Schools that are geographically close may have shared staff and/or shared courses and/or share the timetabling:
Some examples of 'shared' timetabling are:
1.
More than one person (a “team”) in the school is involved in the timetable.
See below for links to other articles about this.
2.
A single person does the timetable for more than one school.
Quite often this a Senior-school-with-a-linked-Junior-school, see the PDF here, especially if the schools have different timings.
More recently some MATs (multi-academy trusts) have suggested that one person could do the timetable for all the schools in the MAT (even though that person does not know each school intimately).
3.
A ‘federal’ timetabling situation where some (rarer) subjects are taught by only one of the schools in the group, and students from the other schools commute to that school.
This happens most often when schools have a federal or linked Sixth Form [Years/Grades 12-13] so that less-popular subjects like 'Law' or 'Music' may be taught on one site but accessed by "roaming" students from other schools.
This is usually (and most simply) done by the relevant schools agreeing in advance when** those 'rare' subjects will be taught, and where (and by whom), and then each school fixing those times on their timetable at the start of scheduling.
In TimeTabler the host school can simply fix (Lock) those lessons in place as part of their Fixed Points batch, while donor schools can either block off those periods for the relevant class or (probably better) fix in place (and Lock) a dummy group with a dummy teacher, with a subject of 'Law' or 'Music' etc. Then the rest of the timetable is built around those fixed points.
On-line versus face-to-face:
If these 'rare' subjects are taught on-line instead of face-to-face, then the same principles apply; fix the times in advance and Lock the lessons in place before scheduling the rest of the timetable.
**If the lessons are 'face-to-face' (not on-line) so the students have to commute then it is usually best if the agreed times are first thing in the morning (so that the students simply travel to the correct school) followed by a free/non-taught period so the students can travel back to their own school.
Alternatively the lessons may be immediately after the lunch break (used for commuting) and then the students go home after the lesson.
More details about this' federal' situation in another article in this KnowledgeBase.
The following articles may also be of interest:
Centralised or shared timetabling, and working as a team:
Working in a timetabling team: click here.
Working in a Senior+Junior school with different period timings & shared staff: click here.
Working with Multiple sites: click here.
If you have a copy of the Timetabler's CookBook then read Appendix 3 on Who should do the timetable?.
For advice on Cloud computing: click here.
Make sure that everyone in your team is signed-up to our monthly newsletter: click here.
Finding the best pattern for your optional subjects:
Options helps you to do this: click here.
MAT , Group or Consortium:
For advice on Group timetabling & shared resources: click here.
Installing:
Make sure you have the correct number of licences for your set-up - if in doubt, contact us at ask@timetabler.com.
Do you need to install TimeTabler on your network, so everyone has the chance to access it ?: click here.
Or do you wish to install TimeTabler twice (into 2 different folders) on one computer ?: click here.
Further Questions:
If you have any further questions, please contact us on the Support Centre: click here.
Extra Notes:
1.
This article has not looked at the common situation of 2 (or more) teachers sharing a Teaching Group (ie: planned Split-teaching). For example if History teacher AB and History teacher CD share the teaching of an A-Level History group, perhaps 4 periods each, with each teaching a different aspect of History. This common scenario is easy to specify in TimeTabler and discussed in a separate article.
2.
A complication may arise if AB and CD work at different schools. The complication would be in the census return to the DfE government department; in this example AB and CD should be in different returns.
3.
Export to MIS: If you write 2 different timetables, then as per our advice on blocking-off, etc - you should always check with your MIS Supplier that they are happy to import your two timetables.
By the TimeTabler Team