Block Timetables

A block is a lesson slot shared by several pupils who rotate through it — the thirty minutes at a school that four pupils take in turn, a letter each week.

A block timetable is how you say who is in which slot, week by week.

The grid

Rows are the time slots within the block. Columns are the weeks, grouped under their month and labelled with the date.

Each cell holds the group taking that slot that week. Set the groups once and the pattern repeats; change one from a given week and it carries forward from there rather than rewriting the whole term.

Making the slots

Add a slot for each division of the block, giving it a start offset within the block and a length. The lesson length comes from the activity, so a sixty-minute block split into two is two thirty-minute slots.

Remove a slot with the × beside it.

What it checks

Two things are shown as you work:

• Not in a slot — pupils in the block you have not placed anywhere. They have a lesson time of the block's start until you put them in a slot.
• Not in a group yet — pupils you have not assigned a group letter.

Beneath the grid, Slots and Grouped lessons summarise how the block is divided and how many lessons are grouped, so you can see whether the pattern works before saving it.

Saving and printing

Save is available once you have changed something and nothing is outstanding.

Print gives you a copy to take to the school. Save your changes before printing — the printed sheet comes from what is saved, not from what is on screen.

Why this matters to parents

A pupil's lesson time is the block's start plus their slot's offset. Until they are in a slot, a parent is told the block's start time, which may be up to an hour out.

Placing everybody in a slot is what makes the times parents see correct.

Schools and organisations

A school or organisation contact can see the timetables for its own blocks, read only. That lets a school see when its pupils are taught without being able to change the arrangement.