x Middle Leaders

Middle Leaders: Monitoring Planning

Why should I monitor planning?
As a middle leader, your role will involve contributing to the school improvement plan, either as a subject, phase or
key stage leader. Monitoring and evaluating planning will help you to gain an insight into how teachers are developing
children’s learning journeys and how skills and knowledge are built upon across lessons, terms and year groups. You may
choose to look at one subject area across the whole school, across a key stage or in a year group. You may look at long-,
medium- or short-term planning. No matter what sample of planning you choose to monitor, you will be looking to build a
picture of children’s progress, how they are supported or challenged and how learning is assessed. It is always useful to
look at any planning alongside the relevant children’s exercise books to see how the planning has been put into practice
during lessons; it’s even better if you can also include a chance to speak with the teachers who planned and delivered
the lessons.

How do I monitor planning?

How you decide to monitor planning will be determined
by the context of your individual school. Teachers may
save plans on a central network or drive for you to
access as required, or you may need to ask teachers to
submit printed plans for you to look at. In any instance,
you will need to determine the focus for monitoring
the planning before you begin: it could be linked to
a priority in the school improvement plan, an area for
development identified through previous monitoring,
based on feedback from an Ofsted inspection or linked
to an identified concern.
Once you have determined your focus, you should
select the sample of planning to look at. This will
be for one subject or a specific area within a subject,
for a determined period of time, for a selected year
group, phase, key stage or across the whole school.
For example, as science coordinator, you may choose
to look at science planning for the ‘Animals, including
humans’ programme of study across the whole school
for the spring term. As maths lead, you might focus on
how reasoning has been taught in upper key stage two
during the previous week.
Having selected your focus and sample of planning,
your next step is to select the questions you want to
answer by looking at the planning. These should relate
directly to your focus. Some suggested questions are
listed below.
Finally, you will be ready to monitor and evaluate your
selected planning and books. Make notes about what
you have seen and collate your findings into strengths
and areas of development and further or follow-up
questions. Present this in a suitable format to share with
colleagues, leaders, governors, Ofsted inspectors and
to keep as part of your own leadership records.

Questions to ask when monitoring planning

• Does the planning cover all of the programmes
of study?
• Is there evidence of learning outcomes, success
criteria and next steps in the planning?
• Is there clear progression across the learning
journey?
• Does the planning build upon previously gained
knowledge and skills?
• Are connections between previous and new
learning made?
• Does the planning demonstrate progression
from the previous term, year or key stage?
• Does the planning take into account support for
children that require it?
• Does the planning show suitable challenge for
children?
• Does the planning move through the learning
sequence at a suitable pace?
• Do the planned activities relate to the identified
learning outcomes?
• Does the planning illustrate progress within
lessons; over a half term; over a year; over a key
stage?
• Is there evidence of planned assessment
opportunities?
• Is there evidence of assessment informing
future planning?

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 x Middle Leaders

Planning Monitoring and Evaluation Record Sheet

Template
Date: Carried out by:

Planning Monitoring and Evaluation Record

Sample selected:

Main focus:

Questions:

Strengths:

Areas for development:

Follow-up questions:

Further actions:

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