Key takeaways
- Team teaching changes allocation accounting, not just delivery.
- One sourced accounting rule: average class size divided by the number of teachers.
- Model shared classes explicitly, or every workload number downstream degrades.
- Every teacher on a shared lesson must be free in that slot; the constraint multiplies.
The accounting decision
Before any shared class is placed, someone has to decide how it counts. The sourced New Zealand rule (average class size divided by the number of teachers) is one clean answer; your agreement may hold another. What is not acceptable is no answer, because then the same shared class counts differently depending on who is asking.
Write the rule down where the workload baseline lives, so the overload check and the fairness review use the same arithmetic.
Model shared classes explicitly
The record has to exist before it can be fair.
- List every class delivered by more than one teacher, and who is on it.
- Apply the local accounting rule to each teacher's load.
- Check each team member's availability covers the shared periods.
- Fold the adjusted loads into the overload check with everyone else's.
- Recheck when the team changes; accounting follows membership.
- Keep team-taught and split classes distinct in the record.
How to do this in Smootables: several teachers on one lesson
A lesson takes multiple teachers directly: the teacher field is a multi-select, and the solver applies its constraints per teacher, so a shared lesson is only placed where every assigned teacher is free and each one's hours count the shared time. The workload panel reads the same assignments, so over-limit warnings reflect team membership without separate bookkeeping.
For splits rather than sharing, a study unit divides into named parts scheduled separately, and a placement can carry several student groups. The two records stay distinct, which keeps the accounting question answerable.
Where the pattern strains
Team teaching concentrates constraint: the shared periods need the whole team free, and the team's common availability is only as wide as its narrowest member. One part-time pattern on the team narrows every shared slot, the documented ricochet from availability planning.
When a shared class keeps failing to place, read it as common-availability arithmetic before anything else. The staffing-side fix is in timetabling part-time teachers; the recipe walkthrough is team teaching, with subgroup splits covering the neighbouring pattern.
Questions planners ask about team teaching
Does a shared class count as a full class for each teacher?
That is precisely the question your local agreement answers, and the reason to read it. The sourced example divides average class size by the number of teachers; other agreements may count differently. Pick the rule deliberately and apply it consistently.
Why does team teaching make timetabling harder, not easier?
Because a shared lesson needs every teacher on it free at the same time, each shared period multiplies availability constraints. With a part-timer on the team, the shared class inherits their pattern too.
Is splitting a class the same as team teaching?
No. Team teaching puts several teachers on one lesson. A split runs parts of the teaching separately. They solve different problems and their accounting differs, so record which one you actually mean.