How to plan a teaching term
A term plan is a simple view of what you will teach, when students will practise and how you will check their learning. Start with the curriculum and your actual school calendar. Add assessments, then plan the units and lessons that help students prepare. Leave room for feedback and another go when learning takes longer.
You do not need every worksheet ready before the term begins. You need a clear direction and realistic dates. This guide uses a real Year 10 History unit as one part of a term. The downloads were made in TeaCheese Lite. We explain the Planning Wizard separately so you can choose the right tool.
Start with the time you really have
Write down your term dates and count the lessons available for this class. A week on the calendar is not always a full week of teaching. Include public holidays, camps, assemblies and school events. Check when reports and assessment results are due. Use your school’s term length rather than assuming every term has ten weeks.
- How many lessons will this class have each week?
- How long is each lesson?
- Which lessons are lost or shortened?
- When will students need feedback before their next task?
- Where can you leave some room to revisit difficult learning?
Keep this first calendar simple. A page with dates and short notes is enough. If your class has two lessons a week, a four week unit usually means eight planned lessons. Check the actual dates before relying on that number. A missed lesson may need a different teaching plan, not just another date in the calendar.
Choose what students need to learn
Use the correct curriculum source, version, subject and year level. Read the relevant content and standard wording together. Check your school’s plan so you know what came before this term and what will follow it. You are planning part of a learning sequence, not trying to squeeze the whole year into one term.
ACARA’s curriculum and assessment guidance explains how taught content and expected achievement connect. In your plan, keep the official wording and add a short note about the learning you will teach. A curriculum code helps you find an item. It does not replace reading that item.
Our History example uses selected parts of the Year 10 History achievement standard, with AC9HH10K04 and AC9HH10S08. It focuses on the Australian home front and writing with historical evidence. Other required History learning still needs a place in the wider school plan.
Put assessments in the right places
Choose what student work will show the learning. Read the task and marking guide before placing its date. Work back from what students must do. Make room to teach the knowledge, demonstrate the skills and give useful practice. The backward design guide shows this process with the same History files.
- Use a starting check to find out what students already know. This checks prior learning. You do not need to teach the answers first.
- Use short checks during teaching to see what needs more practice. These might be questions, a paragraph or a brief demonstration.
- Place a final task after students have had the teaching and practice it requires.
- For work that runs across several weeks, include the full working period and each checkpoint.
One unit can prepare students for more than one assessment. List each task, its purpose, conditions and date. Keep both tasks visible if they share a week. Ask whether the workload is realistic for students and for marking. Do not move a task simply to make a tidy calendar if that removes needed preparation or feedback.
Working with more than one task? See how to plan one unit around several assessments for separate Lite and Planning Wizard steps.
Turn the learning into units and lessons
Group related learning into units. Give each unit a clear focus, then order its lessons so students can build on what they know. ACARA’s sequencing guidance describes planning learning in a logical order while considering the teaching context. A busy list of activities is less useful than a clear path towards learning.
Write a short learning goal for each lesson or small group of lessons. Add a way for students to recognise successful work. AERO’s learning goals guidance explains how learning intentions and success criteria help make the goal clear. Use words your class understands while keeping the intended level of learning.
Plan what you will explain and model, what students will practise with support and what they will do independently. AERO’s explicit teaching guidance describes breaking new learning into manageable steps. Keep the lesson count and available time beside the sequence so it stays realistic.
Use the History example as one unit in your term
The real Lite example explores World War II and the Australian home front. Students examine women’s work, government controls, rationing, change and continuity. The unit has four weeks, with two 50 minute lessons each week. Its eight planned lessons lead towards an individual historical explanation of 400 to 500 words, completed in 50 minutes in Week 4.
- Before the unit, check prior knowledge and prepare the historical sources. Fit any other required learning around your school’s plan.
- In unit Week 1, build background knowledge and practise comparing sources about women’s work.
- In unit Week 2, explore rationing, labour direction and other government controls. Practise explaining connections.
- In unit Week 3, explore unequal experiences and organise a historical explanation.
- In unit Week 4, use feedback, check learning and complete the saved assessment.
- After the unit, review student work. Allow time for useful feedback and any learning that needs revisiting before moving on.
Read the final task alongside the marking guide and weekly teaching. Students need practice using evidence to explain and evaluate, not only remembering wartime events. Keep the rest of the term available for other required content, skills, tasks and review. The length of this example does not tell you how much of your own term is left.
Open the original History files
These Word files came from TeaCheese Lite on 20 October 2026. They are editable application exports, not a newly written term plan. The marking guide is included in the assessment copies. Open the full unit example and blank unit template for more detail.
Download one History unit and its connected resources
Open the original Lite Word files. No account or email is needed. These examples cover one unit within a term.
History unit plan
Four weeks with a final World War II task in Week 4. First World War practice appears earlier. Add your own detail to the shorter lesson descriptions.
Student assessment and marking guide
A World War II explanation with three sections, 400 to 500 words and 50 supervised minutes. Includes the A to E guide.
Teacher copy and marking guide
The original teacher copy includes the marking guide, 4Cs notes, curriculum links and model responses.
Lesson example on comparing sources
Lesson 2 names a photograph, employment table and recruitment poster. Prepare the actual sources and a worked example that uses two of them.
Lesson example on using feedback
Lesson 7 reviews earlier First World War writing, then revisits World War II knowledge. Prepare the passages, retrieval questions and answers.
Check the fit for your class
Check reading level, vocabulary, equipment and access before the term starts. A lesson that needs a source pack is not ready until you have that pack. A plan that names a photograph does not supply the photograph or its permission to use. Prepare accurate sources and check that students can use them in the time available.
Plan support from the start. Students may need a glossary, a model paragraph, guided reading or another way to access the material. ACARA’s guidance on including all learners explains why planning should respond to learners’ needs. Choose support that helps students take part without losing the intended learning or year level.
Use Lite for a set of resources
In TeaCheese Lite, describe what you need and review the curriculum and resource before downloading. For this History example, the saved assessment and its marking guide informed the unit. The unit then supplied the context for the lessons. Open the files together to see the connection between what students learn and what the task asks them to do.
These Lite resources do not automatically fill a Planning Wizard curriculum map, term plan or coverage report. You can use the files with your own planning documents. Keep your school dates and wider term plan alongside them. This article does not show a completed Planning Wizard plan.
Use the Planning Wizard for connected planning
The Planning Wizard connects curriculum maps, marking guides, assessments, units and lessons within the planning workspace. Choose the curriculum for the map, select the assessment links and plan the teaching around the tasks and dates. A unit can use several compatible assessments. Review the schedule when tasks share a week or units run alongside each other.
Use the workspace to keep those planning links visible. Its coverage view helps you review planned assessment links. It does not prove that every lesson was taught or that students achieved a standard. The History downloads above are a separate Lite example, not evidence of a saved Wizard term plan. See how the unit planner connects the work.
Look for gaps and useful practice
Read across the term once the units and tasks are in place. Look for required learning with no teaching time, tasks with too little preparation and repeated work that adds little. Keep practice that has a clear purpose. Students may meet the same skill several times as the task becomes more demanding. Repetition alone is not a problem.
Keep planned, taught and assessed learning clear in your notes. After a lesson, record what students could do and what needs another look. Adjust the next lessons using that evidence. The curriculum coverage guide explains this review and keeps Lite examples separate from Wizard coverage.
A quick check before the term begins
- The dates and lesson times match the school calendar.
- The selected learning fits the correct curriculum and school plan.
- Every assessment has a clear purpose, date and preparation time.
- Units and lessons build the knowledge and skills students need.
- Resources and learning support can be ready when they are needed.
- There is time for feedback, review and changes as students learn.
Your plan can stay simple and still be useful. Give yourself a clear starting point, keep the learning visible and adjust as the term unfolds. The aim is a plan you can teach from, not a document that takes longer to maintain than it saves.
Sources and further reading
- Aligning curriculum and assessment, Australian Curriculum. Page date not stated. Accessed 21 October 2026.
- Sequencing learning, Australian Curriculum. Page date not stated. Accessed 2 September 2026.
- Including all learners, Australian Curriculum. Page date not stated. Accessed 2 September 2026.
- Explain learning objectives, Australian Education Research Organisation. Updated 31 March 2025. Accessed 2 September 2026.
- Teach explicitly, Australian Education Research Organisation. Updated 31 March 2025. Accessed 2 September 2026.