Academy teachers and timetables: planning around part-time instructors

Many academy instructors do not work full time for one employer. A violin teacher might give you two evenings a week and spend the rest of it teaching at a school. Your timetable is built from other people's spare hours, and it changes whenever their lives do. This article covers how to build it, how to find clashes early, what to do when someone is away and how to pay instructors in a way they trust.

The example is Westbridge Music Academy, a fictional academy with two branches 20 minutes apart. It teaches piano, guitar, violin and singing in small groups. For example, it has 12 instructors, of whom 4 are full time and 8 are part time or visiting, and it runs 30 batches a week.

Start with availability

Before each session, ask every instructor for the hours they can teach, on a simple grid of days and time slots. Ask them to mark which hours are fixed and which might change, and how much notice they need for a change. Collect all the grids before you promise any parent a time.

Then place the instructors who are hardest to fit. These are the ones with the fewest free hours and the most demand, such as Westbridge's only violin teacher, who is free on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and nothing else. Put her batches in first and fill the rest of the week around her. If you start from the course list instead, you can end up with a neat timetable that your instructors cannot teach.

Find clashes before learners do

Academy clashes come in a few forms, and each one is easy to miss on a timetable drawn batch by batch:

• The same instructor in two batches at the same time, often after a late change.
• The same room booked twice.
• An instructor teaching at one branch until 6pm and at the other from 6pm, with no time to travel.
• Two batches at the same time that both need the room with the keyboards.

To catch them, read the timetable a second way. List each instructor's whole week on one page, across both branches, and go through it with them before the session starts. At Westbridge, for example, every instructor who teaches at both branches has at least 45 minutes between their last class at one and their first at the other. Repeat the check every time a batch moves during the session.

Rooms are part of the timetable

In a music academy one room cannot always stand in for another. Group piano needs the room with keyboards, and singing needs a room with at least one piano. Keep a short list of rooms at each branch with what is in them and how many learners fit, and assign the room at the same time as the slot.

When rooms are short, look at lesson length before looking for more space. Two 45-minute beginner batches can follow each other in a 90-minute slot that one longer batch used to fill, as long as the instructor is free for both.

Leave and cover

Planned leave is easy to handle when it is asked for early. Set a notice period, for example two weeks, and ask instructors to request leave in one place so requests do not get lost in chat messages. Sickness gives no notice, so plan for it before it happens.

For each course, keep a short cover list of instructors who can take a batch at that level. When someone is away you have three choices, in this order of preference: a named cover instructor, merging with another batch at the same level that day, or a make-up class later in the month. Whatever you choose, tell parents as soon as you know. A notice at 3pm about a 5pm class is far better than a family arriving to a locked room.

Record what happened. Mark the instructor as on leave and note who covered, so the cover instructor is paid for the class. Over a session these records also show who is reliable, which helps when you decide whose hours to increase.

Paying instructors in a way they trust

Academies usually pay instructors in one of these ways:

Pay model	Suits	Watch for
Fixed monthly amount	Full-time instructors with a steady timetable	Batches that close mid-session still cost the same
Rate per class taught	Part-time and visiting instructors	Disagreements about how many classes were taught
Share of the batch's fees	Instructors who bring their own learners	Pay drops when families pay late, through no fault of the instructor

Westbridge uses fixed pay for its four full-time instructors and a rate per class for the rest. For example, a visiting guitar teacher on 20 per class in your currency who taught 18 classes in a month is owed 360. Working out the amount is easy. Agreeing on the 18 is where disputes start.

Agree the count from records both sides can see: the timetable and the staff attendance register, with cover classes noted. Send each instructor their count a few days before pay day, so corrections happen before the money moves. Then pay on the same date every month. Instructors who teach at several places compare academies, and paying on time is one reason they keep their evenings for you.

How SkoolBro handles instructors, rooms and pay

In SkoolBro instructors are staff members, and some screens use school words such as teacher. You can group them by department, for example keyboard and strings, and give each one a designation such as senior instructor or visiting instructor. Staff attendance records each day as present, absent, late, half day or on leave.

Leave is set up as leave types with balances. An instructor requests days off from a phone and can check the remaining balance there, and a manager then decides. No one can approve leave for themselves. For the timetable, you set periods to match your slots, such as 4pm to 4:45pm, and add rooms to each branch, which SkoolBro calls a campus. Then you build the weekly timetable for each batch, which SkoolBro calls a section. A notice to one batch tells its parents about a cover instructor or a moved class, by email and in the app.

Payroll is built from each instructor's salary and its components. A second person signs off each payroll before it is final, and instructors then open their payslips in SkoolBro. That suits instructors on a fixed monthly amount. SkoolBro does not count classes taught, so for visiting instructors you work out the month's count from the timetable and attendance and record the payment as an expense in Accounts. Campus access means an instructor who teaches at one branch only sees that branch.

Cover is still a decision for a person. SkoolBro will not suggest a cover instructor, and text message and WhatsApp notices are still to come. For the batches themselves, see managing courses and batches, and for the wider setup, what to set up first in an academy. If your academy also tracks tutors alongside learner records, tutor and learner records covers that side. The staff, leave and payroll tools are also described in the features section.

Questions

How do I stop one instructor being booked in two places?

Build the timetable from each instructor's availability, then read each instructor's whole week on one page before you publish it. Leave travel time for anyone who teaches at two branches.

What happens to a batch when its instructor is away?

Decide in advance: a named cover instructor, a merged class at the same level, or a make-up class later in the month. Tell parents with a notice to that batch as soon as you know.

Can SkoolBro pay instructors per class?

SkoolBro payroll works from each person's salary and its components, which suits instructors on a fixed monthly amount. It does not count classes taught, so per-class fees are worked out from your records and can be recorded as expenses in Accounts.