Preparing the next school year

Building the timetable for the next year can start six to nine months in advance, alongside day-to-day operations. The idea is to duplicate the active timetable to create a draft, then work on that draft without modifying the published timetable.

Three elements to carry over

Three families of data to carry over from the current year to the next one:

1. Structure — sites/rooms, classes, groups, divisions, alignments, groups of groups. Often 80-90% reusable from one year to the next, with adjustments at the margins.
2. Lessons — the list of courses to schedule (subject, class, teacher, duration, number of weekly occurrences). 70-80% reusable, allowing for curriculum changes.
3. Teacher-class-subject assignments — who teaches what. More volatile (departures, arrivals, changes in service hours).

Starting the duplication

From the Timetable management module, use the Duplicate action on the timetable that will serve as the base. The dialog checks everything by default; untick what you prefer to rebuild:

• Sites — with their rooms and resources.
• Teachers — the assignment of teachers to the timetable; their availability follows. Depending on your policy, for a recurring timetable, you may prefer to ask them again for their availability for the new year rather than reusing the old one.
• Classes — with their courses, groups, alignments, availability and incompatibilities.
• Lessons (hours distribution) — with the details to keep or not: teacher assignments to lessons, groups, rooms, resources, positions. Often worth reviewing, since teachers and students will change.

The draft created is not published: it does not affect the active timetable for the current year. For weekly or cyclic timetables, publication on the weeks of the next year is then done in the hours distribution grid. The duplication can also, along the way, shift the dates of lessons (for a calendar timetable) or convert the timetable type: these two options and their effects — notably lesson realignment and regrouping — are detailed in Visualize, duplicate, reorganize.

Working on the draft

The prepared timetable appears in the list as a draft. Rename it with an explicit label, for example S1 27-28. You can:

• open it to modify classes, add the new teachers, remove the departing ones,
• ask current teachers for their availability for the new year (bulk sending via the Administration module),
• run automatic generation to check feasibility,
• iterate at your own pace for months.

Publication at the start of the school year

When the draft timetable is ready and the new school year arrives, you publish it on the desired weeks. See Publication. The draft becomes the active timetable, and the old timetable remains available as history.