Daily Work Plan of School

When the bell rings in a school, every teacher already knows which class to walk to, and every class already knows which subject comes next. Nobody has to ask around each morning and nobody has to be fetched. This works because of one small but very useful sheet of paper, usually pinned up in the head teacher's office, in the staff room and on the wall of each classroom. That sheet is the school's daily work plan, more commonly called the timetable.

The plan does not cover just one day. It lays out what happens on every working day of the week, which is why the same plan is also called the weekly timetable.

The timetable is prepared by the head teacher, not alone but with the help of the teachers. The teachers know best how much time their subject needs, how far each class has reached and which hours suit them. A timetable built on everyone's advice is more practical, and people follow it more willingly because they helped shape it.

A good timetable breaks the school day into small blocks and states clearly what happens in each one. It usually records the following:

• when each period of the day begins and when it ends
• which subject each class studies in each period
• which teacher teaches each subject
• how many periods each teacher takes in a week, and in which subjects
• how much teaching load, that is, how many periods, each subject receives
• the time set aside for children to eat their snack and to play

Teaching load here means the number of periods a subject is given in a week. If mathematics has six periods a week and computer has three, mathematics carries the heavier load. A timetable is also more than a list of lessons. Snack time and play time are written into it too, because children who study without a break grow tired. After a rest and something to eat, they can concentrate again.

Picture a school with no timetable at all. In the morning two teachers arrive at class 8 together while class 9 sits with nobody. One class studies mathematics for three days running and never sees science. Two classes turn up at the laboratory at the same moment and argue over who gets it. A timetable prevents every one of these problems before they start.

The value of a daily work plan can be seen in these ways:

• It helps the school run in an orderly way.
• It makes proper use of the school's resources. Classrooms, the laboratory and the playground are not left idle, and two classes are never booked into the same place at once.
• It makes every part of the school, its teachers and its students organised, dignified and planned.
• It makes students, teachers and staff conscious of time.
• It helps develop qualities such as dedication to goals, regularity, devotion to duty and discipline.

Making a timetable means deciding how to divide the working days and hours available in a week into periods. After that, the planner settles which subject comes earlier and which comes later, and which teacher takes which subject.

A small calculation makes this clear. Suppose a school teaches 8 periods a day and each period lasts 40 minutes. One class then studies 8 times 40, which is 320 minutes, or 5 hours 20 minutes, each day. If the school teaches 6 days a week, that class has 6 times 8, which is 48 periods, in a week. Sharing those 48 periods among the subjects is exactly the job the timetable does.

A timetable cannot be thrown together at random. The following points have to be kept in mind while making one:

• (a) First fix how many hours of teaching take place each day and how many in the whole week. Time cannot be shared out until its total is known.
• (b) Confirm up to which class the school teaches and how many sections there are in all. If class 8 has two sections, each section needs its own row in the timetable.
• (c) Consider how many teachers the school has and which subjects they teach, so that every teacher carries an equal workload. Giving one teacher far more periods than another is unfair, and a teacher who is overloaded grows tired and teaches less well.
• (d) Give each subject in each class the teaching load and time that the curriculum lays down for it.
• (e) Decide how many minutes each period lasts. The usual practice is to make each period 40 to 50 minutes long.
• (f) Settle which subject is taught at which time of day. Difficult subjects should come at the start, and easier subjects in the middle or later.
• (g) Take account of the school's resources and physical facilities. Classrooms, furniture, the library, the playground, the laboratory and the hall all affect how a timetable is made. If the school has only one laboratory, two classes cannot be given practical work in the same period.
• (h) Pay attention to the students' age, interests, abilities and needs. A timetable that does this becomes scientific and practical.

A timetable is usually drawn as a grid of rows and columns. At the very top it states which academic session it belongs to, written as Academic session: .................. . One format of the daily work plan looks like this:

In this format the top row lists the periods in order from first to eighth, with the time of each period written in. The left-hand column names the class. Every other box holds the subject taught in that period and the name of the teacher who teaches it. Tiffin time sits between the fourth and fifth periods, and no subject is written in that box. The grid gains one row for every class and section the school has.

Using the format above, a school might fill in one day for class 10 like this. Lessons in this school start at 10 in the morning and each period lasts 40 minutes. Here the periods run from top to bottom in order.

See how this day follows the rules above. Subjects usually thought of as harder, such as mathematics and science, come first in the morning. Thirty minutes are set aside for snack and play. Sports come at the end of the day, when the students are already tired from study. Each period is 40 minutes, which falls within the usual 40 to 50 minutes. A real timetable would also write the teacher's name beside every subject. The order may change a little on other days, but across the week each subject must still receive the load the curriculum sets for it.