Setting the scene

First you must ensure that the timetable structure together with all staff, rooms and subjects are fully entered. The timetable structure is created on the Periods tab of this form.

SchoolBase® allows for lessons spread over 5, 6 or more days. First set the number of periods per day and the number of days per week and click the Set Periods button. If you wish to use a name for the period rather than a number then click the Period Names button. Enter a name for each lesson and an associated position in the sequence.

Now complete the details of each row where each row represents a potential lesson. The fields are as follows:

Day - this MUST be Monday, Tuesday etc. DO NOT use abbreviations. The system will be looking for these names and not abbreviations.

No. - this represents the place of the day in the sequence. It must be a digit and always starts at 1.

Period - this represents the place of the lesson in the weekly sequence. Periods should always start at 1 with unit increments.

Logic - the name of the period as defined above. If numbers are used this should re-start at 1 for each day and increment in units.

The Start and End columns are optional but can be used in some output formats.

Start - the starting time of the lesson

End - the finishing time of the lesson

Register - If you wish to register during teaching lessons rather than as separate sessions you should tick the lessons during which registration will take place, a maximum of two per day.

AM/PM - for morning or afternoon lessons. You must fill these in if you are using Registration Sessions. You can only have one Registration session in the AM and one in the PM of each day.

Show - this is the value that appears in dropdowns when selecting a lesson and is completed by default with the first three letters of the weekday followed by the logical lesson number. However, you can modify it as you wish. If you have included the lunch break as a lesson you could rename it as Lunch.

Order – whatever sequence you have used in the other columns, the number in this column should show the actual chronological sequence for display purposes. This may be identical to the Period column. However, you may have added the registration periods at the end of the list. In order for them to appear at their correct place on the timetable the Order column should reflect where they actually appear in the chronological sequence.

Teach - If you wish to show sessions on your timetable which are not teaching lessons (e.g. Assembly or Lunch) then you should untick the box for these lessons.

There are separate lookup tables which must be prepared accurately for Staff, Rooms and Subjects before setting up your curriculum.

Building the Curriculum

Open the Curriculum form and build up the curriculum strands. Then set the teaching groups, create the timetable, and finally allocate the lessons to rooms using the Rooming button under Support Functions.

Checking for Problems

When you have finished hacking the timetable around, use the Double trouble buttons to ensure you really have got a working timetable. These will tell you when you have a teacher teaching more than one lesson at the same time, two lessons in the same room or a pupil scheduled for two simultaneous lessons. This may be exactly what you want but, on the other hand, it may not.

In each case you can press the Timetable button to see exact details of the problem. Against each lesson where there is a problem with a teacher or room a coloured 'bomb' icon is displayed. You can choose to replace the bomb with a smiley face if this is a known and acceptable double-booking (e.g. two forms are in the hall together as in the example shown here).

Making Changes

Of course as soon as you do publish, you will discover why it needs changing. You can add a group to a curriculum item my selecting the groups button from the curriculum item concerned and then clicking ‘Create similar group’.

The bigger problem is when you realise you have forgotten an entire curriculum item. To correct this you need a multi stage approach as set out below.

This form takes care of the whole task except for allocating a teacher (or teachers) to teach them. You can do this via the Groups button on the Basics tab. All you then have to do is move pupils to their correct groups and update the timetable.

For those additional sessions that cannot be handled by the regular timetable, see Timetable Exceptions.