Steer the timetable with weights and electives
Weight your priorities — from 'no lessons Friday afternoon' to 'core subjects in the morning' — and let option blocks handle upper-school electives elegantly. With a live cover-cost banner up top. Helmke (2012) and Walberg (1988) show that the placement of lessons across the day has measurable effects on attainment — the weights make that knowledge actionable.
Vægtene styrer designeren; valgblokkene styrer udskolingen.
Scheduling_constraints
Sliders for classic preferences: core subjects in the morning, no pupil 'gaps', subject spread per day.
Soft vs hard constraints
Clearly separated — the designer always honours hard, and maximises soft.
Option_blocks
Upper-school electives grouped into blocks — multiple offerings per block, pupils pick one.
Offerings & pupil choices
Offerings/choices tables decide who sits on which team — no manual sorting.
Live cover budget
Get_cover_cost_summary runs on every change. The banner shows running cost.
Validate before publish
Empty block names, duplicate offerings and unchosen pupils are caught by the designer audit.
In the classroom
Timetabler
Spends an afternoon setting weights — saves a week of timetabling.
Upper-school teacher
Sees their elective filled without manual pupil lists.
Headteacher
Watches the cover budget in real time — can react before it runs away.
For school leadership and for the timetabler
The weights translate the school's pedagogical principles into concrete timetable practice: 'core subjects in the morning', 'arts spread across the week', 'protected team time on Thursdays'. Once principles are encoded, the timetable stops being a personal compromise — it becomes a policy that can be revised.
- Live cover cost per week — right at the top of the designer
- Option blocks document electives to the local authority
- Soft vs hard constraints make priorities explicit
Instead of puzzling through 4,000 cells by hand, you set weights and let the designer suggest solutions. Each suggested change shows how many soft constraints it breaks, so you can make an informed call.
- Sliders for the 12 most important preferences
- The designer suggests — you decide
- Empty-name guard on blocks catches a classic mistake
Research base
Scheduling weights are grounded in research on the placement of instructional time, the spread of subjects across the week and the economics of cover.
- Helmke, A. (2012). Unterrichtsqualität und Lehrerprofessionalität: Diagnose, Evaluation und Verbesserung des Unterrichts (4. Aufl.). Klett-Kallmeyer
- Walberg, H. J. (1988). Synthesis of research on time and learning. Educational Leadership, 45(6), 76–85
- Hattie, J. (2009/2023). Time on task and instructional time (d ≈ 0.39). Visible Learning MetaX source
- Børne- og Undervisningsministeriet (2024). Vejledende timetal for folkeskolens fag. uvm.dk source
- Danmarks Evalueringsinstitut (EVA) (2021). Skoleledelse og prioritering af undervisningstid. EVA source
- KL & Lærernes Centralorganisation (2020). Arbejdstidsaftale 2020 (A20) for undervisningsområdet. KL & LC source
Frequently asked questions
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