Pacing Guide

Create a realistic week-by-week pacing guide that maps instruction to the school calendar, accounting for testing, holidays, and built-in review time so you know in advance where pacing will be tight.

All SubjectsElementary (K–5)Middle School (6–8)High School (9–12)

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When to use this template

  • Beginning of school year or semester planning
  • Department or grade-level coordination where consistent pacing is needed
  • When preparing for standardized testing and needing to plan backward from test dates
  • Any time you want to know in advance where pacing will be tight and plan accordingly
  • Creating accountability for pacing when teaching the same course as colleagues

Template sections

Count your actual instructional weeks after removing all non-instructional time.

Total weeks in school year/semester:

Standardized testing windows (dates and impact on instruction):

School holidays and breaks:

Professional development days:

Other non-instructional periods:

Actual instructional weeks available:

List all content that must be covered and prioritize by deadline.

Content with hard deadlines (must cover by which date, and why):

Essential content (no firm deadline but required for course completion):

Important content (should cover if time permits):

Enriching content (will cut first if pacing falls behind):

Assign content to specific weeks of the school year.

Weeks 1–3: Unit 1 (3 weeks)

Week 4: Unit 1 assessment + Unit 2 launch

Weeks 5–8: Unit 2 (4 weeks)

...

Buffer weeks identified: ___

Review and reteaching windows: ___

Identify specific points in the year to check progress against the plan.

Checkpoint 1 (week ___, should be at): ___

Checkpoint 2 (week ___, should be at): ___

Checkpoint 3 (week ___, should be at): ___

What you will do if you are behind by more than 1 week:

What you will do if you are ahead:

Document planned flex weeks for review, reteaching, and unexpected delays.

Flex weeks allocated: ___

Planned use of flex weeks (review before testing, reteach weak units):

Content that can be compressed to recover time:

Content that cannot be compressed:

End-of-year enrichment plan if ahead:

Note how this pacing guide coordinates with colleagues teaching the same course.

Other teachers using this pacing guide:

Flexibility allowed within the guide:

Minimum consistency expected across sections:

Review meeting schedule for pacing check-ins:

The Flip Perspective

Pacing guides fail when they are built from the content outward rather than from the calendar inward. This template starts by stripping out non-instructional days first, then allocating realistic week counts to content. The result is a plan that describes what actually happens in your classroom, not what happens in a school with no holidays and no testing.

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Adapting this Template

For All Subjects

Apply Pacing Guide by adapting the phase timings and prompts to fit All Subjects's unique content demands.

About the Pacing Guide framework

A pacing guide answers a specific, practical question: how many weeks should each unit take, and when should each standard be taught? While a curriculum map shows what to teach and a scope and sequence shows the order, a pacing guide anchors instruction to the actual school calendar.

Calendar-first planning: The most effective pacing guides are built from the school calendar outward, not from content inward. You start by blocking off standardized testing windows, school holidays, professional development days, and other non-instructional periods. What remains is your actual instructional time, and you allocate it to content from there.

Unit pacing versus daily pacing: A pacing guide typically operates at the unit level, specifying which unit is taught in which weeks of the school year. Daily pacing (what specific lesson happens on what specific day) is too granular for a pacing guide and belongs in lesson plans.

Tight versus flexible pacing: Some content has hard deadlines: material that must be covered before a state standardized exam has a firm "covered by" date. Other content is more flexible and can be moved if an early unit takes longer than planned. A good pacing guide distinguishes between tight and flexible content explicitly.

Review and reteaching: Effective pacing guides build in review and reteaching time rather than assuming instruction will proceed as planned. A two-week buffer across a semester is the minimum; teachers in high-testing environments may need more. Review time that appears in the pacing guide is used strategically. Review time that is not planned for is often cut when pacing falls behind.

Using the pacing guide: A pacing guide is most useful when teachers check it regularly, at least weekly, to compare actual progress to the plan. When instruction falls behind, the pacing guide helps identify what to compress or cut. When instruction moves faster, it identifies opportunities for enrichment or deeper exploration.

Year-Long Map

Map your entire course across 36 weeks, organizing units, standards coverage, and major assessments so you can see the full year at a glance and spot gaps before the school year begins.

Semester Map

Map a single semester of instruction with realistic pacing, organizing 18 weeks of units, standards, and assessments so you start the term with a clear plan and finish with everything covered.

Scope & Sequence

Document the breadth and order of your curriculum: what you will teach (scope) and in what sequence, to ensure coherent vertical alignment and consistent coverage across classrooms or grade levels.

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Frequently asked questions

A pacing guide should be a compass, not a contract. It provides direction and accountability without eliminating professional judgment. The goal is to make tradeoffs visible and deliberate rather than invisible and accidental. When teachers deviate significantly, the conversation should be about why and whether the deviation serves students.
Identify what you will cut, compress, or defer, and communicate the change to colleagues who use the same guide. Do not try to "make up" lost time by rushing through content. Compressed coverage is often worse than targeted omission. Make a deliberate choice about what drops rather than racing.
A pacing guide is a target, not a mandate. Different sections of the same course often need different pacing based on student needs. The pacing guide creates a common reference point and flags when a section is significantly deviating from the norm, which is a signal for conversation, not punishment.
Yes, at least major assessments and any hard-deadline assessments tied to standardized testing. Assessment dates are a form of pacing constraint, and showing them in the pacing guide makes their impact on instructional time visible.
Start with the standards and a realistic estimate of instructional depth per standard. Review existing pacing guides from other schools or districts teaching the same course. Build in more buffer time than you think you need. Revise heavily after your first year based on what actually happened.
Pacing guides are built around time, and active learning takes time worth protecting. When you add a column or note for instructional approach, you can flag which weeks feature hands-on labs, structured debates, or collaborative projects so that active learning gets realistic time allocations rather than being squeezed in. Use the pacing guide to protect that time and Flip to generate the individual lessons that fill it.
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