Lesson planning is an essential part of teaching, but it can also take up a significant amount of time outside the classroom. From finding suitable teaching resources and creating activities to preparing questions, homework and assessments, planning a single lesson can quickly turn into a much bigger task.
For busy teachers across UK schools, finding ways to save time when planning lessons can make a real difference to workload.
The good news is that saving time does not have to mean lowering the quality of your lessons. With the right routines, resources and technology, teachers can reduce repetitive planning tasks while still creating engaging and effective learning experiences.
Here are 10 practical ways to make lesson planning quicker and more manageable.
1. Start With the Learning Objective
Before searching for resources, creating slides or thinking about activities, establish exactly what you want pupils to know or be able to do by the end of the lesson.
A clear learning objective gives the rest of the lesson a focus.
Ask yourself:
- What should pupils understand by the end of this lesson?
- What should they be able to explain, identify or demonstrate?
- How will I know whether they have understood it?
Once the intended outcome is clear, it becomes much easier to decide which activities and resources are actually needed.
This can also prevent spending valuable planning time creating activities that look engaging but do not directly support the learning taking place.
2. Avoid Creating Every Teaching Resource From Scratch
Teachers do not need to reinvent the wheel for every lesson.
Creating worksheets, questions, activities and revision materials from scratch can take considerable time. Using existing high-quality teaching resources can provide a strong starting point that can then be adapted for your pupils.
When choosing resources, look for materials that are:
- relevant to the topic you are teaching;
- appropriate for the age and ability of your pupils;
- easy to adapt where required;
- clearly presented; and
- suitable for the UK curriculum and classroom.
A good teaching resource should reduce your workload rather than create additional work.
Platforms such as Teachily are designed to make it easier for UK teachers to find classroom resources in one place, helping reduce the amount of time spent searching across multiple websites.
3. Build a Reliable Bank of Teaching Resources
One of the easiest ways to make future lesson planning quicker is to build a collection of resources that you know work well.
Instead of searching the internet from the beginning every time you teach a topic, organise useful resources by:
Subject → Key Stage → Topic → Resource Type
For example:
Geography → GCSE → Coasts → Retrieval Quiz
A well-organised resource bank means that when you return to a topic next year, much of the groundwork has already been completed.
It is also worth keeping notes about resources you have used successfully.
Small comments such as “good Year 9 starter”, “use again for revision” or “needs additional scaffolding for lower-attaining pupils” can save valuable preparation time later.
4. Use a Consistent Lesson Structure
Not every lesson needs a completely different structure.
Creating a familiar framework can make planning significantly quicker while also giving pupils greater consistency.
For example, a lesson might follow a simple structure:
Retrieval starter → Teacher input → Guided practice → Independent activity → Review
Once you have a structure that works for your classes, the planning process becomes less about designing an entirely new lesson and more about selecting the right content for each section.
Individual lessons can still vary considerably, but having a framework removes some of the decision-making involved in planning.
5. Reuse and Adapt Previous Lessons
If you taught a topic last year, start with what you already have.
Instead of rebuilding the lesson completely, review the existing materials and consider:
- What worked particularly well?
- Which parts did pupils struggle with?
- Was there anything that took too long?
- Did pupils need more scaffolding?
- Were there questions that generated useful discussion?
- What would I change before teaching this again?
Making small improvements each time can be far more efficient than starting again.
Over time, this approach also creates a much stronger collection of tried-and-tested teaching resources.
6. Plan Similar Lessons Together
Batch planning can help reduce the time lost repeatedly switching between topics and tasks.
For example, instead of planning Monday’s lesson, stopping, and returning to Tuesday’s lesson later, try planning several lessons from the same topic together.
If you are preparing a unit on rivers in Geography, you might outline several lessons at once:
- drainage basins;
- river processes;
- river landforms;
- flooding;
- flood management.
You do not necessarily need to complete every resource in one session. Simply mapping out the sequence can make individual lesson preparation much quicker.
It also makes it easier to see how knowledge develops across a unit rather than planning lessons in isolation.
7. Make Retrieval Practice Part of Your Routine
Creating a completely new starter activity for every lesson can add unnecessary planning time.
Instead, consider developing a bank of simple retrieval activities that can be adapted quickly.
These might include:
- five quick questions from previous lessons;
- true or false statements;
- key-word definitions;
- identify-the-error questions;
- multiple-choice questions;
- match-up activities; or
- short knowledge quizzes.
Once you have a reusable format, you only need to change the questions.
Retrieval activities can also provide useful information about what pupils remember, helping teachers identify areas that may need revisiting.
8. Use Self-Marking Activities Where Appropriate
Marking and providing feedback can take almost as much time as preparing the lesson itself.
Digital self-marking teaching resources can reduce some of this repetitive workload.
For activities where there is a clear correct answer, automated marking can allow pupils to receive feedback quickly while giving teachers an indication of how successfully the class has understood the content.
Self-marking can be particularly useful for:
- retrieval quizzes;
- multiple-choice questions;
- knowledge checks;
- revision activities;
- homework; and
- independent learning.
It will not replace every form of teacher assessment or feedback, nor should it. However, using technology for straightforward knowledge checks can allow teachers to focus their time on the areas where professional judgement and detailed feedback are most valuable.
Teachily’s self-marking functionality has been developed with this principle in mind: using technology to support teachers with repetitive tasks rather than adding another layer to their workload.
9. Plan for Adaptation Rather Than Creating Multiple Lessons
Supporting pupils with different levels of prior knowledge does not necessarily mean producing several completely separate versions of the same lesson.
Instead, begin with a strong core resource and consider where additional support or challenge may be required.
You could include:
- optional sentence starters;
- key-word banks;
- worked examples;
- additional guidance;
- extension questions;
- challenge activities; or
- different levels of questioning.
Creating adaptable resources can be much quicker than producing several completely different worksheets.
It also means useful resources can often be reused across different classes with relatively minor changes.
10. Create a Planning Routine That Works for You
There is no single lesson-planning system that works for every teacher.
The aim should be to create a routine that reduces unnecessary decisions and repeated work.
You might choose to:
- plan a week at a time;
- batch-plan lessons by subject or year group;
- keep reusable lesson templates;
- bookmark reliable teaching resource websites;
- organise resources by topic;
- keep notes about lessons you want to improve next time; and
- use digital tools to automate repetitive tasks.
Even saving ten or fifteen minutes on individual lessons can add up considerably across a school week.
The important question is not simply “How can I plan this lesson?” but also:
“Is there a quicker way to achieve the same learning outcome?”
Saving Time Without Compromising Teaching Quality
Reducing lesson-planning time is not about putting less thought into teaching.
It is about spending teachers’ time where it has the greatest impact.
Reusing strong resources, creating consistent routines, using self-marking activities and making better use of digital teaching resources can all reduce repetitive tasks.
Most importantly, technology should make a teacher’s working life easier — not create additional administration.
At Teachily, we’re building an online teaching resource platform specifically with UK schools and teachers in mind.
Teachers can access curriculum-focused resources, digital activities and tools designed to make finding, delivering and assessing learning simpler.
Whether you’re preparing tomorrow’s lesson, looking for revision materials or trying to reduce the time spent creating classroom activities from scratch, Teachily is designed to help make lesson preparation a little easier.
Explore teaching resources at Teachily.co.uk.
