Making a schedule is the trickiest part of the school year. I always compare it to sudoku but it’s honestly even more frustrating than that. Because at least with sudoku there is eventually some perfect way everything fits in (whether or not my mathematically challenged brain can ever get there…) but with making schedules we are searching for some holy grail perfect fit where every student is supervised, engaged, and busy at every moment and every staff member is actively utilized. In this holy grail schedule, lunch breaks don’t overlap, special classes perfectly fall into place with plenty of staff to manage all kids and grade levels, and clinician services fit puzzle pieces neatly into unoccupied time slots. Back to reality, friends. That crap ain’t never gonna happen. In the real world, all of your specials will be during your staff lunches, you will have to figure out how to get 3 different grade levels to 4 different inclusion classes during the same period with one aide, and you will have 4 students that need one on one help at all times of the day. And once you have some semblance of some type of rough schedule, your principal will change your prep times and the social worker will show up with her completely opposite schedule and try to pull your students during their recess time. Just writing this stresses me out.
Your schedule will never be perfect.
Do the best you can and make it work. Prioritize. If everyone can’t go to every single inclusion class because you only have one paraprofessional for 13 kids and unfortunately cloning isn’t an option – do what you have to do. It’s not ideal. It’s not what you’d envision for a perfect class. But many of us work in districts that are underfunded and understaffed. So we make due. And we do the best can.
Steps for Setting Up Your Classroom Schedule:
- Setup your excel schedule.
- On one tab – put student names across the top. Write them in the order you would group them. On the left column put the times of the school day broken into 15 minute increments. On another tab – put staff member names across top and same time break down on left column.
- On one tab – put student names across the top. Write them in the order you would group them. On the left column put the times of the school day broken into 15 minute increments. On another tab – put staff member names across top and same time break down on left column.
- Plug in the non-negotiables.
- Write in the things you cannot change. These might be student lunch & recess, specials, staff lunches, inclusion classes, transition times, etc.
- Write in the things you cannot change. These might be student lunch & recess, specials, staff lunches, inclusion classes, transition times, etc.
- Group students.
- Based on how many staff members you have and the ability levels of your students, organize your students into groups.
- Based on how many staff members you have and the ability levels of your students, organize your students into groups.
- Reference your list of centers.
- Check out that list of centers you made back during Step 1. Prioritize the centers. Pick which are the most important and determine which centers are best run by which staff members.
- Check out that list of centers you made back during Step 1. Prioritize the centers. Pick which are the most important and determine which centers are best run by which staff members.
- Look for large gaps of time where all of your students and staff will be in your room.
- Set up rotations of centers during those times. Color code the centers so you can easily view how everyone is rotating. Make sure the order the students are moving around the centers make sense physically in the room. If you have more groups than centers that will have staff members – add in some independent centers or break time. I like to put independent centers in between staff run centers.
- Set up rotations of centers during those times. Color code the centers so you can easily view how everyone is rotating. Make sure the order the students are moving around the centers make sense physically in the room. If you have more groups than centers that will have staff members – add in some independent centers or break time. I like to put independent centers in between staff run centers.
- Fill in other times with remaining centers and activities.
- Fill in additional time periods with the rest of your centers. If there are times with limited staff (ie. staff are at lunch), put independent activities or larger group activities then.
- Fill in additional time periods with the rest of your centers. If there are times with limited staff (ie. staff are at lunch), put independent activities or larger group activities then.
- Test run!
- Don’t print a million copies just yet. You have got to test it out first. Some things work awesome on paper and then in real life crash and burn. A few years ago, I made what I thought was the most perfect schedule ever and then we rolled it out, I realized I had completely forgotten about two students – FOR THE ENTIRE AFTERNOON. No wonder I had so many paraprofessionals to help and didn’t feel understaffed. Oops.
Yes that is a simplified version of the process above but it gives you the idea. A few tips for scheduling:
- Limit whole group activities! Unless you have an extremely cohesive (skill level, cognition, social skill abilities) – avoid too many whole group activities. With the varied caseloads we all have, it usually is not appropriate for too many whole group activities. It will be harder to differentiate and individualize. Work on social skills and group behavior with similar peers in smaller groups so you can focus on being consistent with teaching the skill.
- Set up multiple independent stations. You can have several centers where kids work independently. Many of us are short staffed so will need students to be working on their own more often than we’d like. Independent stations don’t necessary need to be work boxes. Things like drawing, puzzles, computers, games, etc can be great independent stations!
- Try fitting in main academics in the morning. By the afternoon, both students and teachers are fried! Making sure the major academics are hit on in the morning ensures you getting your best effort in those important tasks!
- Have two circle times or morning meetings – organized by level. My first few years, I really stressed about creating a morning meeting that could fit the needs of my extremely diverse group. It made way more sense to split them into multiple groups and we not only got so much more done but I had way less behavior issues!
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Dear Sasha,
I have been following you for a number of years and I finally am writing to tell you how impressed I am with all that you do. You never fail to amaze me and your ideas of how to group, organize and plan have helped me immensely. I teach in Saskatchewan, Canada in a small city. We have total integration and no specialized classrooms. However, I am able to take your ideas and modify them so they work with my situation. I am grateful for your blog, materials, comments and ideas. You are a master teacher. Thank you, again.
Sincerely,
Lynn
I LOVE everything you post! Can you tell me about doing separate circle times please???
I can’t tell you how much I love your website and resources. They are amazing and are so easy to implement. How do you do two morning circle times??
Hi Sasha
Your blog is brilliant. This will be my first year in teaching and you cannot imagine how much your posts help me to organise my thoughts and plan my next steps.
Many thanks!
P
Aww – great to hear! Good luck in your first year! You will do great 🙂
Thanks for reading! I always suggest doing multiple morning times if your classroom is large and/or your students are all on very different levels. If you try to run one whole group, it will be too easy for half the kids and too hard for half the kids even with a ton of differentiation and you will likely run into a lot of behavior problems. So instead, do leveled morning circle times individualized at that group’s level. Have the students that aren’t working with you do independent work, work with a paraprofessional, have a professional run their circle time (and then you can rotate which adults run which circle times every week so you are seeing all of the kids), or have break time. Hope this helps!
Do you make your schedules in an excel doc? I really like the way you set this up and would like to follow suit.
Do your students have a break after every work session, or can they handle multiple tasks without a break?
Some have a break after every work session but we are always working towards multiple tasks/centers without a break. Many students in my class can handle that and others are still working towards that 🙂
I would not have been successful in my class without your blog! When I first started teaching special education I really wasn’t sure how to run the classroom. Your ideas really helped me! I am doing a training next week on classroom set up, would you mind if I share some of your examples and your website? I try to tell teachers all the time not to recreate the wheel but to add sparkles to a already great one 🙂
Add sparkles- I love that! 🙂 Her blog is amazing!
Hi Jodi! Thank you so much for your sweet words! That would be great if you can share some examples but please provide a reference to my website. Thanks! Happy holiday! 🙂
I so wish I found you before the school year started. Being a brand spankin’ new to the teaching world, I am Special Education teacher with one ESP for grades K-8 which has been a nightmare. Two of my students have 120 minutes a day each. I then have 7 other students to service. I am just trying to finish the year without a breakdown. Next year will be better, right?!
Yes! Next year will be better! You got this! Keep trying to figure out what works and take it one day at a time!
I have always had a class size of no more than 6 that could be divided into 2 groups and the students could work bell to bell. I have been so blessed. This next school year 2017-2018 I’ll be having a total of 12 students with atleast 3 different work levels who also can’t work the 45 min bell to bell. The schedule is the only thing stressing me out. I just don’t know if i should do 20-30 min rotations or have several groups of 4 students each on a 50 min bell to bell. All 4 students at the table but only working with 2 students while the other 2 st the table do folder work and then we switch after 25 min.
Hi Linda, I COMPLETELY understand your stress. It is so tricky to figure out a complex schedule like that. My best advice would be to make a schedule – try it for a week or two and if it’s not working, change it. Sometimes we get nervous to change something but if you go into a new schedule open to changing it if it doesn’t work, it makes it easier! Hope this helps! Good luck!
Thank you for all you do! I think it is absolutely amazing how you have your classroom set up! I am watching your videos and reading your blogs all the time. I hope to have my classroom set up and run like yours. You are an inspiration!
I have many questions but I will just ask one…When you have your morning meeting with your higher group, what is it that you work on with them? I have a classroom of 8 high functioning students with autism and I am trying to decide what I need to do with them in our morning meeting. They are divided into groups of 4 because I do have a 4 that struggle with reading but my other 4 can read better than the others.
Great question! Some topics to work on: reviewing the calendar (higher level skills like planning ahead, schedule important events, counting down to events, etc.), weather (looking up weather online, the forecast), current events (look up the news, popular sports team scores, etc.), and social skills (what did you do over the weekend, have for dinner last night etc). I try to think of this group as mimicking activities you or I would do in the morning (check the weather, chat with friends, etc.).
I’ve been working on setting up work stations and scheduling, but was curious it looks like you have the students do the same station at the same time? For example, they are all at the independent math station together?
Yes! Students are at some stations at the same time depending on the size of your class. If students are at the same center – they each have separate work to do. So at independent math stations – each student has a bind or with activities. Or students follow a mini schedule showing the order of tasks to do. This is great practice to learn to work nearby other students! 🙂
Making a schedule can be one of the hardest parts of the school year. Thanks for sharing these tips on how to make the process easier!
Great to hear! Thanks for reading 🙂