CAPS lesson plans and annual teaching plans
The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement sets out, subject by subject and phase by phase, what South African teachers are expected to teach and assess. It is set by the Department of Basic Education.
LessonSmith drafts CAPS lesson plans and a full-term annual teaching plan for teachers in South Africa, and lays both out against the term dates you actually teach. Teachers searching for CAPS lesson plan, CAPS annual teaching plan, ATP are usually after one of the three things below.
Write a single lesson plan
Choose the subject and class level, give it a topic, a date and how long the lesson runs, and it drafts learning outcomes, a key inquiry question, activities, resources and assessment. Click any line to edit it, or describe a change in plain language and it adjusts the whole plan. Export to Word or PDF when it says what you want it to say.
Design the annual teaching plan for a term
Set your three term dates, the mid-term break, exam weeks and teaching days once. The annual teaching plan designer then drafts the term week by week against that calendar, so the weeks line up with the term you are actually teaching rather than a generic thirteen. Uploading your syllabus as a PDF makes the draft follow it more closely.
Keep the calendar and the plans in step
The term calendar is the spine. A day that has a saved plan shows that plan's topic, and tapping a day either opens its plan or drafts one for that date. Every plan and annual teaching plan is saved to your library, so next year you adapt rather than start again.
What LessonSmith is not
It is not official. LessonSmith is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or certified by any government, ministry, examination board or curriculum authority. Curriculum names describe what a generation is drafted to align with; the marks belong to their owners.
Everything it produces is a draft. It can be wrong, and you are the one who knows your class, so read it and correct it before you teach it.
Questions
Can LessonSmith write a CAPS lesson plan?
Yes. Select South Africa and CAPS once in the app, then give it a subject, a class level, a topic and a lesson date. It drafts a full plan — learning outcomes, a key inquiry question, activities, resources and assessment — which you then edit line by line before you teach it.
Can it produce a annual teaching plan for a whole term?
Yes. Set your term dates, mid-term break and exam weeks in the term calendar, and the annual teaching plan designer drafts the term week by week against those dates. Uploading your syllabus as a PDF makes the draft follow it more closely.
Is LessonSmith official, or approved by the Department of Basic Education?
No. LessonSmith is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or certified by any government, ministry, examination board or curriculum authority. Selecting a curriculum tells the app what to draft towards; it does not make the output official. You are responsible for checking a plan before you use it.
Does choosing CAPS cost more?
No. Region and curriculum are a localisation setting, not a pricing or feature boundary. Every plan — Free, Pro and Max — has access to every curriculum and all nine subject assistants.