COVID-19: Lesson timetabling a complex issue in reopening schools
18 May 2020
Dr Fiona Curtis, Lecturer in the Institute of Education at the University of Reading, said:
"One thing that I don't think has received much thought in the discussion about returning to schools is the complexity of timetabling in a secondary school.
"Measures that allow only some students in at a time will need to consider how staff are deployed to teach them - for example if distancing were to be achieved by bringing in a year group and spreading them out over more classrooms with fewer in each, there are not enough subject teachers available at any one time (even before assuming COVID-related absence) to teach them in that subject.
"English teachers can't suddenly teach maths, for example. It isn't going to be simply a question of swapping lessons as teachers are all deployed in individual ways, there will be no matched partner to allow reciprocal teaching."