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Session 1. From Standard and Textbook to a Year Plan
Objective. Map a textbook to the state standard, find gaps and extras, and build a year overview that fits the real number of lessons with a buffer.
A year plan is the cheapest tool in teaching and the one most often skipped. Without it, the first chapters get too much time and the last ones get squeezed in May. With a one-page overview you see, in September, which outcomes need the most lessons, where the textbook leaves gaps and how many lessons you really have. This lesson goes deeper than the key ideas: how to read a standard honestly, and how to turn the calendar into a plan you can defend.
Key ideas
Three layers of the curriculum
- The standard says what pupils must learn and be able to do. The textbook is one way to teach it. Your year plan decides when and how much.
- When the two disagree, the standard wins. The textbook serves the standard, not the other way round.
- Level 1 taught you to plan one lesson (course 5.2). Here you plan the term and the year around it.
Map the textbook to the standard
- Write the standard outcomes down one side and the textbook chapters across the top. Tick where a chapter really teaches an outcome.
- A row with no tick is a GAP: you must plan it yourself. A chapter with no tick is EXTRA: shorten it or use it as optional reading.
- Be honest: a chapter that mentions a topic does not always teach the outcome at the level the standard asks.
Count the real lessons
- Start from the school calendar, not the textbook. Weeks in the year, minus breaks, Navruz, exam weeks and school events, times lessons per week.
- Keep a buffer of about 10 percent for reteaching, tests and surprises. Lessons are lost every year, so plan for it.
- If the textbook asks for more lessons than you have, decide what to shorten before the year starts, not in March.
Weight by importance and write one page
- Give more lessons to essential outcomes and to ideas that later units depend on. Give fewer to nice-to-know chapters.
- Write a one-page year overview: units in order, lessons for each, the outcomes they serve, and the buffer weeks.
- Review it each term. A year plan is a working document, not a promise carved in stone.
From standard to year overview
Reading a standard honestly
A standard is written in broad sentences, and a chapter title can look like a match when it is not. Read each outcome and underline the verb and the content. 'Explain how water changes state' needs more than a page that names three states of water: pupils must give reasons. Then ask what the textbook asks pupils to do on that topic. If it asks them to copy a diagram, the chapter covers the content but not the verb.
Mark partial matches with a half tick. Half ticks are your most useful finding: they show where you must add a task, not a whole chapter. A short chapter plus one added explanation task is usually better than rewriting everything.
From calendar to defensible plan
Start with the calendar and count lessons by week, not by month, because months hide breaks. Write the lost weeks in a column: holidays, Navruz, exam weeks, school events, sports days. Some losses repeat every year, so use last year's real number, not an ideal one. Subtract about one lesson in ten as a buffer.
When the textbook has more lessons than you do, cut by importance, not from the end. Rank outcomes: essential for later units, essential for the standard, supporting. Shorten supporting chapters first, and give the saved lessons to gaps. Write one sentence of reason beside each cut. When the head of studies asks, you can answer in one minute.
Examples from the classroom
The half tick in Fergana
Scene. Aziz teaches Grade 7 geography in Fergana. Mapping the textbook, he finds that the chapter on climate lists temperatures but never asks pupils to use them. The standard says 'explain how climate affects farming'. He gives the chapter a half tick, keeps its 5 lessons and adds one 40-minute lesson in which pupils compare cotton and wheat needs with the climate table.
Insight. A half tick shows exactly where to add one task, instead of replacing a whole chapter.
Seventy-two lessons, fifty available
Scene. Dilnoza in Samarkand has 34 school weeks and 2 lessons a week, but 6 weeks are lost to breaks, Navruz and exams. She has 56 lessons, keeps 6 as buffer and plans 50. The book suggests 72. She ranks chapters, shortens the chapter of animal records from 8 lessons to 2 and writes one reason for each cut.
Insight. Counting the real lessons first turns an impossible plan into a set of clear choices.
A gap nobody had named
Scene. Malika in Tashkent maps a Grade 6 science textbook and finds that the outcome 'plan a fair test' has no chapter. Colleagues say it is covered in the practical pages, but those pages tell pupils exactly what to do. She adds three lessons in which pupils design their own test with a plant and a window.
Insight. A gap only appears when you compare the standard with the book line by line.
Common pitfalls
- Counting lessons from the textbook instead of from the school calendar.
- Treating a chapter that mentions a topic as covering the outcome.
- Cutting the last chapters because they are last, not because they matter least.
- Writing a perfect year plan once and never revising it at the end of each term.
Build a Year Overview
- Open the Activity Kit: a SAMPLE standard (8 outcomes, A to H) and a SAMPLE Grade 6 natural science textbook (10 chapters with suggested lessons). Calendar: 34 weeks, 6 lost, 2 lessons a week.
- Pairs (10 min): map chapters to outcomes. Mark every GAP and every EXTRA. Calculate how many lessons you really have and how many to keep as buffer.
- Pairs (10 min): fill the planning grid: lessons per unit, which outcomes each serves, what you shorten and what you add for gaps. The total must match your count.
- Groups (10 min): compare with another pair. Agree on the three hardest choices and say how you would explain them to a colleague or the head of studies.
- Alone (5 min): write your classroom action task from the Kit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which outcome had no chapter? What would you do about it in practice?
- How did the real number of lessons change your first idea of the plan?
- Which chapter will you shorten in your own year plan, and what will the time be used for?
Reflect
- Have you ever run out of time before the end of the book? Which part suffered?
- Which standard outcome do you suspect the textbook only touches?
- Who should see your year overview before the term starts?
Try it tomorrow
- Count the real lessons you have until the end of this term, including likely losses.
- Choose one unit and mark each page of it with a full tick, a half tick or no tick against the standard.
- Write the year overview of your next term on one page and show it to a colleague.
Further reading and links
Start from the standard and the real calendar, map the textbook, name the gaps, and keep a buffer.