Thread by @HughJRichards

HoD🧵: If you’re new to HoD role, one of the trickiest but most critical things to get right is the timetable.

However, it can have a huge influence on
A) Day-to-day teaching experience of your team.
B) Quality of teaching in dept.
C) Workload.

A few ideas for (new?) HoDs:

Caveat 1: please note this is just my experience- in different schools HoDs have very varied levels of influence over the TT.

Tip for new HoDs: before process starts, find out the formal and informal processes other HoDs at your school use to get best Dept TT they can.

Caveat 2: you won’t achieve all of the following - it’s always a series of trade-offs and compromises. In my experience at least one of my team of seven finds something frustrating about their TT each year.

That’s how it goes- you won’t be able to win them all.

1. Talk to your team before starting, but don’t promise the world/any specifics!

Which work patterns might part-timers want most/least? (Avoiding the worst is often more important than securing the best.)

Do they have any other requests you might be able to incorporate?

2. Keep the cats in the bag: resist the temptation to tell your team too much until it is locked in and final.

It can be hard to explain a later change/final tweak that a colleague is less than happy with if you have already told them about an early draft that suits them well.

3. Share it out: if limited A-level groups, distribute as best you can. 1-2 teachers maintaining a monopoly here can cause problems.

Similarly, try to share out top/bottom sets, nurture groups etc (if you have them.) Rotate this year-to-year. Take your share, but not more.

4. Don’t be tempted to see Key Stages as a hierarchy that should correlate to your perception of your teacher team.

Without your subject delivered to the utmost of its potential at KS3, students are less likely to opt to take it at KS4- quickly eroding numbers of exam classes.

5. That said, reduce workload: try to avoid giving each teacher every year group: there are useful time economies that result from planning for multiple groups in one year.

There are also parents evenings, data entries and reports you can skip if you don’t teach one year group.

6. Reduce workload: As the timetable starts to come together, anticipate each teachers day-to-day/working week.

For example, try to shimmy it so that any pastoral leaders get a free each day. This will hugely help the wider school ecosystem, so can be worth a compromise in Dept.

7. Workload: Similarly, if someone has several full teaching days, can you request those days are not solely comprised of KS3?

Full teaching days much easier if there are a mix of key stages. There might be a chance to get this for your full-timetable teachers at this stage.

8. Workload: students move every lesson anyway, so allocate rooming to minimise teacher movement, esp between back-to-back lessons (i.e changeovers with no break time.)

This can improve behaviour management, teacher day-to-day experience, effectiveness of lessons starts etc.

I am sure I have missed things here! Please do add to it- I am sure there are other issues for core subjects or small subjects?

Bang on the money from Harri here- crucial to keep an eye on changes that are made elsewhere that impact your TT. It ain’t over till it begins!

https://twitter.com/harri_gallagher/status/1480115616140992512