Key takeaways
- Check assigned periods against the contractual cap before placement.
- Use Contact Ratio to test whether teaching load leaves protected time.
- Include per-day and consecutive-period limits where the school uses them.
- Rebalance through curriculum audit and staff loading when a teacher is over cap.
What is an overload check?
An overload check compares each teacher's assigned periods with the workload cap and Contact Ratio budget. It also checks per-day and consecutive-period limits where those are part of the timetable rules.
Leadership also needs to plan the year so staff do not exhaust obligatory hours too early. That makes overload a planning issue before it becomes a timetable-placement issue.
What should the check include?
Use the same definitions as the contract-hours baseline.
- Assigned teaching periods for each teacher
- The contractual cap or directed-time budget
- The Contact Ratio budget
- Protected non-teaching time
- Per-day limits where they apply
- Consecutive-period limits where they apply
How do planners run the check?
Run it while allocation can still change.
- Start with the cap definitions from contract hours.
- List assigned periods for each teacher.
- Compare assigned periods with the cap and Contact Ratio budget.
- Check per-day and consecutive-period limits.
- Flag every teacher over cap before placement.
- Rebalance using the curriculum audit and staff-loading chart.
Why does timing matter?
An overload found before placement can be fixed by changing allocation. An overload found after placement often looks like a timetable problem, even when the real mismatch is between curriculum demand and staff loading.
Run the check before the timetable is treated as placeable. Then repeat it when part-time availability or team-teaching accounting changes the assigned load.
What should leaders see?
The report should make over-cap load visible without extra interpretation.
- Teacher name or group
- Assigned periods
- Cap or Contact Ratio budget
- Per-day limit result
- Consecutive-period limit result
- Rebalance action from the curriculum audit or staff-loading chart
How do part-time and team teaching affect the check?
For part-time teachers, compare assigned periods with the pro-rated cap where the agreement requires pro-rating. Fixed days off may still make a legal load hard to place.
For team teaching, model the shared class explicitly. The workload count changes when several teachers share a class each period.
Questions planners ask about overload checks
Should overload checks wait until the timetable is generated?
No. The generic check should flag over-cap teachers before placement, while allocation can still be rebalanced.
Which limits belong in the check?
Use the contractual cap, Contact Ratio budget, per-day limits, and consecutive-period limits that apply in the local model.
What should happen when a teacher is over cap?
Recheck the curriculum audit against the staff-loading chart. The fix is usually an allocation or staffing issue, not a placement detail.