Planning Time Reality Check
Planning time required against planning time timetabled, and how much of the gap is being paid for out of your own evenings.
A teacher with 22 lessons a week, 30% of them new, needs about eight hours of planning against roughly three hours of usable timetabled PPA — leaving around 60% of planning to be done outside paid time.
Planning Time Reality Check
Frequently asked
How long does it take to plan a lesson?
A genuinely new lesson including resources takes most teachers 30 to 60 minutes; adapting an existing one takes five to fifteen. The variance is driven almost entirely by whether resources already exist, not by experience.
How much PPA time should a teacher get?
In England the statutory minimum is 10% of timetabled teaching time. Many systems specify nothing at all. Either way, the number that matters is how much survives cover, meetings and pupils turning up at the door.
What actually reduces planning time?
A shared, centrally resourced scheme of work — the single change with the largest reported effect in workload reviews. Planning templates and shorter proformas save minutes; not planning the same lesson twice in one school saves hours.
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