Preparation for Learning, Teaching and Assessment (2026): What the Updated Guidance Changes

In 2026 the Department of Education published Preparation for Learning, Teaching and Assessment: Updated Guidance for all Primary and Special Schools, written with the NCCA, Oide and the NCSE. It updates the 2021 Preparation for Teaching and Learning guidance for the redeveloped curriculum, and it is now the document that defines what recorded preparation should look like in every Irish primary and special school.

It is also a genuinely teacher-friendly read. The thrust of the whole document is concision, flexibility and professional judgement. Here is what changed, section by section, with the lines worth keeping to hand.

The title tells you the first change

Preparation for Teaching and Learning became Preparation for Learning, Teaching and Assessment. Assessment moves from an afterthought to one of the three things preparation is for. In practice that means your short-term plans are expected to say how you will know the learning has progressed, and your Cúntas Míosúil is framed as a record of that progression.

The Focus of Learning

The guidance builds short-term preparation around the Focus of Learning: the expected learning for all children, in broad terms, informed and guided by the Learning Outcomes of the curriculum. The Learning Outcomes support the Focus; your professional thinking leads. The guidance asks teachers to “prioritise the Learning Outcomes that will best support next steps in learning”, so selecting a small, deliberate set of outcomes is exactly what the document describes.

Short-term plans: the required list is three items

For weekly, fortnightly or monthly preparation, the guidance says it should contain:

1. The clear Focus(es) of Learning for all children, informed and guided by the Learning Outcome(s) from one or more curriculum areas
2. The range of appropriately playful and engaging Learning Experiences chosen to support all children in progressing their learning
3. How the learning will be demonstrated by all children, and how it will be monitored and assessed

Everything else you may have seen on a planning template (differentiation grids, organisational notes, linkage boxes) sits under whole-school agreement: include what your school has agreed and what serves your teaching.

The guidance also names all three rhythms: short-term preparation may be weekly, fortnightly or monthly. We wrote about the monthly option when the guidance landed.

Long-term plans: every element is a “may”

The long-term section offers six things you may consider including: expected learning in broad terms, sequencing and pacing, the range of Learning Experiences, the range of assessment practices, integration, and how classroom routines and longer-term practices support the intended learning.

“In broad terms” is the key phrase. A long-term plan that reads as a map of your year is doing what the guidance asks; copying curriculum text into it is the thing the document steers away from. The guidance is equally clear that long-term plans are living documents: “be flexible”, they “may need to be amended”, and you should allow sufficient time before completing them.

The Cúntas Míosúil section

Three lines here do a lot of work:

• The Cúntas should record “the learning that the children have progressed over the month, and the Learning Experiences used to support their progress”.
• “A lengthy account of content taught may not be an indicator of effectiveness.”
• A brief reflection is something to include “if you find it helpful”. The reflection is optional.

And then the sentence with the biggest practical consequence in the whole document: “Where short-term documentation has clearly outlined the learning and the Learning Experiences, it may also be used for the purpose of your Cuntas Míosúil.”

Your fortnightly or monthly plans, written well, are allowed to serve as your Cúntas. The guidance asks schools to make whole-school decisions about the most appropriate structure for these combined plans/Cúntais Mhíosúla. If writing the Cúntas from scratch every month is a weight in your term, this clause is the official permission to stop. Our guide to the Cúntas Míosúil walks through what a compliant record looks like.

Concision and teacher agency, in the Department’s own words

Two quotes to keep for any conversation about how long planning should be:

“Keep your recorded preparation concise. The length of a document is not an indication of its quality.”

“There may not be a benefit in spending excessive time writing detailed descriptions of activities.”

Preparation is described throughout as personal and professional: teachers decide how learning is sequenced and paced, and the format of recorded preparation serves that. The 2026 guidance is the strongest statement yet that a concise plan is a compliant plan.

The whole-school layer

The guidance leans on whole-school agreement as the way to cut workload: “agreed approaches and shared expectations reduce unnecessary duplication”. Decisions about planning structure, methodologies and assessment practices are made once at school level and flow into every teacher’s preparation. If your school is reviewing its planning approach for the enactment year, this is the section to bring to the staff meeting.

Special education has its own track

The guidance keeps preparation for special education roles separate, pointing to the Continuum of Support, Student Support Files, and current circulars (including Circular 0064/2024 on the class teacher’s role and SET deployment). Our SET and EAL planning guide covers that track in detail.

What to do with all this

• Check your short-term plans carry the three required elements, and let the rest be deliberate choices.
• Lead with your Focus of Learning; pick the Learning Outcomes that support it.
• Bring the “reduce unnecessary duplication” line to your school’s next planning conversation.
• If you write plans and a separate Cúntas every month, read the p18 clause and decide whether one body of work could serve both.

For the wider picture of how the guidance fits into the enactment year, see what the 2026 curriculum changes this September and the complete guide to primary school teacher planning.

Pleanáil’s plan structure follows this guidance directly: plans lead with the Focus of Learning, Learning Outcomes are ticked from the real specifications, and the Cúntas Míosúil is generated from the short-term plans you already wrote, exactly the mechanism the guidance describes.

See it with your own class: three fortnightly plans, a real Cúntas Míosúil and long-term plans, free for 30 days, no card needed. Create your first plan free.