Baringa SSC: Top marks for timetabling
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 126 No 8, 12 November 2021, page no.15
Opening a new school is exciting, challenging and comes with loads of opportunities. The Baringa State Secondary College leadership team has set out to ensure that their new college is a place that inspires the whole community and values people and learning.
Principal Matt Samson and Deputy Principals Emma Clarke and Sam Burchall (pictured) strongly believe in consultation and communication - even when it comes to the structure and capacity of the school’s timetable.
It became apparent, as it often does in secondary settings, that the existing timetable structure wasn’t fit for purpose when it came to accommodating part-time fraction requests from staff returning from parental leave. Conscious of the legislative and policy requirements to support parents in accessing part-time work (and with more on-leave teachers returning in the 2022 school year), they set out to do it differently.
The QTU is acutely aware of the heartache and frustrations felt by many parents (mostly, but not always, women) when their requests to access part-time work are met with a less than enthusiastic response. Most commonly reported are set fractions (to make timetabling easier), quotas and delayed approvals (impacting on capacity to book/plan childcare arrangements), and the dreaded half-day solution.
The department’s own part-time application form makes it explicit that half-days should only occur if requested by the employee, or in exceptional circumstances. It is widely understood by the employer, the department, that half-days often negate the intent and purpose of working part-time and create an additional financial burden on families paying for childcare (newsflash –childcare centres don’t have half-day rates!). Anecdotally, I am aware of the fear and trepidation felt by many when confronted with these limitations or with requests that they accept less money (and super!) when the school mandates a set fraction. They don’t want to be seen as rocking the boat or being confrontational.
The college executive and leadership team at Baringa SSC understood the importance of having a timetable structure that worked for the whole school and could accommodate as many staff requests as possible. Unwilling to go with “what has always been done”, they were keen to approach the timetable with a mindset that valued people, the students and the staff.
Deputy principal Emma Clarke acknowledges that the comprehensive consultation they undertook to review the timetable wasn’t always quick or easy. She describes it as a complex process but emphasises that the leadership team saw it as an investment and a foundation that would build goodwill, and importantly, value the people in the school. Viewing timetabling as a cultural and relational work, Emma explains that it is strategic and operational too, as it is the foundation of how most people in the school spend their time at work and learning, so the foundation it sets is incredibly important.
Engaging the staff in understanding how the timetable is structured and how timetabling is organised also provided a unique opportunity to build the capability of everybody in the school, not just the leaders or members of the executive team. Emma acknowledges it took time, and a commitment to have the conversations and engage with teachers about their needs.
Emma also explains that time was also a crucial element of their approach to consultation. Providing people with time and space to think is central to the college way of working, and as such was a priority. Emma is adamant that the consultation process had to ensure enough lead-time and that conversations occurred across the school, with key stakeholders. Emma believes that the quality of the feedback and input received was worth the investment.
While as a new school, Baringa SSC was in a unique position to establish new structures and approaches, it does demonstrate that timetabling can be cultural. They set out to collectively develop a timetable structure that maximised the capability of all teachers and could support fraction requests. It needed to re-position the line spread across the week, to make it more efficient and maximise internal relief and specialist teaching areas, while providing far more capacity to support requested flexibility.
They have experienced an increase of goodwill and an ability to provide families with the flexibility that modern workplaces, even schools, should strive to support.