Long Range Planning (LRP)
What is Long Range Planning?
Long Range Plans (LRPs), often referred to as Year Plans, are documents that are prepared at the beginning of a school term or year and outline what a teacher will teach or cover in the course being taught. According to the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (2009), "one of the responsibilities of a teacher is to complete a long term plan each year" (p. 2). This is as true in Alberta as it is in Ontario. And by so doing, "it enables teachers to ensure that the curriculum for their grade/subject is covered and assists the principal to monitor classroom activities" (p.2).
There is no right way or wrong way to complete LRPs. Plans "can be written by the individual teacher, by team, by department level or by grade level. There is no prescriptive format to follow when creating your long term plan" (2). There are, however, a number of components that I would recommend a teacher include in his/her LRPs. This is because our ability to plan, as teachers in the province of Alberta, relates directly to whether or not our professional practice is in keeping with the Teaching Quality Standard (Ministerial Order 16/97). In order to do that, I recommend that LRPs consist of the components listed below.
There is no right way or wrong way to complete LRPs. Plans "can be written by the individual teacher, by team, by department level or by grade level. There is no prescriptive format to follow when creating your long term plan" (2). There are, however, a number of components that I would recommend a teacher include in his/her LRPs. This is because our ability to plan, as teachers in the province of Alberta, relates directly to whether or not our professional practice is in keeping with the Teaching Quality Standard (Ministerial Order 16/97). In order to do that, I recommend that LRPs consist of the components listed below.
What do Long Range Plans need to consist of?
According to the Ministerial Order 16/97 Teaching Quality Standard Applicable to the Provision of Basic Education of Alberta (1997), "teachers engage in a range of planning activities. Teachers' plans are founded in their understanding of contextual variables and are a record of their decisions on what teaching and learning strategies to apply. Plans outline a reasoned and incremental progression toward the attainment of desired outcomes, for both teachers and students. Teachers monitor the context, their instruction, and monitor and assess students' learning on an ongoing basis, and modify their plans accordingly" (p. 5).
Because of this mandate, it's important for teachers to outline what they will teach during a course and how that teaching will relate to the outcomes in the Program of Studies for that particular course. Teach For America Inc. (2011) made an interesting point about LRPs and really drives home the point that LRPs should be broad in scope and generally concern themselves with the arranging of units and concepts to ensure that all of the curricular outcomes are addressed during the course being taught. It stated, "the most effective long-term plans take a big-picture, high flying look at the year" (p. 39) and, "for the purposes of the long-term plan... we are only concerned with sequencing and grouping our learning goals into units that will lead to the achievement of the big goal" (p. 41).
The "big goal" in this case, as it has already been outlined, is to teach all of the outcomes in the Program of Studies over the course of the year or term that the course is taught in. There are a number of templates below that outline the information that one needs in a LRP and how it can be arranged. Based on those templates, it can be deduced that the most important things to have, and what a principal would typically want to see, in a LRP are:
Please use the templates below to help you in your planning and to ensure that you are delivering the most effective programming you can to the students at NEA.
References
Alberta Education. (1997). Teaching Quality Standard Applicable to the Provision of Basic Education in Alberta. Retrieved on Friday July 18, 2014 from https://education.alberta.ca/media/6619134/appendix%20d%20-%20tqs.pdf.
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. (2009). Effective Planning. Retrieved on Friday July 18, 2014 from www.ocdsb.ca/sta/ntip/Survival%20Tips%20docs/2Effective%20Planning.pdf.
Teach For America Inc. (2011). Teaching as Leadership: Long-Term Planning. Retrieved on Friday July 18, 2014 from http://teachingasleadership.org/sites/default/files/Related-Readings/IPD_Ch3_2011.pdf.
Because of this mandate, it's important for teachers to outline what they will teach during a course and how that teaching will relate to the outcomes in the Program of Studies for that particular course. Teach For America Inc. (2011) made an interesting point about LRPs and really drives home the point that LRPs should be broad in scope and generally concern themselves with the arranging of units and concepts to ensure that all of the curricular outcomes are addressed during the course being taught. It stated, "the most effective long-term plans take a big-picture, high flying look at the year" (p. 39) and, "for the purposes of the long-term plan... we are only concerned with sequencing and grouping our learning goals into units that will lead to the achievement of the big goal" (p. 41).
The "big goal" in this case, as it has already been outlined, is to teach all of the outcomes in the Program of Studies over the course of the year or term that the course is taught in. There are a number of templates below that outline the information that one needs in a LRP and how it can be arranged. Based on those templates, it can be deduced that the most important things to have, and what a principal would typically want to see, in a LRP are:
- Teacher Name
- Course Name
- School Year
- Resources that will be used
- Units that will be taught, usually including a brief description of what will be taught/learned during the unit
- An Approximate Timeline, usually broken down in months, of when the units will be taught
- A general approach to Assessment or Evaluation Categories, including, but not limited to, Performance Tasks/Assignments, Quizzes, Tests, Final Exams, etc. This often includes the weight structure of how these categories will be weighted; however, that is usually determined
Please use the templates below to help you in your planning and to ensure that you are delivering the most effective programming you can to the students at NEA.
References
Alberta Education. (1997). Teaching Quality Standard Applicable to the Provision of Basic Education in Alberta. Retrieved on Friday July 18, 2014 from https://education.alberta.ca/media/6619134/appendix%20d%20-%20tqs.pdf.
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. (2009). Effective Planning. Retrieved on Friday July 18, 2014 from www.ocdsb.ca/sta/ntip/Survival%20Tips%20docs/2Effective%20Planning.pdf.
Teach For America Inc. (2011). Teaching as Leadership: Long-Term Planning. Retrieved on Friday July 18, 2014 from http://teachingasleadership.org/sites/default/files/Related-Readings/IPD_Ch3_2011.pdf.
Templates and Exemplars of Long Range Plans
The following are a series of templates and exemplars that can be used to help you effectively write your own Long Range Plans.
alberta_education_lrp_template.pdf | |
File Size: | 23 kb |
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edmonton_public_long_range_planning_templates.pdf | |
File Size: | 85 kb |
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lrp_template.pdf | |
File Size: | 11 kb |
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lrp_example_grade_1_math.pdf | |
File Size: | 181 kb |
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lrp_example_elem_ela.pdf | |
File Size: | 293 kb |
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lrp_example_ela_7.pdf | |
File Size: | 156 kb |
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