What Does Primary School Teacher Planning Involve? The Complete 2026/27 Guide

If you are new to teaching, returning after a break, or simply wondering whether your folder holds what it should, this is the whole of primary school teacher planning in one place: what each document is, what the Department actually asks of it, and how the pieces connect.

The authoritative source for all of it is the Department of Education’s Guidance on Preparation for Learning, Teaching and Assessment (2026), written with the NCCA, Oide and the NCSE. We have a full guide to what changed in that document; this article is about the planning itself.

The five parts at a glance

Layer	What it is	Typical rhythm
Whole-school curriculum plans	The school’s agreed approach per curriculum area	Reviewed as areas are enacted
Long-term plan (plean fadtéarmach)	Your year mapped in broad terms, per subject	Once a year, revisited termly
Short-term plan (clár coicíse)	The learning you are preparing right now	Weekly, fortnightly or monthly
Cúntas Míosúil	A record of the learning the children progressed	Monthly, looking back
Support plans	Student Support Files on the Continuum of Support	Ongoing, per child

Each layer adds detail to the one above it. The 2026 guidance is explicit that none of them should duplicate another.

Whole-school curriculum plans

Before any individual teacher plans, the school agrees shared approaches: which curriculum area the school is enacting first, agreed methodologies, assessment practices, and the structure recorded preparation will take. The guidance puts real weight on this layer because “agreed approaches and shared expectations reduce unnecessary duplication”. If your school has agreed a planning format or cycle, that agreement is the starting point for everything below.

For the 2026/27 enactment decision itself, see our guide to what changes this September and which curriculum each subject uses.

Long-term planning: the plean fadtéarmach

Your long-term plan maps the year for a subject: the expected learning in broad terms, informed and guided by the Learning Outcomes (or, for 1999-curriculum subjects, the content objectives), with sequencing and pacing guided by the whole-school plan.

The 2026 guidance lists 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 support the intended learning. All six are offered as considerations. A long-term plan is a working map for your own teaching, and “in broad terms” is the phrase to keep in mind: a year at a glance, written at the level you actually think about your year.

See a completed long-term plan template or our September working method for LTPs.

Short-term planning: weekly, fortnightly or monthly

Short-term preparation is where most planning time goes, and it is the layer the 2026 guidance defines most precisely. It should contain three things:

1. The Focus(es) of Learning: the expected learning for all children, informed and guided by the Learning Outcomes from one or more curriculum areas
2. The Learning Experiences chosen to support all children in progressing their learning
3. How the learning will be demonstrated, monitored and assessed

That is the required core. Anything further (differentiation notes, organisation, linkage and integration) is a matter of what your school has agreed and what helps your teaching.

The cycle is yours to choose: the guidance explicitly recognises weekly, fortnightly or monthly short-term preparation. Fortnightly remains the most common rhythm, and monthly planning is now officially recognised for subjects where two weeks is too short a horizon.

To see what a concise, compliant plan looks like, download the completed fortnightly plan template, or read how to create a fortnightly plan in 15 minutes.

The Cúntas Míosúil

The Cúntas Míosúil is the one document that looks backwards: a monthly record of the learning the children progressed and the Learning Experiences used to support that progress. The guidance adds two reassurances worth knowing word for word: “a lengthy account of content taught may not be an indicator of effectiveness”, and a reflection is something to include “if you find it helpful”. The reflection is optional.

It also contains a sentence that changes the workload entirely: where your 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 plans and your Cúntas are allowed to be the same body of work.

Start with what the Cúntas Míosúil is and how to write one, or download a completed Cúntas Míosúil template.

Support plans and the Continuum of Support

For children with additional needs, planning moves to the Continuum of Support: Classroom Support, School Support, and School Support Plus, recorded in a Student Support File (the term that has replaced the older Personal Pupil Plan; we cover that change in from Personal Pupil Plan to Student Support Plan). The 2026 guidance treats special education preparation as its own track, with its requirements set by current circulars, including Circular 0064/2024 on the class teacher’s role and SET deployment.

If you are a Special Education Teacher, our SET and EAL planning guide covers caseloads, group planning and targets in detail.

How much is actually required?

Less than most folders contain. The 2026 guidance says to keep recorded preparation concise, and states plainly that “the length of a document is not an indication of its quality”. Preparation is described as personal and professional: you decide the sequencing and pacing, the format serves your teaching, and plans are working documents that may be amended as the learning unfolds.

On format: the Chief Inspector’s Guide to Inspection (2016) notes that documents are requested “in electronic format preferably”, so planning digitally is the expected norm.

Common questions

Do I have to plan every subject from the redeveloped 2026 curriculum this year? No. In 2026/27 your school enacts at least one curriculum area from its new specification. English, Gaeilge and Maths continue on their current curricula, and the remaining subjects stay on the 1999 curriculum for now. Full guide here.

Is there a required template? No. The guidance sets out what short-term preparation should contain and leaves the structure to whole-school agreement. Any format that carries the Focus of Learning, the Learning Experiences and the assessment approach is doing its job.

How long should a fortnightly plan be? As short as it can be while staying useful to you. One to two pages is typical; the guidance warns against spending excessive time on detailed descriptions of activities.

Who reads my planning? It is yours first: the guidance frames preparation as supporting your teaching. Your principal and, during an inspection, the inspectorate are audiences of the record you already keep.

One tool for every layer

Pleanáil holds all five layers in one place: long-term plans and short-term plans built from the real Learning Outcomes and content objectives for your class, a Cúntas Míosúil generated from the plans you already wrote, and SET planning on the Continuum of Support. The structure follows the 2026 guidance, so concise comes built in.

Try every layer 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.