Review 7: In-year re-timetabling

At this point in the year, we are seeing an increase in requests for in-year re-scheduling of timetables that have been in place for only a few weeks. The reasons?

1. Staffing volatility requires significant review of the current schedule to either; a). reconsider assumptions previously made that have not worked, or b). take advantage of new appointments that have now been secured.
2. Lack of skill in timetablers (sorry guys no criticism intended) or clear appreciation of the impact that compromises made in the process has had on the rhythm of the school.
3. The "mystic art" of timetabling has not been widely shared with subject leader colleagues leaving the actual delivery untenable for leaders to manage the processes needed.

Schools have become high-stakes organisations and leaders cannot survive with poor-quality systems managing the everyday experience of children and teachers. However, the reality is that there are increasingly smaller numbers of individuals who have the perspective of leadership and operational efficiency that good quality scheduling requires. Many colleagues I speak to have a fairly simplistic view of the process of timetabling in that it revolves around the use of a piece of software, however, the reality is that successful timetabling requires a clear understanding and communication of the principles of design that each school wants to achieve.

I have referred previously to these as the 12 principles of curriculum design, all of which come with expectations and implications. Simple transfer from one school to another is often thwarted by differences in leadership goals, design expectations and even building design. One of the significant features I find often is the series of expectations that are present in each subject leader's bag of tools. If these expectations and desires are not shared there is a wide open door to frustration and angst, but also there is no opportunity to test whether these expectations are deliverable.

Lets just consider some of those shared/desired requirements that cause the biggest issues:

1. Year group assembly time within the timetable frame. It reduces the timetable capacity by 1 period, more if there are year-only assemblies and creates issues because the tutors are rarely drawn from just one subject discipline.
2. Departmental meetings within the timetable cycle. Almost impossible to deliver across the school and often demands blocked delivery across every subject - fine for Maths but impossible for Art
3. Blocked delivery for more subjects to allow for more ability grouping. Any timetable, particularly those that involve an increased number of part-time staff requires a degree of flexibility. Key Stages 4 and 5 are, in most schools, heavily blocked delivery, options and core are often structured in this manner. Therefore increasing class delivery in Key Stage 3 is the space to develop some flexibility, decreasing this will increase the compromises that are needed to place staff.
4. One corollary of 3 is the increase in split teacher classes. The more blocking is used, the more classes will be taught by multiple teachers. In schools where this is not desired, this becomes an issue if you balance blocking and single-teacher classes.
5. Balancing weeks, ensuring that there is a balanced week for all subjects, particularly where schools operate 2-week cycles becomes a significant issue. If you consider 50-period cycles, 5-period option blocks in KS4 are typical, however, this means the spread is 2 in one week and 3 in the other. If these are not carefully balanced then the impact is unavailable to staff in KS3. One simple measure to balance the spread can make a significant difference to many classes in the lower years. There is another impact to consider, single week timetabling might be seen to solve the balance issue but it alone has significant issues, reducing the combinations available makes scheduling harder and more split groups likely where positioning for part-time staff is required. Also, the balance of the staff profile changes, in KS3 fitting 14 subjects into 25 sessions means that 1 music session is 4% of the time whereas 1 music session of 50 sessions is 2% of the time, when adding all of the schedules together the profile of the staff will be quite different.
6. Double lessons. Food Studies often want a double lesson in KS4 for practical activity, however, if in an option block, this means all subjects in that block have to have the same experience, including French for example. This reduces the weekly touchpoints and the ability to schedule independent study and feedback between sessions. In KS3 adding one double for a specific subject means it has to be placed wherever there is capacity for a double session. often this means a limited space for other elements and often creates the need for a subject that doesn't want double sessions to have them, the corollary? Balancing issues (5).
7. Allocations. With all of the effort that is now put into balancing the allocations (load) of teachers to provide equity and reduced workload, one issue I find rarely discussed but often complained about is the fact that the distribution of unallocated time is unfairly achieved. But many do not consider; a). In a 50-period timetable with 6 periods for a subject that is mostly blocked, an allocation of 41, 37, and 39 (all very typical) are not divisible by 6 so split classes are inevitable or where it is mostly achieved there will be an uneven distribution of unallocated lessons; and b). the distribution of groups across the years is weighted so that a small group in a department are placed in the higher years only and teaches a few KS3 groups their distribution is more stable until they get to the gained period when learners have completed their examination.

It was suggested to me, even this morning, that one cause of the 'cloaked timetabling persona' is that when a timetabler is appointed it becomes a position with a powerbase, one that even the headteacher may not have a full understanding of or engagement with and as such an individual wields a weird sense of dominance. All of this is counter to productive operational excellence - to counter this we must engender an open and value-driven process that empowers teachers and leaders to have more understanding or and control of their working patterns, within the frameworks that exist within the school, and ensure they are equitably delivered and not biased toward the timetablers closest friends! Surely not I hear you suggest - but sadly true. I have said before that it is often possible to see the subject specialism of the decision maker and timetabler just from reviewing the timetable software file.

Just by way of example, I reviewed a timetable a couple of years ago for an 11-19 academy. It had been brokered to a new trust, twice, and was experiencing some difficulty in providing an inclusive curriculum and one that allowed learners to develop. When I saw the timetable file my first reaction was, 'why has the model such an emphasis on Science and why has this comprehensive academy used a typical Grammar school curriculum model?' The headteacher looked quizzical and said - 'how did you know the timetabler is a science teacher and dominates decision making and more troublingly how did you know that the school was a grammar school 25 years ago?' The issues within the school had existed during those 25 years led by someone who had not changed their approach in all that time! Sadly the brokering processes did not deal with these issues, mainly because none of the leaders had any view of the impact of the structures or the link with learners' experience. Just to conclude this example after a couple of new cycles, a recent inspection report was completely different and complimented the school on the curriculum design and inclusive approach.

To counter the impact of the elements I have described we have created the SMARTcurriculum Timetabling Forum.

The Forum is intended for any school leader, IT IS NOT JUST FOR TIMETABLERS, it is focused to get into understanding the operational implications of the decisions made and equipping a school with a completely open and productive planning style. Membership is for a year, although you can stay as long as you wish, and is structured to consider the key decisions and implications of the timetable decision-making through the year from strategy to staff profile planning to implementation. Use the email to register interest and Sarah will set you up with the necessary access. You will need a LinkedIn profile as the forum exists as a closed group as this is a subscription service.