when assembly has been cancelled! Although by nature they are merely one-liners, please be assured that they are linked to specific learning objectives within the Primary National Strategy. The Literacy and Numeracy ideas are in fact based on the new Primary Framework for Literacy and Mathematics, which became available online in February 2007. I will further clarify learning objectives and references as time goes on. Quite refreshingly, virtually 100% of the lesson ideas are 100% resource-free. You don't need a photocopier passcode; you don't need a hundred different artefacts/measuring implements/charts/PowerPoint presentations/36 footballs and 36 PCs that actually will work. You just need the children to have pen/pencil and paper, and away you go! In that couple of minutes before the children come back from assembly, you could have clicked on the table of plans to find exactly what you need... a full lesson, relevant to the year group and all in one sentence, meaning you still have one more minute to digest it, open the Notepad on the Interactive Whiteboard, and write today's date and learning objective up for the children to copy down when they arrive, giving you another few minutes to gather your thoughts!

Good luck, and... breathe!

If you would like to add any ideas for other supply teachers to use, please contact us.