← Back to blog

Monthly short-term planning is now officially recognised — what it means for you

· Pleanáil

Teacher writing a monthly plan

For years, a quiet assumption ran through Irish primary schools: short-term planning meant a fortnightly plan. Weekly at a stretch. Monthly wasn’t mentioned — and for many teachers, anything outside fortnightly felt like it wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny.

The Department of Education’s updated Guidance on Preparation for Learning, Teaching and Assessment (2026) changes that. For the first time, the guidance explicitly states that short-term preparation may be:

  • weekly
  • fortnightly
  • or monthly

This is a small sentence in the document. But it matters.

Why this is significant

If you teach a subject like PE, Drama, or Art — where two weeks is often too short a planning horizon — monthly planning is a far more natural fit for the actual rhythm of your teaching. Same for subjects taught in blocks, projects, or integrated units.

Until now, there was no official document you could point to. Monthly planning worked in practice for many teachers, but it sat in a grey area. The 2026 guidance removes that ambiguity entirely.

The guidance is also clear that preparation is personal and professional. Teachers make decisions about how learning is sequenced and paced. The format of recorded preparation should serve that — not constrain it.

What a monthly plan actually looks like

A monthly short-term plan has the same core elements as a fortnightly one. You still need:

  • The dates — the month you’re covering
  • The subjects — what you’re planning
  • The curriculum content — Learning Outcomes or content objectives being addressed
  • Learning experiences — what the children will do
  • Assessment — how you’ll know if they’re learning

What changes is the planning horizon. For a monthly plan, you’re thinking in terms of where you want to be by the end of the month — not just the next two weeks. That gives you more room to:

  • Plan for extended projects or inquiry units
  • Build in flexibility for how a topic unfolds
  • Pace learning across the full month without over-committing to a fortnight-by-fortnight breakdown

What hasn’t changed

Monthly planning doesn’t mean less rigour — it means appropriate rigour for the subject and the teaching context. The 2026 guidance is clear that:

  • Plans should be concise — one or two pages is fine
  • Plans should evolve — they’re working documents, not fixed contracts
  • Assessment remains central — monthly plans should show how you’ll assess learning across the period
  • Teacher agency is respected — you decide the frequency that best supports your teaching

If your school has agreed a fortnightly cycle for all teachers, follow that. But if you have subject areas or units where monthly makes more sense, the 2026 guidance now gives you the language to make that case.

One practical benefit of monthly short-term planning: it aligns naturally with a well-structured long-term plan. If your LTP already maps out learning month-by-month across the year, your short-term recorded preparation is essentially a worked-up version of what you already planned at the LTP level — with learning experiences and assessment added in.

This is the relationship the 2026 guidance is encouraging: whole-school curriculum plans flowing into long-term plans, flowing into short-term preparation. Each level adds detail; none should feel like duplication.

A note on the Cúntas Míosúil

If you move to monthly short-term planning, your Cúntas Míosúil becomes a reflection on your monthly plan rather than on a sequence of fortnightly plans. The format is the same — what you covered versus what you planned, what went well, what needs adjustment — but the rhythm is easier to sustain when the planning unit and the reflection unit match.

Pleanáil supports weekly, fortnightly, and monthly short-term planning. You choose the cycle that works for your class. Create your first plan free.

← Back to blog