A visiting violin teacher's Tuesday
Your school has visiting instrumental teachers who come in on set days. The violin teacher teaches fourteen pupils on Tuesday, in thirty and forty-minute lessons. To avoid pupils missing the same maths lesson every week, the times rotate. She works out the rotation each term on a spreadsheet, prints it, pins it to the music school noticeboard, and emails pupils.
Pupils forget to check. One misses her lesson because she had a test that week. Another's rotation puts him in a lesson during his GCSE mock, because the teacher did not know about it. At the end of term, the music school counts attendance from the teacher's notebook to work out what to bill.
Rotations are built without the school timetable
Visiting teachers build rotations with little access to pupils' timetables, exam dates or events. They do their best with what they know. But without the timetable, rotations can land on lessons the school wants protected, and every change is communicated on paper.
- Rotations are built on spreadsheets by each teacher.
- Pupils' timetables and exam dates are not visible to teachers.
- Lesson times are published on a noticeboard.
- Missed lessons are recorded in notebooks.
- Billing is counted by hand at the end of term.
What hand-built rotations cost
Missed lessons, which frustrate teachers and, depending on your policy, may be billed or not. Pupils pulled out of lessons the school would rather protect, such as exam classes. Teachers' time spent on admin rather than teaching. And billing disputes when attendance records are unclear.
Academic staff notice too. A history teacher who loses the same pupil every third Tuesday for a clarinet lesson may not mind, but one who loses three pupils from a Year 11 group the week before a mock does. Complaints about music withdrawals then land on the director of music, who has to referee between departments with no clear picture of which pupils were out of which lessons, or how often.
Parents ask questions as well, usually when a bill arrives: how many lessons did my son actually have this term, and why was one missed? A notebook tally is a weak answer to that question.
The lesson scheduler we build
- Each visiting teacher's days, hours and rooms are set up, along with each pupil's lesson length.
- Pupils' timetables are read from your MIS, and the school marks which lessons are protected, for example exam year classes or assessments.
- The scheduler proposes a rotation for each teacher for the term, avoiding protected lessons and spreading the other lessons missed.
- Teachers review and adjust the rotation, and the published times go to pupils' calendars and the parent app.
- Reminders go to pupils on the day of their lesson.
- Teachers record attendance on a phone: attended, missed with notice, missed without notice.
- Attendance feeds the extras for billing under your music school's policy.
| Input | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Pupil timetables | Your MIS |
| Protected lessons and exam dates | Set by the school |
| Teacher availability and rooms | Music school |
| Lesson lengths | Pupil's lesson record |
| Attendance | Teacher's phone |
A term of lessons that run smoothly
Teachers start each term with a proposed rotation that already respects the school timetable. Pupils receive their lesson times in their calendars and a reminder on the day. When a mock exam is scheduled, lessons that would clash are moved and pupils are told. At the end of term, attendance is already recorded, and billing matches it.
Signs your music lessons need this
- Rotations are built by hand each term.
- Lesson times are posted on a noticeboard.
- Pupils miss lessons because they forgot the time.
- Rotations clash with exams or protected lessons.
- Attendance for billing is counted from notebooks.