Teacher
Lesson Planner & Timetable
A printable lesson planner that works out the times for you. Set the day’s start, how long a period runs, and where break and lunch fall, and every period after them shifts accordingly. Print the week as a timetable, or a page per day with room to plan each lesson.
Four steps
How to make a lesson planner
- 1
Set the day
Start time, period length, and how many periods.
- 2
Place break and lunch
After which period each falls. Later periods shift automatically.
- 3
Choose the layout
Week grid for an overview, day plan for detail.
- 4
Print it
Landscape suits the week grid; portrait suits the day plan.
A school day is not equal blocks
Generic weekly planners divide the day into identical rows, which is fine for a diary and wrong for a timetable. Periods have a fixed length, break and lunch interrupt them, and crucially every period after an interruption starts later because of it. Get that wrong on a printed timetable and it disagrees with the bell, which makes it useless.
Here the times are calculated. Set 9:00, fifty-minute periods, break after period two and lunch after period four, and period five correctly begins at 13:20 rather than wherever an evenly divided grid would have put it.
Two documents, two jobs
| Layout | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Week grid | The timetable. One page, pinned up, answers “what is on now?” |
| Day plan | The planning document. A page per day with room for objectives and resources. |
The day plan is also the one to leave for a substitute. A timetable tells them when things happen; only the day plan tells them what to actually do.
Shaded breaks
Break and lunch print shaded rather than blank, because a blank row on a timetable is an invitation to fill it. A plan that quietly schedules a lesson over lunch is worse than one that omits the row.
Related printables
Attendance, behaviour and jobs charts cover the daily routines, classroom labels make the name tags, and the general planner covers non-teaching weeks.
Answers