Lesson planning is something that a lot of new teachers worry about, and struggle with. There is no recipe for the perfect lesson, but successful lessons share many of the same features.

These can include:

• Clear learning objectives: Make the children aware of what they are doing, why they are doing it and what the bigger picture is. Use clear and simple language to let the children know what they will learn and what they will be able to do at the end.
• Links to previous learning: Retrieval task to recall what has been done before. Be explicit in how the learning links to prior work.
• A good start to the lesson: Start the lesson with a hook to immediately engage the children and get them interested in what they will be learning.
• Lesson activities: Match the activities to the learning outcomes. Provide a variety of activities and allow for both group and individual work. Pace the activities well so that the children stay engaged.
• Differentiation: Be aware of the range of abilities in the class, and prepare suitable tasks, scaffolding and questions where possible.
• Review the learning: Check what the children are learning throughout the lesson through mini-plenaries. Summarise everything in a plenary at the end of the lesson.
• Assessment: Use quick assessment tasks to check that the children are making progress through the lesson.

Learning objectives

Learning objectives describe what the children should know, understand or be able to do by the end of the lesson.

The learning objectives for a lesson should focus on two key areas of science:

1. Knowledge Outcomes: Key science ideas and concepts
2. Skills Outcomes: Skills related to working scientifically

Learning objectives put the lesson in context, letting the students understand how what they will be doing fits in with the bigger picture. Learning objectives can be displayed at the start of a lesson and explained to the children. They should be written in a language that is easily understood. Learning objectives can be reviewed during the plenary at the end of the lesson.

Effective learning objectives state what the children will learn in the lesson, rather than what they will do. For example, “To be able to explain how the phases of the moon are formed” or “Understand what a plant needs to stay healthy” are good examples of learning objectives.

There is a good argument for not sharing the detailed learning objective at the start of a science lesson, especially if you are doing practical work and want the students to discover something for themselves. If the objective is to discover that warm water makes sugar dissolve faster you don’t want to spoil the activity by revealing that before they start the practical. Perhaps share a brief objective – to learn about dissolving – and then ask the students to decide what the actual learning objective was.

I often see lessons where working scientifically objectives are not specified in the lesson plan. Working Scientifically skills for the two-year phase you’re teaching should be covered multiple times in that period. A quick tip I heard once at a conference is this: Print off the statements for the year you’re teaching and put them in the front of your planner. Every time you include one in a lesson, shade it lightly with a pencil. Review at the end of each term, you’ll get a good idea which statements you are hitting and which you haven’t touched yet! The CIEC produce a great guide to Working Scientifically with all the statements on one page you can print off (page 6).

Consider the cross-curricular links too. Does this lesson link to other subjects? Can you include Maths, English or Computing skills too?

Success Criteria

When you are planning, think about how the students will demonstrate that they have met the learning objectives. Make clear to them what they are expected to do and what good quality work will look like.

To make your success criteria effective, link them to the learning objectives. If you can, agree them with the children before they start the activity. The criteria should work as scaffolding for the children’s learning, and as the basis for feedback and self-assessment after activities.

Success criteria can be differentiated, and include activities that the entire class must complete and extra challenges for the more able children. For example, in an activity in which children draw and label diagrams of the solar system, you could ask everyone to describe the features of at least one planet, with more able children comparing the features of two planets.

A Good Starter

A good lesson starter should engage and motivate children immediately, providing a hook upon which the rest of the lesson hangs. The more engaging the hook, the more motivated the children will be during the remainder of the lesson.

You might start with a quick game or an interesting practical demonstration. You might show the children a thought-provoking photograph or poem to put the lesson into context. You could even use a letter or a short story to challenge them to solve a problem.

Some teachers like to use a recurring character with whom the children can build up a relationship. You might go so far as to use a glove puppet character to build up a story and pose a problem for the children to solve. When you put the investigation into context like this, you can the science seem more “alive” to the children.

Websites such as Explorify provide useful resources which can be great for a lesson starter.

Ideas for Starters

Mystery object: Show the children an object related to the lesson and ask them to come up with questions about it. Working in pairs, they can try to answer the questions, before sharing their ideas with the class.

Images: Display an image that will make the children think.  You could zoom in or hide most of the image and ask the children to guess what they think it is. Gradually reveal more of the image.

Odd one out: Present the children with words, phrases or images and ask the children to identify the odd one out, justifying their answers.

Video: Show a short video clip to introduce the lesson topic. Pose an interesting question about the video and have the children work in pairs to try to answer it.

Build on Prior Learning

Children will come to the lesson with lots of previous prior knowledge. Some may be correct, some may be misconceptions they hold. There may be work done in previous lessons, previous years or even other subjects, that will have a relevance to the work done in this lesson. I’ve produced a science route map that tries to show some of the links, download it here.

Can your starter provide a way of checking what they already know? This is especially important for the first lesson of a topic. Could they complete a spider diagram to show what they already know. Or explain what some of the keywords mean? How well they do in these tasks might help inform your planning for further lessons.

Lesson Activities

Begin planning a lesson with an overview of the main concept that you want to address, and then break that down into smaller chunks.

The best science activities will be interesting, relevant, and linked to the children’s own experiences.

A good science activity should enable children to:

• Physically interact with materials
• Develop their scientific ideas
• Develop their investigative skills
• Develop their scientific attitudes
• Work cooperatively and share ideas.

Consider the kinds of activities that would be most appropriate for the learning objectives. Vary the activities, rather than relying on the same types every lesson. For example:

• Careful observation of an object or objects
• Drawing, discussing and describing things that have been observed
• Using role-play to help understand ideas
• Planning and carrying out a science investigation
• Collecting and analysing data
• Sorting, sequencing or matching ideas or objects

Make sure you provide variety. For example, you could make some activities individual, and divide the class into pairs or groups for others.

Plenaries

At the end of the lesson, make sure there is time for some kind of plenary, a summing up of the lesson which should provide opportunities for the children to review and clarify what they have learned.

A good plenary should be short but focused. It should relate back to the learning objectives as well as the success criteria. Plenaries do not need to be very advanced. You could try “Tell your partner two things you now know about…” or “Write down three facts you have learnt about…”

Some teachers may use traffic lights or a thumbs-up/down systems of self-assessment in which the children can quickly demonstrate their level of understanding of the lesson concept.

Remember the Risk Assessment

If you are including any practical work or a demonstration, then a risk assessment is essential. Even if the assessment is that there is no risk.

Are you using any chemicals that might pose a risk? Consult CLEAPSS as a starting point. In addition, the ASE have a health and safety section of their site. Their book “Be Safe” is a great guide too. is there one in your staffroom already? If not, suggest they buy a copy.

Essential Ingredients (According to Ofsted)

Not to add any pressure, but according to Ofsted (2013), the essential ingredients of an outstanding lesson include:

• Children are engaged and motivated
• Independent learning is promoted
• Classroom management strategies are effective
• Activities are differentiated for different groups of learners
• Skills and content knowledge are delivered effectively
• The most able learners are challenged
• Technology is used to make an impact on learning
• Other adults are used effectively
• Collaborative learning and peer review is effective
• Assessment strategies develop progress in learning
• The criteria for success are shared with the children.

For additional support in planning for Science, this is a useful guide by Jasper Green.

Note: A version of this blogpost was originally written for Reach Out CPD. See the full version, and the rest of the course, here.