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Setting Up Planning Templates

Create or adapt planning templates that define plan sections, family visibility, and linking options. Best practice: copy an Educa template, tweak it, publish, then archive older versions to avoid changing existing plans.

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Written by Educa
Updated over 2 weeks ago

🔒 Site Admins only – Only users with site admin access can create or edit planning templates. If you don’t see this option, ask someone with site admin access at your centre to help.

What templates are & why they matter

Templates are the blueprints teachers use to write plans. They set the sections (headings and helper text), control what families can see (plan-level or field-level), and allow links to frameworks and/resources.

Consistent planning is central to quality practice in Early Learning. Templates give your team a shared structure, reduce typing/rework, make expectations clear, and ensure family-visible content is appropriate and consistent across classrooms.

💡 Quick start - For new sites

  1. Review the built-in Educa templates.

  2. Copy & customise 1–2 to match your language/sections.

  3. Publish your templates.

  4. Tell teachers to go to Tools → Planning → +New Plan to start using them.

Use a Built-in Templates

Educa includes a set of reday-made planning template based on common practice you can use straight away.

  1. Confirm the built-in template matches your needs.

  2. Tell teachers to go to Tools → Planning → New Plan, pick that template, and start planning.

Customise an Exisiting Template

Recommended for most centres.

  1. Go to Tools > Planning > Templates tab.

  2. Choose an existing template (built-in or your own) → Copy.

  3. Edit fields and setting, and visibility (plan/field) as needed.

  4. Choose whether frameworks/resources can be linked.

  5. Rename clearly (e.g., “Individual Goals — Term 1”) → Publish.

⚠️ Important: Editing a template updates every plan based on it. Any edits will also update those plans. To avoid changing existing plans, copy first, edit the copy, then publish.

Screen shows Tools → Planning → Templates. A built-in template is selected, ‘Copy’ is clicked.

Table Plan Templates

Use a table template when your planning is grid-style (e.g., weekly overviews, multi-goal matrices). In table templates the columns (custom fields) are defined in the template; teachers add rows while writing the plan.

  1. Open the Templates tab in Planning.

  2. Copy an existing table template.

  3. Enter a title and select your template settings.

  4. Edit, delete, or add Custom Fields – these become the column headings in your plan.-> Publish

Create your own Planning Template

  1. Go to Tools > Planning > New Template.

  2. Enter a clear title (e.g. ILP_Toddler Room)

  3. If you want to link children to plans using this template, make sure you activate the setting.

  4. Choose your visibility settings:

    • Entire plan visible to families, or teacher-only.

    • Check out our article on Plan visibility for more information

  5. Add sections by selecting New Custom Field.

    • Write your header and description.

    • Set the preferences to Private (teachers only) or View (visible to families). -> Click Save.

      GIF shows how New Custom Field is clicked, a title and description are given and visibility is selected before saving the field.

  6. Decide whether frameworks and resources can be attached to plans created from this template.

  7. Publish to make your template availble in the Select Template menu when teachers creating a new plan.

Manage your templates (versioning & lifecycle)

  • Archive to stop new plans using a template; existing plans remain intact. Reactivate anytime.

  • Safe workflow: Copy → rename (v2) → Publish → Archive the old one when ready.

  • Naming tip: Use clear, scannable names (e.g., “Toddler Room Weekly Overview (Table)”).

  • Teacher comms: After publishing/archiving, notify teachers which template to use.

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