TM4T Setting Up Your System 2.1.3 - Understanding Your Timetable

You will no doubt be provided with a printed timetable, showing your daily teaching schedule. Most UK schools' timetables are relatively poor for practical purposes - they tend to have poor legibility and layout and sometimes include information which means little to the classroom teacher. Here is an example of a typical timetable (click the image to enlarge):

Step 1 Create Electronic Timetable

TM4T recommends that you create a simpler version of your timetable, in spreadsheet form. This sounds like unnecessary work, but it has one great advantage. It will enable you to easily print out a weekly plan.

Here is how it should look (click to enlarge):

If you are curious about this particular timetable example, more information here.

Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed the heading (in the blue bar at the top of the spreadsheet). This doesn't say 'timetable' or 'weekly plan'; it says 'yearly plan'. You will no doubt guess what we are trying to achieve: ONE plan, which includes both school events, our teaching timetable and our non-teaching tasks.

The traditional teacher timetable, illustrated here, shows a teacher which lessons they teach when, and which periods are 'free'. What you really need, at the start of the year is a 'free-time timetable' which also shows when you are going to do your non-teaching work, and ideally combine these two aspects - teaching and non-teaching into a single timetable which shows you exactly what you are doing when.

Step 2 Consider Non-Teaching Work

Now you need to decide when you are going to do your non-teaching work. This may sound simple, but in practice it involves some big decisions: how much are you prepared to work at home? How should you balance your needs for relaxation and leisure against the demands of work? For now all you need to do is sketch out your timetable, using five headings: before school, morning free periods, lunch, afternoon free periods, and after-school, and weekends.

You should decide roughly how much time you are prepared to allocate to work under each of these headings, and sketch in what kind of work you are going to do in each 'slot'.

Step 3 Create a Full Timetable

You are now in a position to prepare - electronically - a full timetable, on which your Weekly Plans will be based. Here is an example of what you will end up with (click image to enlarge).

This Full Timetable - containing, in fact emphasizing, your non-teaching timeslots - is a key component of TM4T.

You will notice that in this example, some other specialist TM4T terms are starting to be introduced. These represent the standard non teaching activities you need to consider. The key points are outlined here.