All plans in Educa are made from a planning template. That template defines plan visibility - fields and the plan as well, field labels, etc. If you want to write a plan with specific settings and fields, you need to ask your Site Admin (only) to create a plan template for you.

Templates are pre-populated with sub-headings, questions and perhaps content, and can include custom linking and privacy settings, e.g., making entire plans or certain fields in plans visible to teachers only. Templates can be used to:

To start, you can copy a pre-loaded Educa template and amend the format, or you can create your own templates. Note, Educa does have table templates. These are best used on larger screens.

From Planning (in Tools drop down list), select Create Template. Only Site Administrators will see this option.

Create a title and determine the settings for your template. This includes making the plans created from your template not visible to families.

To create sections, add a New Custom Field to write your header and description. You can set each field to public or private (not seen by families) and add as many fields as you require. 

Finally, set whether framework and resources can be attached to plans using this template. You can then click Publish and the template will appear in the Select Template menu when writing a plan. 

Pro Tip #1 If you are choosing to make a Plan template visible to teachers only, add that to the title so that your teachers are aware.

Pro Tip #2. Consider adding a private field to your plan that is seen by teachers only for teacher discussion while a plan is being created. This will encourage shared thinking and collaboration.

From the Templates tab in Planning, start by copying an existing table template, add a title and determine the settings of your template. 

You can then edit, delete or add custom fields. These custom fields are the column headings in your table. You cannot add row headings to your templates. These will need to be added when writing your plan.

Here is an example of how the template in edit mode translates into the template when writing a plan: 

Start by opening the Templates tab on the main Planning page. From there you will need to find the existing template you wish to copy and click Copy. 

You can then adjust any of the fields and settings to suit your needs. We'd recommend giving the template a unique title, so you can differentiate between your customised template and the standard template.