For Teachers: Planning Term 1 2027 Over the Holiday Without Burning Out

Term 3 closes on Friday 23 October, and for many teachers the national exams and end of year paperwork fill the weeks around it. After that comes the long holiday, the one real break in the school year.

It is also the time when the next term quietly starts to press. Schemes of work, records, timetables and, for senior school teachers, the first Grade 11 classes in January 2027. The risk is that planning spreads across the whole holiday and the rest never quite happens.

This guide is about avoiding that. It splits the work into what is worth doing before you leave school, what can be done in a few focused days, and what should simply wait until January.

Close Term 3 properly first

The easiest planning you will ever do is the planning you do while this term is still fresh. Before the last day, spend thirty minutes writing down:

• Where each class actually reached, not where the scheme said they should be.
• Topics that need revisiting at the start of next year.
• Learners who need a closer eye, with one line on why.
• Resources that worked, and the ones that wasted lesson time.

Keep this on one sheet per class. In January it will save you hours of trying to remember.

Make sure records owed this term are complete too. Grade 10 SBA scores are due on the KNEC CBA portal by 31 October 2026, and schools upload them. If you teach Grade 10, confirm with whoever handles uploads that your scores are in. Report card comments are also easier to do well before the holiday than after it; our guide to report card comments parents understand helps keep them short and useful.

What to prepare now, and what can wait

Schemes of work: an outline, not a novel

The most common holiday mistake is writing a full scheme of work in November for a term whose dates, timetable and class sizes are not yet settled. Half of it ends up rewritten.

Instead, write an outline. For each class, list the strands and sub-strands for the term in the order you plan to teach them, with a rough number of weeks for each. Note where a practical activity, project or field visit fits. That is a page per class, and it is enough to start the term confidently.

When the school calendar and your timetable are confirmed in January, turning that outline into a full scheme takes an afternoon rather than a week. Keep an eye on our school calendar page for confirmed term dates.

Grade 11 in January 2027

Senior school teachers have the biggest planning job this year. Grade 11 starts in January 2027, and the cohort moving up is the first to reach it. KICD released the approved Grade 11 textbook and literary text list, the Orange Book, on 6 October, with over 300 titles. Distribution to schools runs 6 to 23 October, pauses for national exams, and then resumes on weekdays until 23 December.

Useful things to do over the holiday:

• Read the Orange Book entries for your subjects so you know which titles to expect. Our summary of the approved Grade 11 textbooks is a quick starting point.
• Note what your Grade 10 learners found hard this year. They carry those gaps into Grade 11.
• Remember the weighting. Under KCBE, Grade 10 SBA counts 15%, Grade 11 SBA 15% and the Grade 12 summative 70%. Grade 11 assessment is not a practice round.

The Grade 10 Complete Revision and Exam Kit is useful here too: it gives you a ready set of Grade 10 questions for an opening check in January, to see what learners actually retained over the break.

Protecting the holiday

Planning expands to fill whatever time it is given. The fix is to give it a fixed amount.

• Pick three to five planning days and mark them on a calendar. Outside those days, school work waits.
• Work in the morning and stop at lunch. Half days are more productive than long ones, and they leave the afternoon for rest and family.
• Plan with a colleague where you teach the same grade. Splitting strands between two teachers halves the work and usually improves it.
• Reuse what worked. A lesson that went well this year does not need to be reinvented. Adjust it, do not rewrite it.
• Switch off the staff group on non-planning days. Most holiday messages can be read in January.

Rest is not a reward for finishing planning. It is part of doing the job well next term. A teacher who starts January tired starts the year behind.

A simple holiday timeline

A pattern that suits many teachers: close Term 3 records before leaving school, take a clear break, then do the planning days in the first half of December, when the term just ended is still in mind. Leave the last weeks of December free. Return to the outline in the first days of January and fill in dates once the timetable is out.

For ideas on building plans that do not collapse at the first disruption, see a timetable that survives a bad week. It is written for learners, but the principle of building slack into a plan applies to schemes of work just as well.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a complete scheme of work before January?

Usually not. An outline of strands and weeks is enough to start well. Check your own school's expectations, as some heads ask for schemes on the first day back.

What is the single most useful thing to do before the holiday?

Write down where each class actually reached and what needs revisiting. It takes minutes now and is almost impossible to reconstruct in January.

How should senior school teachers prepare for Grade 11?

Read the subject designs and the Orange Book entries for your subjects, and note the gaps your Grade 10 learners showed this year. Detailed lesson planning can wait until classes are confirmed.

Is it worth preparing printed materials now?

Prepare the list, not the copies. Class sizes and timetables often change, and printing early can waste money.

If you would like ready made papers and notes to review this term's work with your classes before they leave, the Term 3 Complete Bundles, such as the Grade 7 Term 3 Complete Bundle, save hours of preparation you can spend resting instead.