Getting your whole school onto one planning system for 2026/27

For years, planning was something each teacher did on their own, in their own Word documents, in their own way. The school’s planning was really sixteen separate planning efforts that happened under one roof. That worked because nothing much depended on them lining up.

The redeveloped curriculum changes that. From 2026/27 your school enacts curriculum areas as a school, agrees sequences across class levels as a school, and holds a whole-school plan that is meant to reach every classroom. Planning has become a shared piece of work. The question for a principal is whether the tools match that, or whether the coordination is still being done by hand, one email and one folder at a time.

The coordination problem the new year creates

Three things that used to sit quietly on each teacher’s desk are now whole-school decisions:

• Which curriculum version applies to each subject. In 2026/27 a school runs the 1999 curriculum and the redeveloped 2026 specifications side by side, area by area. If every teacher tracks that for themselves, you get sixteen readings of the same decision.
• The agreed sequences and approaches. The whole-school plan settles novel lists by class band, agreed methodologies, how an area is sequenced across the school. That only helps if it is in front of the teacher while they plan, not in a document they half-remember.
• Where the school actually is. When planning lives in sixteen places, the only way to see the whole picture is to collect it, which is the end-of-term folder-chase every principal knows.

None of this is a teacher problem. It is a coordination problem, and it is new this year.

One plan, in every classroom

A whole-school system solves the coordination at the root: you write the whole-school plan once, and it becomes reference material inside each teacher’s own long-term planning. The agreed sequences and approaches appear where the planning is actually done, so the flow-down the guidance describes happens by default rather than by photocopier.

What belongs in that plan is worth getting right, and we wrote a separate working guide for principals on curriculum enactment that covers the enactment decision, the closure days, and the test for whether a line earns its place in the plan. The short version: a whole-school plan is only worth referencing if it is specific enough to tell a teacher something they need.

Oversight without collecting folders

With everyone planning in the same place, the whole-school picture is simply there. You can see each teacher’s plans and their Cúntas Míosúil as they take shape, see coverage across the school at a glance, mark plans as reviewed, and reach the colleague who is quietly stuck before it becomes a problem in the spring.

The point that matters most: this does not make you the author of anyone’s planning. Teachers keep full ownership of their own work. The system settles the questions that are genuinely whole-school so that every teacher plans from shared ground, and it gives you the picture without asking anyone to email you a folder. A principal who clears that road does more for enactment than any amount of documentation.

Coming on board without starting over

The real obstacle to any school changing how it plans is the work already done: the whole-school plans staff agreed in meetings, the long-term plans every teacher built for their class. Re-typing all of that is nobody’s idea of a good September.

So we move it for you. Send us your existing whole-school plans and your teachers’ year plans and we set the school up with them, word for word, mapped to the curriculum, before staff log in. How we move a school’s existing plans across covers exactly what comes over and how we check it. Adding the staff themselves takes minutes, with each teacher planning against the right curriculum for their class from the first login, and a colleague who joins mid-year comes in at no extra cost.

Frequently asked questions

Do our teachers lose ownership of their planning? No. Every teacher’s plans stay their own to write. The whole-school layer gives you a place to settle shared decisions and a view of how planning is coming together across the school.

Does the whole school have to use the same curriculum version? No. Pleanáil carries the 1999 curriculum and the redeveloped 2026 specifications together, set per area. Each class plans against the version your school uses for that subject, and you switch an area when your school does.

Can we trial it with our real school? Yes. We set up the principal portal and a seat for every teacher, free for 30 days, no card and no commitment, so you see your own staff list and your own plans coming in before deciding anything.

What happens to the plans we already have? We bring them in for you as part of coming on board, and you review everything against your originals before any teacher sees it.

Where to start

The whole-school page lays out what every teacher gets, how a school comes on board, and the price for your staff size. If it looks like a fit, the quickest next step is a conversation about your own school.

See it with your own staff list. Talk to us about your school.