Course Plans Overview

A course plan is what a subject intends to teach over a school year, before anything is marked. You write it once for the subject. Every class that takes the subject uses it. A lesson in the plan can name the learning outcomes it covers, and a teacher can attach a lesson to a timetabled slot.

Course plan   "Year 9 Mathematics"  (subject + school year + name)
  Unit        "Fractions"
    Lesson    "Adding fractions with the same denominator"
    Lesson    "Equivalent fractions"
  Unit        "Algebra"
    Lesson    ...

Who can use it

Action	What you need
Read plans, units and lessons	The permission Write course plans (it covers reading too)
Create and edit plans, units and lessons	Write course plans
See the school-wide coverage report	Access to Configuration

The permission label is Write course plans: "Author the plan's units and lessons, and choose which learning outcomes each lesson covers." It is separate from the scales and standards permissions, because the head of department who writes a course plan is rarely the person who edits the curriculum tree. Roles are set in Configuration → Users & Roles. See Roles & Permissions.

Switch it on

Configuration → School year → What we use has a switch for Course plans. It is separate from the gradebook and from learning outcomes: a school can plan lessons with neither. Switching it off hides the Course plans page, its screens and the Lesson plan tab in the timetable lesson window. It deletes nothing.

The list of plans

Open Configuration → Assessment → Course plans. Each plan is a card. Use the search box, and the subject filter, to find one.

To add a plan:

1. Press New course plan.
2. Choose the Subject and the School year. Both are fixed once the plan exists.
3. Give it a Name, for example "Year 9 Mathematics". A subject can have several plans in one year (Higher and Foundation, for example), so the name tells them apart.
4. Add a Description if you like.

To remove a plan, use delete. "'Year 9 Mathematics' and its units and lessons will stop appearing. Lessons already delivered keep their record."

Inside a plan

A plan has two tabs: Content and Settings. At the top, the facts show the number of Units, Lessons and Sessions (timetabled slots the lessons need).

Units

Units are optional. They make a long plan readable.

• Add unit needs a Unit name, a Colour, and optionally Starts and Ends dates. Dates put the unit on the Across the year timeline. Without dates, a unit is "undated".
• A unit's colour is the one you set. If you set none, it borrows the subject's colour.
• Deleting a unit removes the unit only. Its lessons stay in the plan, ungrouped.

Lessons

Press Add lesson. The lesson editor has four steps:

Step	Fields
Basics	Lesson title, Code (your school's own reference, for example 3.2), Unit, Sessions (how many timetabled slots it needs), Week of the year
The plan	Objectives, Lesson content
Support	Resources, Homework, Staff notes
Outcomes	Learning outcomes covered, chosen from the curriculum tree

Staff notes stay inside the school. They are never sent to parents and never leave through the reporting API.

If you give no code, the lesson is numbered by its place in the unit: "Lesson 3 of this unit".

On the Outcomes step, choose a curriculum, search, and tick the outcomes. Outcomes are written in the curriculum tree, not here. If you pick an outcome that belongs to another subject, MarkBook saves it and warns you: check it belongs in this lesson.

Reorder by dragging

Drag a lesson to change its place. You can drag it to another unit, or to Not in a unit to take it out. The order is the scope and sequence of the year. One drag is saved as a whole. If the save fails the list goes back as it was.

Filters

Above the lessons: All units, Covered or not (Names an outcome / Names no outcome), and a week filter (Any week, Week 14 — this week, No week set). Use these to find lessons that cover no outcome yet.

Example

Mr Dumitru plans "Year 9 Mathematics" for 2026–2027.

Unit	Dates	Lessons
Fractions	1 Sep – 17 Oct	8 lessons, 10 sessions
Algebra	20 Oct – 5 Dec	10 lessons, 12 sessions
Geometry	undated	6 lessons

The Across the year bar shows Fractions and Algebra. Geometry is "1 undated". On the lesson "Equivalent fractions" he picks two outcomes from the Year 9 Mathematics curriculum. Now the filter Names no outcome shows which lessons still need tagging.

Use a lesson on the timetable

Open a lesson from the timetable (Insights → Attendance & Timetable). The window has a Lesson plan tab next to Attendance.

• Choose a lesson from the subject's course plan to attach it to the slot.
• Or write a New lesson right there. It is added to the course plan, and assigned to this slot at once. If no plan exists for the subject and year, MarkBook creates one.
• Tick This lesson was taught. It is recorded against the day of the lesson, not today. Catching up on Friday still counts Tuesday's lesson in the right week.
• What happened is a free note about the session.

The Lesson plan tab needs the timetable to be connected. See Activity Calendar Connection and Attendance & Timetable.

Curriculum coverage

At the top of the Course plans page is a link to Curriculum coverage: "See which subjects are planned, aligned and being taught — across the whole school." For each plan it shows Units, Lessons, With outcomes, Outcomes, Standards, On timetable, Taught and Last taught. It also counts plans with no lessons, plans that name no outcomes, and subjects with no plan.

Next

Open a unit to write its planner. See Unit Planner.

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