Given very little freedom to learn how to plan

This issue's problem: Simon Montfort is given very little freedom to learn how to plan.

Simon considered himself very fortunate when he arrived in his training school. Even on the induction day his mentor had been able to give him copies of the schemes of work for each year group and access to the shared area on the school's internet system where all the individual lesson plans and resources were stored. There is a similarly co-ordinated approach to assessment, with all classes in each year group completing a common assignment each half-term. Simon was told that he should feel free to adapt the lesson ideas, but the head of department explained that he needed to stick with the suggested focus of each lesson in order to ensure that his class were prepared for the assignments...