Context: 'Please could you revise these shared lesson resources?'
Being asked to dig into a short selection of 'shared' lesson resources got me thinking (again) about ways we could improve the way we document and resource our teaching — not through more clutter, bureaucracy, and file-bloat, but through less.
A quietish week at the beginning of the Christmas holiday + a request to revise some ‘shared resources’ has brought bubbling to the surface my long-running inkling to find a way of managing teaching resources and planning in a more efficient, portable, flexible, and fulfilling way - and frankly a more ‘ownable’ way. So here I am.
This was not a big job — or it wasn’t supposed to be. It’s like this:
I’ve been asked to review and update a short teaching unit (to do with poetry declamation) for Year 8 pupils, to be taught not just by me but by other teachers (some in parallel, some in future years). After all, in situations like this, ‘shared resources’ have to do a fair amount of the work. You know the kind of thing: a shared folder containing PowerPoint files, maybe some PDF or Word doc worksheets, a Word doc containing a ’lesson plan’ or instructions for teachers. Whoever picks them up needs to be able to understand the objectives, rationale, and the progression — not to mention the utility of and purpose of each document — without a lengthy handover. Fine.
But it’s not fine, is it? “Why (my inner monologue asks) does all this stuff have to be scattered across multiple files?…”
Which file is in charge here? If I change or update something in one of the files, do I have to change it somewhere else too? I do, don’t I? Are there any handover notes? Where do they go? How does this Microsoft Word lesson plan map onto the Microsoft PowerPoint slides? Come to think of it, how do I know that they correspond to each other at all?
And so on.
But this isn’t about ‘shared resources’ - it’s bigger than that. My example simply offers a good example of an occasion when you have to come ‘cold’ to lesson documentation and have to make sense of it.
An observation: Good lessons rise from a single source of truth
What if we freed ourselves from the bloat of '90s-origin Office software and were able to plan, deliver, and evolve lessons — or a series of lessons — from a single text-based file?
The clearest pattern I have noticed is that my strongest lessons already orbit around a single, informal document, often handwritten and not necessarily given to pupils. It is rarely tidy. It contains half-written explanations, copied links, reminders to myself, and notes added after the fact.
By contrast, PowerPoint (which I never use but have used in the past and still encounter when it comes to ‘shared resources’)tends to appear after this thinking has taken place, and sometimes at its expense. Word copes better with prose, but encourages linear sprawl and one-off presentational decisions rather than durable structure. It is worth saying out loud that Word is, at heart, software designed to prepare documents for printing — something most lesson plans will never be.
OneNote solves storage, but not synthesis. Structure remains cosmetic rather than integral.
When everything relevant to a lesson genuinely lives in one place — rationale, sequence, resources, contingencies — I feel calmer, more fluent, and more responsive in the classroom. When it does not, I compensate with improvisation, habit, or unnecessary explanation.
The problem, then, is not insufficient effort, but insufficient form.
A sketch: One document, many uses
An attempt to let a single text do the work currently spread across several tools.
The lesson hub is imagined as a single, well-structured Markdown file that functions as the authoritative record for a lesson or short sequence of lessons.
That file might contain:
- teacher-facing planning, at whatever level of explicitness is useful
- copy designed for pupils, of the sort normally placed on slides or worksheets
- an indexed set of external resources, linked rather than duplicated
- sections explicitly marked as teacher-only and automatically filtered where needed
A lightweight Python script would compile this file into clean HTML, styled via a shared CSS file and viewable in any browser. In one mode, it supports lesson delivery and projection. In another, it expands to show full planning context, rationale, and reflection.
The same source could generate handouts, PDFs, or printable plans. Update a question once; update it everywhere.
This is not a platform or a workflow revolution. It is an attempt to let one document do the work currently spread across many — and to allow teachers who wish to plan in a more explicit, even slightly nerdy, way to do so without apology.
Obstacles: The school-shaped world
Time, devices, habits, and institutional expectations press in from all sides.
Any such idea immediately collides with the realities of school life.
Time is scarce and fragmented. Devices are locked down. Software installation is restricted or prohibited. Technical confidence varies widely, even among thoughtful and experienced teachers. Good intentions evaporate quickly under the pressure of a full timetable.
There are also cultural constraints. Slide-first or resource-led teaching is deeply ingrained, particularly in subjects or contexts where non-specialists are delivering material. In these cases, updating content often means editing three or four parallel artefacts — slides, worksheets, plans, and supporting notes.
I have worked in schools where departments were required to maintain both a “Scheme of Work” (for teachers) and a “Scheme of Learning” (for pupils), as if an academic institution were incapable of producing a single intelligent document capable of serving both audiences with selective disclosure.
There is also the risk that this approach is perceived as more work. Initially, it is. The work lies in shifting habits and reclaiming control over one’s materials. The payoff is coherence and autonomy.
Finally, there is the constraint of attention. Any system that demands constant polishing or vigilance will not survive contact with term time. A lesson hub worth maintaining must tolerate neglect and partial use — and still remain helpful.
Why?: Why this matters
Not as a productivity trick, but as a way of treating teaching as durable intellectual work.
Questions: What remains unresolved
Points of tension, uncertainty, or future exploration.
How much structure is enough before the system becomes constraining rather than enabling?
What level of technical friction is acceptable if the payoff is coherence, reuse, and clarity?
Can a text-first approach coexist peacefully with institutional expectations and existing platforms?
And, perhaps most importantly, how can the habit of maintaining a single source of truth be sustained when energy, time, and goodwill are all in short supply?