Guide
How to make a school timetable that holds up
A practical method for the weekly grid: teacher loads, clash checking, cover for absent teachers, and when software earns its keep.
A school timetable is a constraint problem: every section needs its subjects, every teacher needs a workable load, no person or room can be in two places at once, and the whole thing must survive a teacher being absent on a Tuesday. The method below works on paper or in software; the difference is how much of it the software checks for you.
What do you fix before placing a single period?
- The bell schedule: how many periods a day, their lengths, and the breaks. Everything else hangs on this frame.
- Subject allocations per class: how many weekly periods each subject gets in each class, agreed with the head, in writing.
- Teacher loads: who teaches what, to which sections, and the maximum daily periods per teacher, with slack kept for cover.
- The scarce rooms: labs, the computer room, the ground. Scarce rooms get placed first because they have the fewest options.
In what order do you fill the grid?
| Step | Place | Why this order |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fixed slots: assembly, lab periods, games | They have one possible home; everything else flexes. |
| 2 | Teachers who serve many sections | The busiest teachers run out of free periods first. |
| 3 | Heavy subjects in strong periods | Mathematics in period one beats mathematics after games. |
| 4 | Everything else, section by section | The flexible fills around the fixed. |
| 5 | A clash check across teachers and rooms | The step paper cannot do for you, and software can. |
How do you keep it alive through the term?
Timetables fail in week four, not week one: a teacher leaves, a section splits, the lab floods. Keep a who-is-free view per period for cover, make every change in one master copy rather than on printouts, and re-run the clash check after any change, because the second change is the one that collides with the first. In EDUTIG the grid itself refuses a double-booked section, teacher or room when the change is made, and the conflict report catches what remains; teachers see their own schedule in their portal, so a change reaches everyone without a new printout. The module is shown on the academic structure and timetable feature page, and if you are still running the school from registers, the migration guide covers where the timetable fits in the move.