Planning for learning

From the teacher's perspective, it means sharing learning objectives with the learners so that everyone in the classroom understands what should be achieved. It is planning to meet the needs of all learners and differentiate for the various ability groups. Teachers track the progress of learning, as it happens, by noticing what the learners do and say, and what they write in their books.

From the perspective of the learners, this approach sometimes feels uncomfortable because it requires them to move from a state of not knowing to a state of knowing, often by doing a task that looks difficult, at least at first. Learners may be more used to being told what to do and to work individually. The planning for learning approach often uses active learning tasks and involves pair work or group work, and it emphasises higher-order skills such as justifying, explaining and making connections. It means learners take responsibility for their learning, rather than viewing it as something done to them. For example, they constantly assess themselves and their peers against the success criteria of the lesson.