Key takeaways
- Most calendar dates are externally set; the planner reconciles rather than invents.
- The output is one trusted count of teaching weeks and periods.
- A miscounted week (unmodelled training day, exam window) falsifies the audit before scheduling begins.
- Sign-off is staged: the calendar goes to leadership for agreement, and later changes cost rework.
What the calendar reconciles
Each element has an external owner or a deadline; the planner's map has to name both.
- Statutory teaching-day minimums for the jurisdiction
- Term dates from the authority, governing body, or trust
- Training days the school places itself
- Exam windows dictated by exam boards
- Week structures where programmes alternate (theory and practical blocks)
- Staggered starts and induction arrangements on real dates
One number everything trusts
The calendar's product is the count of teaching weeks and periods. The curriculum audit prices demand in periods; the staff loading chart prices supply in periods; the two are interlinked and must match. A wrong period count, from a miscounted week, an unmodelled training day, or an exam week nobody subtracted, makes that match false before any scheduling begins.
This is why the count deserves an explicit check rather than an assumption. Count the weeks a Year 11 group actually teaches, after exam windows; it differs from the calendar's headline.
Staged sign-off for the calendar
The sourced governance pattern: agreement before construction, changes priced afterwards.
- Collect the externally set dates and their owners.
- Place the discretionary dates: training days, induction, internal deadlines.
- Map exam windows per year group and subtract them from teaching counts.
- Derive the week and period count per year group, not just per school.
- Take the calendar to leadership for agreement before planning builds on it.
- Log every post-agreement change with its rework cost, so the price is visible.
How to do this in Smootables: years, periods, and week structure
Timetable structure
Same pattern every week, or a different week each time?
Recurring
The same timetable repeats every week.
Custom
Week by week; the timetable can differ each week.
Holiday weeks
Extra weeks off (e.g. autumn break) that block scheduling within teaching periods.
The calendar lives in Settings under Academic Years: school years, teaching periods, and school day profiles in one place. Each period carries start and end dates, its duration in weeks, and a school day profile that defines the teaching days, lesson length, breaks, and lunch periods; a period can also be marked as a holiday period. Holiday weeks (an autumn break inside a teaching period) are entered so scheduling is blocked in them, which keeps the period's real week count honest.
Each period's timetable structure is Recurring (the same pattern every week) or Custom (week by week, each week can differ), and Custom is the shape to reach for when programmes alternate between structures across the term.
Week types for alternating programmes
Vocational and blended programmes alternate theory and practical blocks, and planning practice models this as named week types that pathways reference: a theory week, a workshop week. The planning question is which weeks follow which template and what that does to each group's period count.
The scheduling half of that problem, including what to do when the alternation is irregular, is covered in mixed theory and practice weeks. The wider planning cycle this calendar anchors is mapped on school year planning.
Questions planners ask about the calendar
How expensive is a calendar error really?
The sourced cases are sobering: one UK Year 11 student was given the wrong GCSE timetable, missed the start of one exam and almost missed another; a different school discovered an exam-coverage error in the exam hall and had to apply for special consideration. Calendar errors surface late, in front of the people they hurt.
Is there a freeze date after which the calendar cannot change?
Not literally. The sourced practice is staged sign-off: the calendar goes to leadership for agreement before construction starts, and changes after that are accepted but cost rework, up to a partial re-write. The gate is the agreement, not a technical freeze.
How do staggered or induction starts fit?
They are permitted (in the sourced English framing) provided pupils who start later still receive a full education across the year. Model them as an attendance nuance on real dates, and check the affected groups' week counts separately.