In recent years we have become frustrated by the narrow focus on outstanding lessons and simplistic notions of progression in official guidance for schools, especially from the inspectorate in England. As experienced secondary teachers we recognise that deep learning takes place over time, and that progression has to be planned for. And yet we also recognise that medium-term planning is difficult for many student teachers and is a relatively under-explored area in initial teacher education text books. In order to address this relative silence we interviewed a number of experienced teachers and teacher educators about their own medium-term planning and explored one of their schemes of work. On the basis of these interviews and our literature review we developed the 5A’s model to analyse the processes that underpin teachers’ planning and to explain to student teachers how to construct their own medium-term plans. Our model has been designed to enable teacher educators (both at university and in school) to address this area more explicitly with new teachers. In this presentation we present the model, explain the rationale for presenting it in this way to student teachers, and illustrate the stages with reference to some of our data.

The presentation discusses the nature of teacher knowledge being employed during the planning process (subject curriculum and pedagogic knowledge), and also presents knowledge of the process of planning as an essential aspect of professional knowledge.

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