How it works
The three things that break the plan
Tuesday, late
You were up until one, and this morning you slept through the alarm.
Thursday, four o’clock
Somebody needs you from four until nine, and it is not up to you.
Saturday, two o’clock
A friend is not okay and asks if you can come over.
Each one goes up on the board, and each time students fix the plan on the same sheet.
The lesson opens with two minutes of private writing about the last time students made a revision timetable, how long it lasted, and what happened to it. Most students give a similar answer, and the rest of the lesson builds on that.
The slides then set out the rules for the plan. Sessions are small and named, one slot is left empty on purpose, and you only plan the next week. Each student then plans the seven days ahead on the sheet, in pencil. For the weeks after the lesson, The Week Sheet is a one-page timetable with a spare slot printed on every day.
Next, the slides add three problems one at a time: a late night, then a lost evening, then a friend in trouble. After each one, students repair their plan on the sheet. At the end they look at which sessions survived all three, and these turn out to be the small, named ones.
Some students have no free evenings at home, and some have nowhere quiet to work. The sheet is theirs and is not collected, and the slides say so. The spare slot is there so that a plan can lose an evening and still work.
A look inside
Get the lesson
One sheet per student to print. The lesson is an hour, and the last slide is a two-minute check-in to bring back on the following Mondays for as long as it is useful.
The lesson slides
Seventeen slides: the lesson, then a two-minute Monday check-in slide to use in the weeks after.
Download Printable PDFTeacher resource pack
Three pages: the guide, the week sheet to print one per student, and the Monday check-in cards.
DownloadNew resources are added as they are made. Leave your email and you will get one email each time something new goes up, and nothing else.
Thank you. A confirmation email is on its way to you, and once you click the link in it, you will be on the list.
Sorry, that did not go through. Please try again, or email thepastoralguide@gmail.com and I will add you by hand.
There are no newsletters, and your address is never shared. How your details are handled.
This is free to download, the same as everything else here. If it saved you some prep time, you’re welcome to leave something toward the site’s running costs.
Support the site