It seems to me that it all depends on what and whom you are teaching. The general feel of the above responses is, I think, that there is no simple answer to the question of whether written plans are necessary.

During my PGCE they told us to 'tell them what you are going to teach them, teach it, then tell them what you have taught them.' As I was teaching a foreign language to British adults, not through the medium of English, but through the medium of that foreign language, that approach was just not possible even if I had agreed with it. Also, I think it would have ruined the flow especially since, by the end, I would usually have all the students on their feet, milling around in some game, jabbering away using things they had learned during the evening. I didn't feel I should then have to call them to order.

I was also required to conform to the college's standard lesson plan. That standard plan included a blank section for me to list the 'key skills' I would be teaching my students in each lesson. I objected, saying that my nightschool adults were not paying £40 a term to learn 'problem solving', 'numeracy' or 'working together with other people'. Nor did the plan have space for a whiteboard plan, or to list the essential props I would need for each lesson, which I would have forgotten to take with me, had they not been written down. Nevertheless I was obliged to re-write half a term's plans for lessons which, by now, I had already taught. I was told that the external examiner would not have time to plough through lots of different styles of plan. I thought the aim of the plan was to improve the individual's teaching ability, not to make externals happier.

During that PGCE, and during the preparations for an inspection of our nightschool classes, I'm afraid my view of our education system evolved into quite a cynical one: it appeared not to matter whether you had taught a thing or not, as long as you could 'prove' you had taught it.

As far as my individual piano lessons go, in the beginning, I always wrote detailed plans and tried to make them as inconspicuous to pupils as possible. Now, sometimes I write detailed plans and sometimes not, depending on the circumstances. I know I still get things wrong and I try hard to learn from my mistakes, but overall I hope I am sensible enough to know when I need to write a plan and when I don't.

ARGH. DON'T get me started on this one!

Our education system sucks...(pardon the vernacular)...

Sorry, !

I love you Cyrilla for saying what I think, and it isn't the teachers, it the bureacrats behing them!

!

I totally agree - this is not the teachers' fault but 'the system', which is driven by - yes - bureaucrats, civil servants, pen pushers...NOT by true educators.

Education should be a natural, holistic process which engages, enthuses and inspires and develops the potential of each individual in areas intellectual, physical, social and emotional.

'You are going to learn this'...'What have you learned?'...has NOTHING to do with education, IMHO...

Classroom teaching and individual instrumental teaching are different, although occasionally even plans for classroom lessons have to be thrown out of the window. My lesson plans for teaching classes were rigorously planned (and this was before inspections were the order of the day).

In terms of instrumental lessons, I now have a general idea of where I want each lesson to go, with particular attention to an aspect if I was unable to cover it the previous week because I ran out of time - like a bit of sight-reading or theory for example. The trouble in some ways is that pupils can make such varied progress from one week to another "because I had a lot of homework" or "because I had to go away at the weekend" so that a lesson plan can be scuppered from the outset if too closely planned.

I did have one pupil - a dream pupil really whose life was the piano. I sent him away with a new piece and it was under the fingers by the next week. It really kept me on my toes. In fact he was very useful because I based one of my CT essays on forward planning specially for him.

OK, lesson plans

1 Warm-up

scales, arpeggios, broken chords, list which ones are going to be covered, and why (exam, revision)

new material for warm-ups, if appropriate, new scales, and other exercises, and why (progression, new key signature)

2 Middle sections

The length and number of these will vary on the level and 15/20/30/45/60 lesson length and have more than one, for variety, and in case one or other of them are not helping achieve progress

They can include but necessarily so, a) reprising previous practise material - pieces, b) studies and preludes which either involve sight reading or develop from other lessons, c) new material for practise before the next lesson. New material should wherever possible cover more than one style, anything from proto classical to modern theatre and covering as many bases as possible in between. Again, think strategically, and offer as much variety as possible.

3 End Section

Make sure pupil is comfortable and knows what they need to do for the next lesson, and by comfortable I mean does not leave in a panic, because they feel over or under stretched.

Lesson plans can be very useful, and serve as a record of how the lesson was intended and do also jot down what went well and what didn't.

The above are just suggestions, and can be more general, or much more detailed as appropriate.