It used to take me hours.

I’d sit with a stack of planning sheets, a few dog-eared textbooks, and a dozen tabs open on my laptop—each one a desperate attempt to find that “perfect” activity for Friday’s science lesson. I thought that was normal. In fact, I wore it like a badge of honour. Look how much time I put in! Look how hard I’m working!

But here’s the truth no one tells you: planning doesn’t need to be long-winded to be effective. In fact, the longer I’ve taught, the more I’ve come to believe that great planning isn’t about hours spent—it’s about clarity, consistency, and knowing what works.

And yes, with the right approach—and the right tools—you can plan your whole week in ten minutes flat.

Here’s how.

Before you open a laptop or search for worksheets, start with this question: What do I want the children to know or be able to do by the end of the week?

I used to jump straight into activity mode—find a fun task, then reverse-engineer it into a lesson. Now, I start with outcomes. When I’m clear on where we’re going, the path to get there becomes so much simpler.

One of the things I love about EduPlanr is that it prompts me to enter the outcome first. Not the activity. Not the resource. The learning goal. It keeps me focused on what matters and stops me getting lost in Pinterest rabbit holes.

Every week, my lessons follow a basic structure:

• Monday = Introduce new learning
• Tuesday = Build on it
• Wednesday = Apply it
• Thursday = Reflect or extend
• Friday = Assess or revisit

That structure gives me a mental framework to hang each subject on. I don’t reinvent the wheel—I just fill in the slots.

EduPlanr makes this super easy with its day-by-day view. I can map out the week in one screen and quickly spot if there’s an imbalance. Too much writing? Not enough practical work? It's all right there in front of me.

There’s no shame in reusing lessons—especially when they worked brilliantly last year. I’ve got a maths sequence on decimals I’ve used for four years running. I just tweak it for the current class.

EduPlanr stores all my past plans, searchable by topic or subject. With one click, I can pull up last year’s lesson and make quick edits. What used to take an hour now takes five minutes.

Last week, I reused a whole English unit on persuasive writing. I changed the theme from zoos to space travel (my class is obsessed with NASA right now) and updated the videos linked in the resource section. Boom—done in under ten minutes.

I used to think every lesson needed a unique, handmade worksheet or laminated card sort. Then I realised: the best lessons often just need a whiteboard, some well-placed questions, and time to think.

EduPlanr links directly to resource banks—videos, image libraries, and classroom-friendly experiments. If I’m planning science, I can pull up a safe, age-appropriate activity without leaving the platform. No more scrabbling around YouTube or clicking on dodgy sites for ideas.

The integrated links alone have saved me hours over the term.

We all have favourite go-to lesson formats: the carousel, the ‘I do, we do, you do’, the retrieval starter with a mini plenary. So why write them out from scratch each week?

I created my own templates in EduPlanr. When I click “Create New Lesson,” I just pick one of my saved formats and drop in the week’s content. On a good day, I can plan five maths lessons faster than it takes to make a cup of tea.

This one changed everything for me: I stopped drip-feeding planning throughout the week and started blocking it. Ten focused minutes. No interruptions. One subject at a time.

On a Friday, during my last PPA, I sit down with EduPlanr, choose my template, input outcomes, drop in any key resources, and that’s it. Planning—done. The rest of the weekend? Mine.

I used to think using a digital planner was “cheating.” But honestly, if my goal is better lessons with less stress, why wouldn’t I use the best tool available?

EduPlanr doesn’t just store my plans—it actively helps me improve them. It suggests key vocabulary for EAL learners, recommends age-appropriate visuals and videos, and flags gaps if I forget to include resources. It’s like having a planning buddy built into my laptop.

Last term, we started a topic on the Stone Age. I sat down at 3:10pm on Friday, opened EduPlanr, and by 3:20pm I had:

• 5 geography lessons
• 3 English lessons linked to Stone Age Boy
• 1 art lesson involving cave painting techniques
• All my links and printable resources ready
• Differentiation notes for two children with SEN

The next week, instead of fretting over what I hadn’t done, I was able to enjoy my evenings—and teach with confidence knowing the plan was rock solid.

Planning shouldn’t eat your time, your evenings, or your enthusiasm. With the right approach—and a tool like EduPlanr—you can get the job done quickly, effectively, and still have time to be a human being outside of school.

The key isn’t to work harder—it’s to work smarter. Start with your outcomes, build a routine, and let technology take care of the admin. Your future self will thank you.

Because the best teacher you can be is the one who’s rested, prepared, and not running on fumes come Monday morning.