How to get your lesson notes to pass vetting the first time

Vetting feels arbitrary the first few times, but it isn't. A headteacher or circuit supervisor is working down a short, fixed list, and a note comes back when one item on that list is missing or wrong. Get all of them right and you sign in one pass. Here is the list, and the timing that most people get wrong before they even start.

Vetting happens before you teach

This is the part that catches new teachers. Your notes are not reviewed after the fact like homework. They go in ahead of the week they cover, traditionally on Monday, and they are approved before the first lesson runs. That is why the document says Week Ending at the top rather than a date you have already taught through.

It also changes what a rejection costs. A note handed back is not a mark against work you finished, it is work you now have to redo before you can stand in front of the class. The whole point of clearing it in one pass is that the week starts on time.

Your notes cannot be rejected for being typed

Worth knowing before it comes up. On 17 January 2024 the Ghana Education Service directed regional directors to inform district, municipal and metropolitan directors that heads of schools, at both Basic and Second Cycle level, must accept lesson notes whether they are handwritten or prepared electronically, and whether they arrive printed or by email.

The header block

Before anyone reads a single activity, they read the top of the page. A weekly note carries more fields than most teachers list from memory:

• Week Ending, and the day or period the lesson sits in
• Subject, Class, and Class Size
• Duration, and which lesson this is in the sequence, written as 1 of 4
• Strand and Sub-Strand
• Content Standard, with its code and its wording
• Indicator, with its code and its wording
• Performance Indicator, written as what learners can do
• Core Competencies
• References, down to the curriculum page number
• Keywords for the lesson

The two most often left blank are Keywords and the page number in References. A real note cites its source precisely, as "Science Curriculum Pg.2", not just "the syllabus".

The right indicator codes

This is where most rejections happen. Every lesson names the strand, sub-strand, content standard and indicator it covers, and the code has to be real. Take B7.1.1.1.1 in Science. It resolves to strand 1, Diversity of Matter; sub-strand 1, Materials; content standard B7.1.1.1, "Recognise materials as important resources for providing human needs"; and the indicator itself, "Classify materials into liquids, solids and gases".

A code that does not resolve like that, or one copied from an older syllabus, is the fastest way to get sent back. Check every code before you print.

The three phases, by their real names

A lesson note covers a whole week, running across the days you teach that subject. Each lesson moves through three phases, and the vetter is looking for all three by name:

• Phase 1: Starter. Revise the previous lesson, or find out what learners already know, and share the indicators for today.
• Phase 2: Main. Where the indicator is actually taught, with the assessment questions sitting at the end of this phase rather than in a section of their own.
• Phase 3: Reflection. Peer discussion and questioning to find out what was learnt, then a summary.

A lesson that opens straight into the main phase with no starter, or stops without a reflection, reads as unfinished.

Core competencies and values

Each lesson names the core competencies it builds, and in a real note they are written as references rather than bare letters, in the form "CI 5.2, CP 5.1: CC 8.2". The activities then have to show them. If a note claims collaboration but every activity is the teacher talking, that gap gets noticed.

One trap worth knowing: NaCCA's own documents are not consistent about which letters map to which competency, and Science, RME and Computing swap two of them. Match by the competency name, not by the letter you remember.

Assessment and references

The main phase needs a way to check the indicator landed, whether that is questions, a short task or observation. And the note carries its references. These are small, and they are exactly the small things that get flagged.

The sign-off block

Leave room for the approval. The physical GES lesson note book has this printed in already: space for the name, signature and date of the person approving, plus a remarks line. Most of the typed templates circulating online drop it, which means a teacher who switched to typing quietly loses the one part of the page the vetter has to write on.

Print it with the block already there.

It is not the only document

Your notes are one item among several an appraiser works through. The lesson note book sits alongside the log book, the staff attendance book, the movement book, the learners' attendance register, the cumulative record books and the learners' exercise books. Marked exercise books get checked about as often as notes do, so a clean note beside unmarked books does not read as well as it should.

None of this is hard, it is just easy to miss one item under a Sunday- evening deadline. teache prints the GES format with the header fields, real codes, the three phases and the approval block already in place, so the note clears in one pass. See a sample note or start with one week.