Beyond the school tour: what does a school day actually look like?
Becky Trenow is a guest blogger for Curriculum Solutions. She shares insights on timetabling from a teacher’s and parent perspective. This term she looks at the role of timetabling for Year 7s and how this can ease transition and what to look out for on a school tour.
September always feels like a month of new beginnings. New teachers, new friends and, usually, a new virus lurking around the corner. However, for Year 6 parents, it also brings the start of secondary school season.
For some families, the process is fairly straightforward. For others, it's a whirlwind of open evenings, catchment areas, admissions criteria and trying to work out whether banding is something you need to understand immediately. Either way, the 31st October quickly becomes one of the most important dates in the diary and for me, temporarily replaces my ability to remember not only birthdays but also, it seems, my wedding anniversary.
As both a teacher and a Year 6 parent, I've found myself looking at school visits through a slightly different lens. Like everyone else, I notice the impressive facilities: the science labs, sports pitches, art studios and confident headteachers with a slick PowerPoint. Then there are the Ofsted reports and exam results that inevitably lead many down a Google rabbit hole asking, ‘What exactly is a Progress 8 score?’.
But while these things help us compare schools, there's something else that rarely gets mentioned on a school tour: the timetable.
The timetable is what determines what your child's week will actually feel like. It shapes the rhythm of their days and outlines who they see, how often and for how long. The timetable can be a one or two week format. If it's a two-week cycle, a good timetable will ensure a balance of subjects avoiding one week packed with maths and science while the next dominated by arts and humanities. A thoughtful timetable doesn't always put the same subject at the end of the day when concentration levels are lower, creating increased challenge for both the student and the teacher.
Then there are the double lessons. Sometimes they make perfect sense, especially for practical subjects where students need longer blocks of time. But they're not always ideal. I once taught the second half of a double GCSE English resit lesson that lasted more than three hours in total. It's fair to say enthusiasm was in short supply by the time I arrived. It certainly made me question whether simply allocating enough curriculum time automatically means that time is being used effectively.
For Year 7 students, these decisions matter even more. They're already adjusting to new routines, multiple teachers and a much bigger school. A well-designed timetable can make that transition feel manageable. A poorly designed one can make every week feel harder than it needs to be.
So, alongside questions about results, facilities and uniform, it might be worth asking a few about the timetable too:
How is the timetable structured, and how do you ensure students have a balanced week?
Do you ever have double lessons, and if so, how do you decide when to use them?
How do you take the student experience into account when allocating rooms and planning movement around the school?
After all, we're not really choosing a building. We're choosing five years of ordinary school days. And sometimes it's those ordinary days, rather than the impressive facilities, that have the biggest impact on a child's experience.
Curriculum Solutions is an education consultancy that supports schools with planning their curriculum and staffing models as well as their timetable. Helping build structures that work for staff and students alike.
