A scheme of work is the map of your term. It tells you, your head of department and any quality-assurance officer what you will teach, in which week, how learners will learn it, and how you will know they have learnt it. This guide walks through every column of a CBC (now CBE) scheme of work, shows a worked example, and ends with a checklist you can use before you hand yours in.
What a scheme of work is, and what it is not
A scheme of work breaks the curriculum design for one learning area into weeks and lessons for one term. It sits between two other documents:
- The curriculum design (from KICD) says what learners in the grade must achieve: strands, sub-strands, specific learning outcomes, key inquiry questions and the suggested number of lessons.
- The lesson plan says how one single lesson will run, minute by minute.
The scheme of work is the bridge. It is not a copy of the design and it is not a pile of lesson plans. A good one can be read in two minutes and still tell a stranger exactly where your class should be in Week 7.
Before you start
Have three things on your desk: the current KICD curriculum design for your grade and learning area, your school's term dates (opening, half term, closing, and exam weeks), and your class timetable showing how many lessons of this subject you teach each week.
The columns, one by one
Schools and publishers lay schemes out slightly differently, but almost every CBC scheme of work in Kenya carries these columns.
| Column | What goes in it | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Week | The school week number (1, 2, 3 ...) | Your term dates |
| Lesson | The lesson number within that week | Your timetable |
| Strand | The broad area, e.g. "Numbers" or "Living Things and Their Environment" | The curriculum design |
| Sub-strand | The topic inside the strand, e.g. "Fractions" or "The Cell" | The curriculum design |
| Specific learning outcomes | What learners should be able to do by the end of the lesson, starting "By the end of the lesson, the learner should be able to ..." | The design, split across lessons |
| Key inquiry question | The big question that drives the lesson | The design |
| Learning experiences | What the learners do: discuss, measure, observe, role-play, draw, present | You (guided by the design) |
| Learning resources | Textbook pages, charts, real objects, digital devices | You and your school |
| Assessment | How you will check learning: oral questions, observation, written exercise, project, checklist | You |
| Reflection / Remarks | Left blank at first; filled in after teaching | You, after the lesson |
1. Week and lesson
Count the real teaching weeks in your term, not the calendar weeks. Take out the opening week if your school uses it for admission and timetabling, the half-term break, and any weeks set aside for mid-term or end-of-term exams. If your timetable gives the subject five lessons a week and you have eleven teaching weeks, you have about 55 lessons to plan, not 70.
2. Strand and sub-strand
Copy these exactly as the design names and numbers them (for example 2.0 Algebra, 2.1 Matrices). Keep the design's order unless your department has agreed a different sequence. Exam setters and quality-assurance officers use these numbers to check coverage, so a renamed topic causes confusion.
3. Specific learning outcomes
The design lists the outcomes for each sub-strand as a group. Your job is to spread them sensibly across the lessons the design suggests for that sub-strand. One lesson usually carries one or two outcomes, never all of them. Keep each outcome measurable: "identify", "calculate", "draw", "classify", "demonstrate". Avoid "understand" and "know", which nobody can observe.
4. Key inquiry question
Use the design's key inquiry questions and place each one against the lessons it drives. One question can cover two or three lessons. A good question is open: "How do we use matrices to organise information?" invites thinking; "What is a matrix?" only invites a definition.
5. Learning experiences
This is the column that shows you are teaching the competency-based way. Write what learners do, in short active phrases:
- "In pairs, learners measure the length and width of their desks and record them in a table."
- "Learners sort pictures of animals into vertebrates and invertebrates and explain their choices."
- "Groups role-play a market scene to practise bargaining language."
"Teacher explains" is not a learning experience. If a lesson needs some teacher explanation, follow it with what learners then do with it.
6. Learning resources
Be specific and honest. "Course book page 34, metre rule, a bean seedling, chart of the cell" is useful. "Relevant materials" tells nobody anything. Include local, free resources: bottle tops for counting, leaves for classification, newspapers for comprehension.
7. Assessment
Match the method to the outcome. If the outcome is "draw and label a plant cell", the assessment is checking the drawing, not an oral question. Mix methods across the week: oral questions, observation with a checklist, a short written exercise, a project, a portfolio entry. These are also the records you will later use for school-based assessment.
8. Reflection
Leave it blank when you plan. After the lesson, write one honest line: "Done; most learners could add matrices but struggled with order" or "Not covered: sports day. Moved to Week 6 Lesson 2". Heads of department look for this column. A scheme with every reflection blank at the end of term suggests it was never used.
A worked example
Here is one week of a Grade 9 Mathematics scheme, Strand 2.0 Algebra, Sub-strand 2.1 Matrices, for a class with five Mathematics lessons a week. The wording is ours; check the outcomes against your own copy of the design.
| Wk | Lsn | Sub-strand | Specific learning outcome | Learning experiences | Resources | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 1 | 2.1 Matrices | Identify a matrix and its elements in real-life tables | Learners study a class duty roster and a bus timetable and discuss how the numbers are arranged in rows and columns | Duty roster, bus timetable, course book | Oral questions |
| 3 | 2 | 2.1 Matrices | Determine the order of a matrix | In pairs, learners write matrices from data they collect (e.g. pupils by gender in three classes) and state the order of each | Class register data, exercise books | Written exercise |
| 3 | 3 | 2.1 Matrices | Identify the position of an element in a matrix | Learners play a "find the element" game: one names a row and a column, the partner names the element | Matrix cards | Observation checklist |
| 3 | 4 | 2.1 Matrices | Add matrices of the same order | Groups add two shops' weekly sales matrices to find total sales, then explain why matrices of different orders cannot be added | Sales tables, chart paper | Group presentation |
| 3 | 5 | 2.1 Matrices | Subtract matrices of the same order | Learners find stock left in a canteen by subtracting a "sold" matrix from a "stock" matrix | Canteen stock list | Written exercise |
Notice three things. Each lesson has one outcome. Every learning experience uses something from the learners' own world. And the assessment changes through the week, so by Friday you have oral, observed and written evidence for the same sub-strand.
Planning the whole term in five steps
- Count lessons. Real teaching weeks multiplied by lessons per week. Write the number down.
- List the sub-strands for the term with the number of lessons the design suggests for each. Add them up.
- Compare the two totals. If the design needs more lessons than you have, plan to combine closely related outcomes; if you have spare lessons, leave one revision lesson after each strand and two before exams.
- Fill the weeks in order, sub-strand by sub-strand, spreading outcomes one or two per lesson.
- Add learning experiences, resources and assessment last, once the skeleton is right. This is where your own knowledge of your class matters most.
Common mistakes that get schemes sent back
- Copying the design's outcome list into every row. Each lesson should carry only its own outcome.
- Planning for weeks that do not exist. Half term and exam weeks still show lessons.
- Learning experiences that are really teacher activities ("Teacher explains the parts of a cell").
- The same assessment in every row ("Oral questions" fifty times).
- Old designs. Designs have been revised (rationalised) in recent years. Check the date on yours.
- A blank reflection column at the end of term.
Checklist before you submit
- Strand and sub-strand names and numbers match the current design.
- The number of planned lessons equals your real teaching lessons.
- Every lesson has one or two measurable outcomes.
- Learning experiences describe what learners do.
- Resources are specific, and include some local, free ones.
- Assessment methods vary and match the outcomes.
- Revision lessons sit before the exam weeks.
- The reflection column is ready to be filled in after each lesson.
Short of time this term? Elimu254 makes a complete CBC scheme of work for your grade, subject and term in about a minute, laid out on your school's real calendar, which you can then edit. You see the topics before you pay.
