E10 - Two half period classes in a grid

Some schools run Assembly for half a period and you may not need the full duration of a period to complete the Assembly activities. Rather than have one full teaching period on Monday week A P3, and a full Assembly period on Monday week B P3 - they divide these periods into two halves. The teaching lesson occurs in the first or second half of both periods, and so does the assembly period.

STEP 1 (Construct the timetable as if the period was not split)

1. Initially assume (and code) the assembly period as 100% occupied to the full period in week A (of the period to be split). Alternatively, go to Admin > Setup > Grid structure and mark the period as Spacer/Unused (Ctrl+U). This leaves the matching period to be split as capable of taking any class whatsoever - without leaving a gap.
   
2. You may use the Classes > Class data (F6) > Periods cell to artificially block or encourage specific classes that you may want to especially run across the split period. An example of this may be languages, where you want increased contact frequency, as opposed to a practical subject with a reduced duration may be inappropriate.

STEP 2 (Expand the split period classes, into an additional lesson and schedule)

1. Once the timetable has been fully constructed you now have Assembly (or a Spacer/Unused period) in one period, and a range of teaching classes (suitable to be split) in the corresponding period of the other week. Delete the Assembly classes or revert the Spacer/Unused period back to a Teaching period, Setup > Grid structure > Teaching period (Ctrl+T)
   
2. Go through each of the classes that have been assigned to this period, and increase the #Per value by one, to reflect that one period is actually becoming two. Then assign the correct load to each class to reflect that two of these periods are half load, equating to just one. For example, a class of allocation nine periods normally would have #Per=9. This class now needs to have #Per=10(9). This means the class will occupy ten cells on the grid including the two half periods, and the teacher gets credited for only nine periods. This is correct for the total teaching time of this class in minutes.
   
3. In Classes > Class data (F6) > Period place an entry such as Mon3 against all classes which are running in the split/half period. This is a requirement which will both flag these classes as different from others, but also assist in keeping the split periods in their correct location on both weeks.
   
4. This needs to be completed for all relevant classes in every year.
5. You may need to manually schedule the additional lessons to the period by dragging them to the correct period in the Classes > Year timetable (F7) screens. [Post-construction hard-coding of periods does not always register if there are more periods assigned than hard-coding indicates, e.g. 8 assigned periods but only two hard-coded.]
   
   

   Alternatively, if you haven't done any manual rooming, you can go to Grid > Master grid, Action tab > Construct > Pin > All classes, then Add (+) > All classes to place the new lessons on the timetable.

   
   
6. The staffing may follow for the additional period. If not, simply manually assign the additional period of each class to the appropriate teachers which have the remainder. This can be done in Teachers > Staff allocations (F4) – drag the unallocated lessons to the appropriate teacher, or in Classes > Year timetables (F7) – select the lesson, press the T key and choose your teacher.
7. Run Rooms > Room allocations (Ctrl+R) > Action bar tab > Auto room (if the timetable has not been distributed), or Rooms > Room allocations (Ctrl+R) > Action bar tab > Improve > Fix clashes (if you have gone against best practice and spent hours manually rooming or already distributed the timetable to end users, and want to reduce disruption on room changes).

The timetable has no Assembly identified as the classes spread over both short periods look like any other on the grid.

Showing Assembly periods on the timetable

1. Assembly periods are a static assignment for the school, so students generally don't need to see the word Assembly on their timetables every time they look at them. In most cases students and teachers alike will readily understand Assembly occurs either before or after the short split period at the same time each week. Such whole school activities are known to students and teachers, and timetables are primarily designed to reflect assignment of classes and rooms that change relative to the timetable.
2. If you particularly wanted to see the word Assembly shown on timetables in the relevant place on the grid, you would simply insert an additional period row in Setup > Grid structure, then mark each period as a Spacer/Unused period, except for the Assembly period. Adjust bell times for the days with the assemblies.
   
3. For Assembly to appear on student timetables you need to code a class for Assembly and register all students to the class. This can be done in the individual Year Classes > Class data (F6) screens. For Assembly to appear on teacher timetables they will need to be allocated to an Assembly class, either in the individual year Assemblies or as a meeting in the Meetings Class data screen.

Note for covering classes by Daily

1. Not having a separate period for Assembly: it is possible to vary the credit for the class on a case-by-case basis. The split periods should have a reduced duration, so will appear as a 0.5 cover, however different schools may vary this amount according to their own policy - but this must be done manually every time a cover is made of a "short" period.
   
   
2. Having a separate period for Assembly: This allows you to set the period length in Setup > Grid structure which means that the shorter time is included in Daily cover counts.