With all the challenges created by the COVID-19 school return guidance, many are considering ad hoc arrangements for timetabling pupil bubbles. You will have already written and roomed full timetables for the 2020-21 academic year and now be making adaptions.
In this free webinar, leading national timetabling expert Chris Jones offers proven examples and techniques for adapting planned timetables to ensure registers can be taken, safety and safe-guarding of students is guaranteed and timetables can be switched when normal working is resumed. Focused on major timetable systems but techniques apply across any system.
Additional note: 18/12/20
Having had a number of conversations with schools over recent weeks there is a discernible impact of the changes made where leaders are taking real positives from the methods they have had to employ over the term but have found them to be school climate changing.
- Setting – a school leader said to me a few weeks ago “as a life long maths teacher who would have fought you for setting every block delivery in the school; I have seen the light and will never look to use setting in the way I have been used to. The bubble delivery has been a revelation!” Not everyone sees it like this but it is worth re-evaluating your population designs and grouping strategies.
- Cycle design – typically schools have used the single week and two week cycles (5 or 10 days.) Where some schools changed the cycle design for COVID response to reduce the movements in a school to longer lessons some have found the depth achieved advantageous, however the staff profile has changed and proportions of lessons not worked in the long-run. Some have asked me if they could look at different cycles. Lengthening the cycle to 3 or 4 weeks (15 or 20 days) has been a solution some have deployed to interesting effect. Talk to me if this is something you want to consider. chris.jones@smartcurriculum.net
- Schools that are using the SMARTcurriculum Application have been able to analyse their staff profile and deploy their staff differently. A number of schools have used the surplus teaching capacity to pivot staff to becoming permanently online teachers, a role they are enjoying and gives them greater flexibility.
Chris tweets @cjlearning.
