Term 3 2026 Schemes of Work: The Ready-Check Every Teacher Should Do Before 24 August

Term 3 2026 opens on Monday 24 August and closes on Friday 23 October. That gives you nine teaching weeks with no half-term break, and for candidate classes the squeeze is tighter still: the national assessment window for KPSEA (Grade 6) and KJSEA (Grade 9) opens on 26 October, immediately after the term closes. If your scheme of work still assumes a normal-length term, it is already wrong. Here is the ready-check to run before the first lesson, and the full Term 3 2026 calendar if you need the dates in one place.

Why you cannot photocopy last term's scheme forward

Every year some schemes get recycled with only the dates changed. This term that shortcut will fail for three reasons.

• The designs have changed. The rationalised KICD curriculum designs reorganised learning areas, strands and sub-strands across several grades. A scheme built on an older design may sequence sub-strands that have since been merged, moved or removed. Always scheme from the current KICD design for your grade and learning area, not from memory, and check the current design if you are unsure which version your school has adopted.
• Nine weeks, no half-term. Term 3 is short and unbroken. A scheme written for a ten or eleven week term will simply run out of road, and the sub-strands you planned for the missing weeks are often the ones assessed hardest.
• Candidate classes lose the final stretch. Grade 6 and Grade 9 teachers cannot plan new content into late October. The last two to three weeks belong to revision, SBA completion and assessment rehearsal, because the assessment window opens on 26 October. If you teach Grade 9, plan backwards from that date; our Grade 9 materials include revision sets built for exactly this window.

The ready-check: five things to verify before 24 August

1. Count the teaching weeks. Your scheme should show nine weeks at most, and realistically seven to eight weeks of new teaching once opening-week administration and assessment weeks are subtracted. If the left-hand column says Week 10, something has to go, and it is better you choose what goes than the calendar choosing for you.
2. Map every entry to the current design. Each row should name the strand and sub-strand exactly as they appear in the current KICD curriculum design, with the specific learning outcomes alongside. If you cannot match a row to the design, check whether that content was rationalised out or moved to another grade.
3. Mark assessment weeks explicitly. Block out the weeks your school has set for end-of-term assessment. A scheme that quietly teaches new sub-strands during exam week is a scheme that will not be followed.
4. Enter SBA deadlines as dated rows, not footnotes. School-based assessment tasks have submission dates this term, especially for candidate classes. Put each deadline in the scheme itself so the practical work, projects and scoring are scheduled rather than squeezed in at the end.
5. Build in remedial slots for candidate classes. Grade 6 and Grade 9 schemes should show at least one weekly slot for remediation and revision from mid-September, growing to full revision by mid-October. Write it down; unscheduled revision rarely happens.

How heads of department can verify schemes at a glance

An HoD does not need to read every row of every scheme. Five quick checks catch most problems:

• Does the scheme end on or before 23 October?
• Do strand and sub-strand names match the current design? Spot-check three rows against the KICD document.
• Are assessment weeks and SBA deadlines visible without hunting?
• For Grade 6 and Grade 9: does new content stop in time for structured revision?
• Is there a references column naming approved course books, so a cover teacher could pick the scheme up cold?

If a scheme fails two or more of these, send it back on the spot. It is far cheaper to fix in August than to discover in October that a class never met a sub-strand it will be assessed on.

If your scheme needs a rebuild, do not start from a blank page

Rebuilding schemes for every class you teach is hours of work in a week when you also have opening reports, class lists and staff meetings. Our editable, KICD-aligned schemes of work and teaching materials cover each learning area, cost from KSH 100 per subject, download instantly after M-Pesa payment and open in Word. You can adjust the week count, drop in your school's own assessment dates and print the same day. Run the five checks above on whatever you use, editable download or your own rebuild, and you are ready for 24 August.