This article explores the planning and teaching of a lesson using our CLASSROOM platform. You can plan lessons as long as you have an active academic year with assigned classes and a teaching timetable.

First, we need to select which lesson we want to plan. Go to the Timetable page, move the calendar to the appropriate week using the arrows or skip to the Current Week, and click on the lesson block that you wish to plan. You'll be taken to the Lesson Overview page.

Let's begin by choosing what content we are going to teach in our lesson.

On the Lesson Overview page you will see some recommended objectives. These recommended objectives are based on either your assigned scheme of work and previous planning, or on the year of your class if you have not yet started planning or assigned a scheme (e.g. a class in year 7 will be recommended the first objective of Unit 7.1). You can add any of these recommended objectives to the Lesson by clicking the up-arrow button.

Alternatively, you can click 'Add' next to 'Lesson Objectives' to browse or search for further objectives to add to the lesson.

You can add objectives from either the Scheme of Work your class is assigned, or from the full curriculum — switching the view between the two using the tabs at the top. You will find 'Scroll to' buttons at the top of the page which takes you to your next recommended objective, or your last used objective for this class.

Navigate through the units and objectives by scrolling and clicking on unit titles to view the objectives within them. You can see your classes progress through both their scheme and the full curriculum, represented by the bubbles on the left-hand side of the list.

Once you have found the objective(s) you wish to cover in your lesson, just click the '+' button to its side to add it in.

The objective is now in your lesson, and available on your lesson overview.

When you open an Objective on the Overview page, you can access each of the support material sections to review the extensive content available and decide what you would like to incorporate into your lesson, including using the pedagogical notes to further investigate the teaching of the content.

Once you've reviewed the objective content, you might like to define which support materials you want to use in the Lesson. To do so, head over to the lesson Notes page using the left-hand side menu.

Here you can jot down what you plan to do in the lesson, which support materials you want to use (e.g 'Example problem pair exercise' or 'Review key vocab)', or you might also like to record an off-timetable lesson with a note when appropriate.

Additionally, on the notes page, you can choose to make notes viewable to pupils in your class. This means you can create and share notes for class-wide announcements, homework reminders, instructions or otherwise. Control the pupil visibility of your notes with the click of a button.

You can then easily assign work from one or multiple Objectives in the lesson Classwork page.

Creating Assignments (Classwork & Homework) gives pupils the ability to submit their work for you to review, to add their reflections on the work, as well as to start a discussion with you about the assignment. It also allows you to provide them with feedback — written or audio — on their submissions.

Head into the Classwork page to choose a resource for your pupils to find and complete during the lesson. When you click 'Add', you will be shown the list of materials from the Resources section of the objectives added to the lesson, including any you or your team have added and shared. Select which resource to assign as Classwork by clicking 'Use'.

Choose to assign it to the entire class or any pupil groups within the class e.g. low or high attainers. Add any additional notes for your pupils (e.g. "Complete work with your study partner."), and if the resource has a solution sheet, select when that becomes available to your pupils (e.g. after submission).

Assign work to be completed at home on the lesson Homework page, in largely the same way as with Classwork. Additionally, though, when assigning homework you will be asked to select what date the homework will become available to pupils, and what date it is due.

Homework shows up as work to complete for pupils on their platform dashboard, between the availability and due date.

A key part of the mastery cycle is regular, formative assessment in order to verify our pupils' knowledge security on recently taught content. We like to incorporate this into our weekly lesson schedule — typically a 30-minute quiz each week, based on the last 2 months worth of lessons. Some teachers like to use these quizzes as homework instead.

Date range quizzes can be set up, reviewed, generated and previewed on the lesson Quizzes page. To read more on creating quizzes on the platform head over here.

Once you are happy with the lesson you have planned you can move your lesson status to 'Planned' at the top of the page. This makes the lesson accessible to your pupils — the objective content, assigned classwork, homework, and pupil notes — and changes it to green on your timetable so that you know at a glance that it's ready.

If you'd prefer, you can choose to wait until the day of the lesson to mark as 'Planned', leaving it as 'Draft' until then, if you want to withhold the lesson content from your pupils until then.

When your lesson comes round, you can click on the green lesson block on your timetable. When teaching a lesson, you might like to have the platform open on the lesson page, sharing it on the class board or shared-screen. You can shrink the left-hand side menu to make the main section larger by clicking the menu button next to the date title.

At Complete Mathematics we are firm believers that one-size-does-not-fit-all when it comes to mathematics lessons — the content you actually cover in your lesson is dependant on a number of factors, including curriculum area, teacher preference, pupil attainment level, and various others. This is why on the platform you have the ability to draw from the huge collection of available materials, resources and pedagogical advice to build your bespoke lesson plans for the requirements of you and your pupils.

With that in mind, we did still want to offer one, typical, example of a mathematics lesson using the platform, just to run through the whole process for you:

• Start on the Objective's Overview page to introduce the lesson's mathematical idea

• Moving over to the Key Learning Points section to break down the focuses further

• Explore the Example Questions section opening up typical, probing and hard questions in full screen, running through the worked solutions with the class, incorporating example problem pair exercises for available dynamic example questions too.

• Refer to the Common Misconceptions section when something crops up in our examples discussions.

• Head over to the lesson Classwork page, opening up the worksheet or activity we've prepared and instruct our class to work on it for the allotted time

• Run through the Classwork solutions and further explore particular areas our class struggled with.

• Finish up by showing the Homework assignment, confirming where the pupils will find it and submit their work on the platform, and the due date.

Some people will like to regularly incorporate readiness or other low-stakes quizzes into their lessons, as well as times tables practice and other manipulatives work.

View a list of all lessons for this class by clicking 'Show Lesson List' at the top of the Lesson page. Select each next lesson in-turn, add objectives, assign work, write notes, and create quizzes. You can then return to the timetable and select a lesson for a different class. This way, working week by week, you can quickly create a fully resourced medium-term plan.

If you have any questions about the above, or perhaps want to share a particular way you are impactfully using Complete Mathematics in lessons, please do get in touch — support@lasalle-education.com.