Planning sessions.

I have a love hate relationship with planning, I know that its important and that its probably the most use full thing to do outside the session, but I'm really bad at doing it, not that I can’t just that I dint most of the time.

However, I do work with some great folk one of whom is very organised and makes me plan. Often the plan changes mid session based on the needs of the young people but that's OK, because we have lots of things planned from previous sessions and coming sessions.

Plan in advance and keep those plans

If you plan your sessions in advance, changing is not an issue, I favour the pick n mix style of planning, have a bunch of activities already to go and choose what will work in theory for the session.

So you may have an icebreaker, then a meeting starter or discussion topic, an activity,game or arty thing, a thought of the day, or focus spot, and a meeting end, or challenge for the week.

All of these things can be planed and if you find the activity isn't going to work because you have too many people or not enough or whatever other reason you can just choose another activity.

Once you have done a thing, its a good idea to review it and see how well or not it worked, make changes, improvements and file it ready to reuse another time ( you can also send a copy to us at YR and we will make it available to everyone else)

Remember there s no set way to plan, you can use whatever style you want, but do plan and be ready to change and adapt, its easier if you have a session planned out and a bunch of backups.