Purposeful Long Range Planning

It's that time of year when long range plans are due and the questions regarding their format, purpose, and use are coming out. The good news is that long range plans in Mathematics vary from teacher to teacher, school to school etc. There's no one right way to construct your long plans.

Having said that, there are two key point to keep in mind when creating your plans. The first one is:

• all grade level expectations from the Ontario Curriculum must be addressed
  

That's right: all expectations must be accounted for in instruction so your long range plans should include expectations that won't be addressed on the report card.

The details depend on you. Some plans may include:

• overall expectations with clusters of specific expectations
• the big ideas of a particular unit of study or strand\
• time period (keep in mind these will change)
• instructional and assessment strategies
• links to core resources

Here are some examples:
Kindergarten (Ecole Glen Park PS)
Grade 1/2 (various authors)

Grades 1 to 6 (Elkhorn PS)
Grade 7 with Math Makes Sense (Robin Kirk Armstrong)

The second key point to keep in mind is this:

• long range plans should be flexible and responsive to your students. Their strengths, needs, and interests will dictate the rate at which you teach.

That means your plans can come out of that folder or dusty spot in your classroom throughout the year. Revisiting plans at the end of the first term is a common practice.

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