How is timetabling done?

[Snap8TheCat]

No issue with school whatsoever, just a conversation I'm having with DH. Ds1 is about to start high school and it's much bigger than the middle school he's been at so must be much more complicated to sort out with pupils/ teachers classrooms etc. This is also the first time he has been ability set.

DH disagree how it might be done.

Is timetabling done by pen/ paper and a clever person or by a computer program?

At ours it is all done by computer to begin with and then manually altered later. So all the parameters are put in (max group size, number of lessons per subject, teachers etc then special bits like science gets double lessons, history can't be at the same time as geog as it's the same teacher, x person is a part timer who doesn't do Wednesday morning etc). The programme then produced up to 6 solutions each of which will have a problem or two such as someone's options not fitting or rooming being impossible. The timetabler then plays with these solutions (pen and paper time) to fix problems e.g. Put Y12 art alongside y10 as both are tiny groups etc. When they have done their best they put the alterations into the programme and run it again. Repeat until a workable timetable is produced!

I've worked in leadership in two large secondary schools and they both use pen and paper! There are programmes to do it but can't I honestly feel the HT like the logic puzzle challenge side of it

Pen and paper here. final year first, then external influences, then then KS3.

A massive board with post its on it, its then re read by other SLT, then filtered to Team leaders and then put on to sims for the rest of the staff to read.

I remember when I was in school in the 80s (so pre-computerised timetables!) our deputy head teacher's room used to be wallpapered with sheets of lining paper covered in different colours of marker pen when he was working out the timetable

It sounds horrific!!

I'm quite mathsy and do love a good logic problem but I can imagine getting a headache and giving up because I couldn't satisfy everyone.

Hats off to you all

When I first started teaching, I used to spend hours watching the 2 DHT did it by hand using post-it notes. Nowaday, it is done by program then finalised by hand. The last 4 years that I have to do it for my department, the final version looks nothing like the first draft.

I suspect that and must come into it somewhere.

I do not blame them one bit! 😂

Excel spreadsheets here. Dozens of drafts go back and forth between the overall timetabler and Heads of department.

By the end of the year, the even the word 'timetable' will cause a nervous twitch.

Used to be done by hand, now done by computer with changes done by hand afterwards.

Is the first week a bit of a 'trial'? Is there usually any hiccups? Just thinking perhaps I should prewarn DS as he gets a bit anxious about thinks like that.

I've had 6 years of children secondary, never had any timetable changes due to poor timetabling!

Does your new school operate a 2 week timetable? That can throw some kids to start with. We have a copy of the timetable in the hall with a blu-tacked arrow pointing at which week it is.

Is he aware he'll be changing room the whole time?

Our school only sets for maths to start with, but set at Oct half term for English so timetable was adjusted then, but only the teacher & room, not the actual timetable.

25 years ago, it was one of the maths teachers at school. His wife was also a teacher, she loved our class because she'd had us from 11-16 and got us to write any unusual A level combinations down and he did a few extra fiddling as with hindsight I bet she did too and voila.

DS has a 2 week timetable and got into it very easily, the school does seem to restrict GCSE choice though, the computer way is not as flexible as Mr B.

He used to having a timetable (though yes the two week tt will be new to him) as he's been at middle school.

He's also used to moving rooms and teachers as they do this at middle school also.

Glad to hear it's not too common to have an errors then!

My last school in the UK we had a huge specifically-designed pinboard (a bit like the old railway timetable things).

First of all any teacher requirements/restrictions got put on (e.g. only certain faculty did A Level, so those HAD to happen, and got put on first). Then any special needs (e.g. SENCO and weekly meetings, pupils who couldn't access certain classrooms). Then GCSE classes, then everything else. Things like KS3 music were done last.

Then they got a computer program to do it, and once the computer had assigned the timetable, they would manually put it up on the board, and all heads of dept. would look at it, and look at the computer version, take it to dept. then everyone there look at it. Apparently the computer and the SMT were pretty much in agreement (well, the SMT input the info into the computer so it had the same priorities) for timing, but rooming was more controversial.

It took around 3 months to get the 'good' timetable done.

Our timetabler uses pen and paper because he can put the more human requests in more easily than a computer program can. He, and his assistant, spend the whole of May half term puzzling it out. They take over a large department office, have bits of coloured card and paper bluetacked up everywhere. He works very long hours that week, and that's on top of the work he does beforehand like working out option blocks for GCSE and a level, working with heads of department to allocate classes to staff, etc. Then once he's got a working draft people start coming to him to sort out "problems" (they're not actually problems, he doesn't make mistakes)

I think it would be rather fun.

When I was at school I started to write a programme to check timetables in BASIC on a Commodore PET, but only checking to constraints, not actually sorting it.
I never finished it because I dropped CS O level as it was the first time they had attempted it and they didn't know what they were doing.

Do they take into account "issues" between children when sorting out classes and sets etc?

At DDs school they think very carefully when creating the initial tutor groups, trying to make them mixed boys/girls, spreading out ability, SN, spreading out those from feeder primaries whilst keeping them with at least 1 person they get on with, separating from others if so advised by primary school.

However, I'm not sure whether they would take issues into account when setting, maybe when doing mixed ability mixed tutors I guess.

We have taken "issues" in to account with mixed ability. But with setting who would you move?

Grouping and timetabling are 2 completely different things. Timetables are driven by teacher & room availability. Groups are driven by pupil ability & achievement.
Teachers generally input to suitable groups, management input into timetables, then there are long periods of consultation.

When I was growing up (70s), my Dad had the job for his school.
Our front room became 'out of order' for the holidays as he used to bring home "the timetable thing" which was a giant pegboard (I'm guessing it was about 2m wide and about 1m high).
Then there were all these different pegs that went in it - don't know which way round it was but the shape indicated one thing, the colour another, and where it was on the board another, so he could glance at it, and know that, at 11am on Wednesday, 5th year set B would be in the library doing English Literature with Mr Smith, or whatever {sounds a bit like Cluedo, reading it back }.
I remember once when I was about 9 being in the room and falling into it, and days worth of work fell out .
It dominated our holidays. I shudder at the very idea of having to ever start plotting timetables for the whole school.
Am stunned that it isn't standard nowadays to at least start with a computer programmed one though.

My DDs school split the year into half in year 8, which includes dividing each class in half (site A and site B).Then they set them for the core subjects in each half. It sounds awfully complicated and I pity the people who have to do it.

I just hope my DD is not with this one girl who is mean to her. It has been reported so hopefully they'll be in different halves.

We have a 12 form entry school - so a massive job. Computer based to start with and then tweaked. Each Faculty will do the individual lesson level - ie you have 10 periods of Y10 Art here, here, and here, etc, now you tell me which teacher you want to teach them. Lots of part-time staff to consider too. Deputy Head who does it all is considered a genuis .

I LOVE this sort of stuff - it's what I do for a summer camp in the USA every year (700 kids, 200 staff). I do it all with post it notes - different colour for each age group and separate timetables for girls and boys. I know how many periods of each activity they should have over a two week period and have a post-it for each.

Start with your limited resources - facilities and staff. So, I can only have one group doing gymnastics at a time. Plonk those in. Likewise, swimming in the pool. I can have up to four groups of children doing soccer and the same for basketball and tennis so they are my fall back options that I complete at the end.

Factor in trips, facilities out of action, staff days off etc and it does all kind of fall out in the wash.

You do need a special way of thinking to work it all out though and people often tell me they don't have a clue how I do it!!