Complex lessons: alternate, concatenated, associated, co-taught

Many lessons are simple: one audience, one teacher, one room, a recurring time slot. But Omniscol also handles more sophisticated configurations, which can be combined with one another. Complex lessons are lessons of the same class linked together by a special configuration. There are several types.

1. Alternate lessons (weeks A/B/...)

Lessons that do not recur every week, but alternate. The classic case: one lesson in week A, another in week B, in the same time slot.

This configuration is very popular in France and in the school systems inspired by it, but very rare elsewhere.

Prerequisite: enable alternate weeks in Settings (Administration module). You can choose the naming scheme (letters A/B/C or numbers 1/2/3).

Offset caused by holidays: the alternation can be realigned after a holiday period. This is set on the timeline of the school year screen.

Creation:

1. Hover over the lesson to alternate. A icon appears at the top right of the lesson; click it.
2. A free slot is added for the alternate week.
3. Create the lesson corresponding to this new slot.
4. Position it with its pin button , then click the desired day/time slot among the colored placeholders.

You can repeat this to add more weeks (alternation over 3, 4, or more).

2. Concatenated lessons (consecutive)

Two lessons that must follow each other within the day, with nothing in between.

Typical cases:

• back-to-back practical sessions for two different groups (the teacher knows they will be in for a full half-day),
• a lecture followed by a tutorial (an introductory lecture, then a tutorial to apply it),
• a double exam session.

Creation: drag and drop one lesson under another in the hours distribution view. The two lessons are then stuck together, and are treated as a single block.

You can concatenate as many lessons as you like, but of course the block might not fit in the time grid if the total duration is too long.

Detaching: a "scissors" button appears on hover between the two concatenated lessons. It splits the concatenation.

Why not a single, longer lesson? Because the two lessons can have:

• different types (a lecture, then a tutorial),
• different teachers (the main teacher for the lecture, an assistant for the tutorial),
• different rooms.

If all the attributes are identical, lengthening a single lesson is simpler — concatenation brings flexibility in the other cases.

3. Associated lessons (alternating half-groups)

Two simultaneous lessons whose half-groups swap with each other, forming four lessons in total. The archetypal case:

Slot 1: group A in biology,       group B in physics
Slot 2: group A in physics,       group B in biology

After the two time slots, both half-groups have covered both subjects, but in a different order. The swap therefore requires two teachers (one for biology, one for physics) who "rotate".

This configuration is fairly popular in middle schools in France and very popular in French-speaking countries in Africa. It seems much rarer elsewhere, but you can come across it in Brazil, for example.

Creation:

1. Create two concatenated lessons (one under the other).
2. Hover over the boundary between the two: an Association of lessons button appears.
3. Click it and designate the two groups that must alternate. Ideally, the two groups should be declared as a class division.

It is possible to go beyond two lessons/two groups, but this case remains more theoretical than actually encountered in real life.

4. Co-teaching

Two or more teachers delivering the same lesson, in the same room, simultaneously.

Typical cases:

• reinforced supervision (main teacher + assistant),
• a visiting professor paired with the main teacher for a few lessons,
• a multidisciplinary module (a physician + a computer scientist for "computing for healthcare"),
• co-lead teachers over a whole semester.

Creation: on the screen for assigning teachers to the course, select several instructors. Each one is credited with the lesson in their statistics and their service hours.

5. Combinations

These complexities can be combined. Examples:

• Alternate + concatenated — the week-A lesson is a concatenated double block, and in week B it is another double block.
• Alternate + co-taught — week A with the main teacher, week B with the visiting professor (alternating instructors).
• Concatenated + associated — half-groups alternating over a double time slot (the most common case: science practicals in half-classes).

In France, this is typically how schools declare the extra half-hours of French and mathematics while also solving the three-hours-of-sports problem (achieving 1 hour on average through 2 hours every other week, on top of 2 hours every week).

Unusual cases

If your need does not fit into any of these categories, contact Omniscol support — it can most likely be modeled, but it may take a little help to identify the best approach.