PE Lesson Plan Generator

A PE lesson has a constraint no club session has: thirty children, one hall, and whatever equipment is in the cupboard. The failure mode is queueing — one activity, one line, twenty-eight children standing still. This plans the lesson around a station carousel so everybody is active at once, sizes the groups to your actual class, and gives the whole thing an entry activity, a game and a plenary that add up to exactly the length of your lesson.

Session length (minutes)

The blocks always add up to exactly this.

How many players

Drills that do not work at this number are left out.

Seed (optional)

A word reproduces the same session — useful across two squads.

Your session plan will appear here.

What this generator does

Produces a whole lesson rather than an activity. The PE activity generator here returns one idea; this returns the lesson — a short entry activity, a station carousel that takes the largest share of the time because it is the only part where every child is active at once, one whole-class game, and a plenary. The group split is computed from your class size, so twenty-three children across five stations comes out as 5/5/5/4/4 rather than 'about four and a half each'.

How to use this tool

Set the lesson length and the number of children in the class.
Tick what is genuinely in the cupboard — balls, cones, bibs, hoops, mats.
Press build for a lesson from entry activity to plenary.
Swap any activity that will not work in your space; the timings stay.

Understanding the controls

Lesson length: Four blocks totalling exactly this, so the plan fits the timetable rather than the timetable absorbing the overrun. The plenary is protected as its own block rather than being whatever is left at the end.
Class size: Decides the station groups and which whole-class games are possible. It also feeds the group split shown on each block, which always adds back up to your class — nobody is left out of the arithmetic.
Equipment: A hard filter on every station. Without bibs the tag and capture games go; without hoops the nest game goes. Anything unticked simply never appears, which is the point when you are covering a lesson in somebody else's hall.
Seed: Reproduces the identical lesson — useful for teaching the same plan to two classes in one day.

Worked examples

50 minutes, 30 children, full cupboard: About 9 entry activity, 21 stations, 14 whole-class game, 6 plenary — 50 exactly.
23 children across 5 stations: Groups of 5, 5, 5, 4, 4 — adding back up to 23 rather than rounding.
No bibs: Tag with a twist and capture the cones drop out; benchball and the four-goal game may too, and the page says which.
A 30-minute lesson: The same four blocks, proportionally shorter, with the entry activity and plenary capped so the middle keeps its share.

Common use cases

Planning a primary PE lesson for a full class
Picking up a cover lesson at short notice with unfamiliar equipment
Running a lesson in a small hall where a whole-class game needs care
Building a half-term of lessons that do not repeat the same activities
Handing a written plan to a sports coach or teaching assistant

How this generator works

The PE template runs warm-up, stations, a whole-class game and a cool-down, with 42% of the time going to the carousel by design. Activities that will not work with your class size or equipment are removed before minutes are shared out, then whole minutes are apportioned by largest remainder so the lesson totals exactly. The class is split into station groups using the same whole-number method, so the group sizes differ by at most one and always sum to the class. Interval-style activities fit whole work-and-rest sets inside their block and report the change-over time.

Randomness and fairness

The draw picks which eligible activity fills each block and each station. The lesson shape, the minute split and the group sizes are all derived rather than drawn. A seed makes the activity choice reproducible through a documented non-cryptographic generator.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Assumptions this tool makes

A usable indoor or outdoor space is available for the whole lesson.
The class size given is the number who will be taking part rather than the number on the register.

Limitations and good to know

It has no knowledge of your curriculum, scheme of work or the age group's prior learning, and does not write learning objectives.
Space is not modelled — a whole-class game that works in a sports hall may not work in a classroom-sized space, and you have to judge that.
It cannot know about individual pupils' needs, medical conditions or access requirements; every activity needs adapting for the class in front of you.
The lesson is not saved, so copy or print it before leaving the page — a seed will rebuild the same one.

Common mistakes

Running one activity for the whole class instead of the carousel: The carousel exists to stop queueing. One activity for thirty children means most of them standing still for most of the lesson.
Leaving the plenary to whatever time remains: It has its own block for a reason — it is the part of the lesson most often lost, and the part that makes the rest of it stick.
Ticking equipment that is shared with another class: Tick only what you will definitely have in your hands. A station you cannot set up is worse than one fewer station.

Practical tips

Set the stations out before the class arrives — the carousel is the block most often eaten by setting up.
Use the number-groups warm-up to form the station groups without picking teams.
Give each group a card with their station's instructions so you are not repeating them five times.

Privacy and your data

Nothing you enter leaves your browser. No pupil names are collected here, and the lesson length, class size, equipment and seed are never uploaded, stored or written into the page address. Analytics records only that the tool ran and how many blocks it produced.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from the PE activity generator?: That gives you one activity. This gives you the lesson: four timed blocks that fit your timetable slot, a station carousel sized to your class, and a plenary that does not get squeezed out.
Why do the station groups come out uneven?: Because classes rarely divide exactly. Twenty-three across five stations is 5/5/5/4/4 — the sizes always differ by at most one and always add back up to your class, which is more useful than an average.
Can I use it for secondary PE?: The structure transfers, but the activities are written for a general school context rather than for a specific sport at a specific key stage. Treat them as a starting point and adapt.
Does it include learning objectives?: No. Objectives belong to your scheme of work and your class, and a generated one would be filler. This plans the time and the activities; the objective is yours.