From curriculum plan to staffing plan: a timetabler's guide

The most common reason a timetable can't be built isn't the scheduling. It's that the curriculum needs more teaching than the staff can provide, and nobody checked until the timetable was half done.

Checking the numbers first takes an afternoon and saves weeks. Here's how.

Step 1: Count the periods the curriculum needs

For each year group, list every subject, the number of groups and the periods per week (or per fortnight) each group gets. Multiply groups by periods to get the teacher periods each subject needs.

For example, if Year 8 has eight maths groups, each with four periods a week, Year 8 maths needs 32 teacher periods a week.

Add these up across all year groups, subject by subject. Remember the extras: setting that needs more groups than tutor groups, small intervention groups, and options with low numbers that still need a teacher.

Step 2: Count the periods your teachers can teach

For each teacher, work out how many periods they can teach. Start from their timetable allowance, then subtract:

• Planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time
• Leadership and management time, for heads of department, pastoral leads and senior leaders
• Part-time contracts, using the actual periods they work

Then group the results by subject. A teacher who teaches two subjects needs their periods split between them.

Step 3: Compare the two

For each subject, compare the periods needed with the periods available:

• More available than needed: you have capacity, which might mean teachers can pick up another subject or that you're overstaffed.
• More needed than available: you have a shortfall, and the timetable can't be built until you fix it.

Fix shortfalls now: recruit, ask a teacher with a second subject to teach more of it, reduce group numbers, or adjust the curriculum. Each is a decision for leaders, not the timetabler.

Two measures schools often use

Many schools and trusts in England use integrated curriculum and financial planning (ICFP) to link the curriculum to staffing costs. Two of its common measures are worth knowing:

• Contact ratio: the share of teachers' contracted time spent teaching. A lower contact ratio means more non-teaching time, and more teachers needed for the same curriculum.
• Curriculum bonus: how many more teacher periods the curriculum uses than the minimum needed to give every student a teacher in every period. It grows with smaller groups, setting and wider options.

Raising the curriculum bonus or lowering the contact ratio both increase the number of teachers you need. Agreeing targets for both with leaders gives the timetabler clear limits to work within.

Step 4: Check the subtle constraints

The totals can add up and the timetable still fail. Look out for:

• Parallel demand. If all of Year 10 maths is set at the same time, you need eight maths teachers free at once, not just eight maths teachers in total.
• Specialist rooms. Enough science teachers is no use without enough labs at the times they're needed.
• Availability. Part-time staff may cover the hours but not the days.

How Timez helps

Once your staffing plan adds up, Timez builds the timetable from it. If the plan doesn't quite add up, for example because a subject is short of qualified teachers at the times it's needed, it tells you the timetable can't be built with the current staff and rooms. You can fix the cause instead of discovering it at the end.

Its analytics report teacher and room utilisation for each timetable, so you can see where you have spare capacity and where you're stretched.

Next: how to timetable part-time and flexible-working teachers, and the full timetabling process.