LONG RANGE PLANS FOR SUCCESS

Never feel overwhelmed planning your long range plans again!

I always seem to hear from other teachers that they need to “work on their long range plans”. I try to finish my long range plans before the year before is over. Side note: I do know that some people find out their teaching placements in the summer so that little hack doesn’t work for everyone.

Coming into a special education (self contained/community class) environment, long range plans are a bit different than the average classroom. 

One community/self contained classroom is basically like having two or three different groups of students. Planning for all their learning needs is very tricky. That’s why I want to encourage you that long range plans are meant to be a learning skeleton, not a fully detailed unit plan. It’s your intention to teach the various content areas of the curriculum. 

This is how I plan my long range plans for the school year. Hint hint: there’s also a PDF of my school year long range plans at the end of this blog.

 

1- Plan ahead for success: My students can group into a higher level and and early learner level, so I think of those two generalized groups when thinking about my plans. For some subjects, the content will be the same, but for some the content is wildly different so I have a small note for group A & Group B

2- Think about your end goal. What is it that you want your students to accomplish by the end of the year? Maybe you have specific curriculum expectations that you must follow. Backwards plan from the end goal, and fill in your months of long range planning to think of a complete plan that will work with all your learners. 

3- Change the plans if they are not working. Oftentimes in my classroom, students take a bit longer to grasp a skill than originally intended. That’s ok! Modify your long range plans to meet the needs of YOUR students. If you have content that you need to get through by your state standards, then that might mean zooming through a certain area of the curriculum a bit quicker than you originally intended. Do the best you can within the guidelines of your individual school district rules. 

4- Collaboration is your friend. In my community/ self contained class, I collaborate with the two lovely paraprofessionals (Educational Assistants) in my room. They work with the students on our case load very closely, and have a lot of insight and years of experience with this kind of classroom. We work together on long range planning, by thinking about where we want the students to be at the end of the year or term. 

I work VERY closely with my paraprofessionals with our long range plans. Any teacher plans that I make or facilitate, I always share with the paraprofessionals so they can add them to their personal binders. Planning and making time to actually have fruitful and collaborative conversations is key.

I absolutely LOVE long range planning. To me, its the prompt of a fresh start and new leaf. It’s a chance to tweak and try new things. In our self contained classroom, things can get crazy at times. With kids coming and going throughout the year, managing tons of adults and staff in the room. It often feels like we don’t know if we are coming or going, BUT having a clear long range plan always helps us to get back on track. 

How is your long range plans going? Join my mailing list (click on the button below) to get weekly emails with tips and tricks about special education. If a freebie is going out, it’ll be through THAT email list!

 

With that, have an amazing week ahead. Go get ’em!

 

Fab @ Special Ed Advantage

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