The timetable is a weekly, per-class grid of what actually happens during the day — Circle Time, Snack, Outdoor Play. It is separate from the Calendar, which handles school-wide dated events and holidays.
Building one is a two-step job: an admin creates the block library once for the whole school, then blocks get placed onto each class’s week.
Step 1 — Create your block library
Blocks are named, reusable activities shared by every class in the school. Only admins can create or edit them.
- Open Admin Dashboard → Timetable
- Tap Manage blocks
- Add a block with:
- Title — e.g. “Circle Time”
- Duration in minutes — anything from 5 to 480; there are quick-pick chips for 15, 30, 45, 60 and 120
- Colour — makes the week readable at a glance
Build ten or so blocks covering your normal day. You only do this once — every class draws from the same library.
Retiring a block
Blocks are archived, never deleted. An archived block disappears from the palette so nobody can place it again, but timetables that already use it keep rendering correctly. Nothing in your history breaks.
Step 2 — Place blocks on the week
- Open Admin Dashboard → Timetable
- Pick the class and the week (use Previous week / Next week, or Today to jump back)
- Place blocks from the palette
On desktop or tablet: you get the full 7-column grid with the block palette down the side. Drag a block from the palette onto a day column. Drag an already-placed entry to move it. Drop it on Drop here to remove to take it off.
On a phone: days scroll horizontally and the palette sits at the bottom. Tap a block to pick it up — a banner shows “Placing Circle Time — tap a slot to place it” — then tap the slot you want. Tap Cancel placing to back out. Long-press-and-drag also works if you prefer it.
Start times snap to 15-minute steps (:00, :15, :30, :45), and the block’s own duration sets how long it runs. If you drop a block on top of another one you’ll see “That slot overlaps another block” — blocks in the same day can’t overlap.
Notes on an entry
Any placed entry can carry a short note (“bring water bottles”, “swimming — Hall B”). Open the entry’s menu and choose Edit note….
Copying a week forward
Most weeks look like the last one. Instead of rebuilding the grid:
- Navigate to the week you want to fill
- Tap Copy last week
- Choose how to handle what’s already there:
- Replace — clears the blocks already in this week first
- Add — keeps them and skips anything that clashes
The confirmation tells you exactly what will happen (“This will copy 22 blocks from last week into this week”), and afterwards you get a summary: how many were copied, how many replaced, how many skipped because they clashed.
There’s a day-level version too — Copy this day to… on any day column, with Same day next week as the default target.
Every week stands alone
Timetables are anchored to a specific week (Monday-anchored), not driven by a recurring template. That means:
- Changing this week never touches next week
- An exam week, a festival week, or a half-day Friday is just an ordinary edit
- Past weeks are kept, so you (and parents) can look back
Weekends show as columns too. Schools that don’t run Saturday or Sunday simply leave them empty.
Who can do what
| Block library | Place / move blocks | View | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admin | Create, edit, archive | Every class | Every class |
| Teacher | View only | Their assigned classes | Their assigned classes |
| Parent | — | — | Their child’s class, read-only |
Teachers can run their own week without waiting on you, but they can’t invent new blocks — which is what keeps the library from sprawling.
Showing the timetable to parents
Parent visibility is a per-class toggle, same mechanism as the other parent menu items. Turn it on for a class and its guardians get a read-only Timetable item in their menu; leave it off and the item is hidden entirely.
A good pattern: build the week, let the teacher settle it in for a few days, then switch it on for parents.
Things to know
- Edits are live immediately — there is no draft or publish step, and no notification is sent when a timetable changes.
- Only the block library is school-wide; the placements are per class.
- Deleting a class removes its timetable entries with it.