Split-Teaching: what it is, and is it desirable ?
Split-teaching is when a Teaching Group (eg. History for form 9A) is taught by 2 or more teachers during the week. So the students don't have the same teacher for every lesson.
There are 2 basic types:
-- Undesirable (or Unplanned or Unintended): In most years, in most schools, split-teaching is not desirable, as it is not helpful for good learning. It also requires extra liaison between teachers.
-- Desirable (or Planned or Intended): However it is desirable in some situations: for example, it is common for the older students in UK 'Sixth Forms', where it is (usually) intentional.
For more about how to enter desirable/deliberate/intended split-teaching, see the related article in this KnowledgeBase.
Split teaching may appear anywhere on your timetable, perhaps as a result of compromises that you made while solving a 'kickout'.
It is important to analyse your schedule, perhaps at each main stage, to see whether there is any unwanted / unplanned Split-teaching, and if so, what you can do about it.
TimeTabler helps you to do this - it: (i) provides tools for you to find any split-teaching, and (ii) tools to look for solutions if the split-teaching is undesirable.
Analysing your Schedule to find any split teaching
1. Go to: Schedule -> Check & Tidy -> Split-teaching -> Simple split-teaching Check.
This gives you a Report of any/all instances of split-teaching.
Some of these may be intentional, or harmless.
More serious cases can be looked at (see below) with a view to improving things.
or
2. Go to: Schedule -> Check & Tidy -> Split-teaching -> Detailed split-teaching Review.
Click on the Help button of that screen for more details.
or
3. Go to: Schedule -> Check & Tidy -> Quality Optimiser,
[or on the Visual Builder Screen click on the Quality Optimiser button at top-right],
and then choose: Quality Report -> Students. Incidents of split-teaching are shown in the turquoise area.
You can Customize the report via the Customize Tab. For example, you can say Science as a subject should be given low importance, because you are already aware that Science is deliberately split into Physics/Chemistry/Biology.
Note that all 3 methods may give spurious cases in Upper School because of any Blocks there. See the Note shown at the top of the Report in 1. above. Eg. a case where a student could apparently have Art with 2 different staff ... but won't in practice because they are different Art Groups in different Blocks and the student will only be in one of them.
Looking for a solution to improve undesirable Split-teaching
Depending on your timetable. this may not be easy. It will usually be easier (with more flexibility) if you look at the split teaching situation after each main stage of scheduling, rather than at the very end. Here are some pointers to help you:
A. The easiest way to find a solution is probably using method 2. above. Just click on one of the lessons to open the Edit Details Screen (HelpMovie 43) for that lesson.
This shows you when the lessons are, and you can use the drop-down list of Teachers to see if you can make the lessons more consistently with the same teacher.
Bear in mind that changes will increase/decrease the Teaching Loads of the staff involved, so you should keep a note and try to even the balance for them at a later stage.
or
B. If using method 3. , click on the turquoise row to see the Class Inspector of that class. This allows you to quickly identify the Periods in which the split teaching takes place.
or
C. On either the Staff Timetable Screen (HelpMovie 43) or the Class Timetable Screen (HelpMovie 44), select the lesson and right-click with your mouse and select 'List Free Teachers', to see who is free and can teach the subject that you want. Double-click the lesson to get the Edit Details Screen to make teacher-changes as in A .
Notes:
-- always bear in mind that changes will increase/decrease the Teaching Loads of the staff involved, so you should keep a note and try to 'pay them back' at a later stage.
-- on the whole older students cope better with split-teaching. It can be argued that the worst-possible year for Split-teaching is the First year of Secondary education (eg. Year 7 in England) because the pupils always have many more teachers than they have been used to at Primary school.
Further reading : For how to enter / set-up split-teaching, see this article.
By the TimeTabler Team