Multiple batches and timetables in a tuition centre: a practical plan

A tuition centre has far fewer teaching hours than a school. Learners arrive after school, so most centres have about four usable hours on a weekday and a morning or two at the weekend. Every batch, tutor and room competes for those same hours. When the timetable grows one batch at a time, as enquiries come in, it fills up with awkward gaps and tutors rushing between rooms. This guide plans it from the other end, starting with the hours you have.

The example centre is made up, and its numbers are illustrations. Riverside Learning Centre has three rooms: Room A seats 20, and Rooms B and C seat 10 each. It runs 14 batches for about 150 learners, taught by six tutors, two of them part-time. Weekday classes run in hourly blocks from 4 pm to 8 pm, and weekend classes in two-hour blocks from 9 am to 1 pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Count your slots before you add batches

A slot is one room for one block of time. Riverside has four hourly blocks on each of five weekdays in three rooms, which makes 60 weekday slots. Two blocks on each weekend morning in three rooms add 12 more. Ten weekday batches meeting three times a week need 30 slots, and four weekend batches meeting twice need 8. On paper there is plenty of space.

The slots are far from equal, though. Younger learners need the 4 pm block, older ones prefer 6 pm and later, and the 5 pm and 6 pm blocks are the ones most parents ask for. Count demand for each block as well as the total. If 9 of your 14 batches want the same two blocks, you will either need every room busy in those hours or a second, less popular time for some batches.

Draw the week as a grid, with rooms down the side and blocks across the top. A slice of Riverside's Monday might look like this.

Room	4 pm	5 pm	6 pm	7 pm
Room A (20 seats)	Grade 6 maths, Amir	Grade 10 physics, Lena	Grade 10 maths, Amir	Grade 12 physics, Lena
Room B (10 seats)	Grade 7 English, Priya	Grade 8 maths, Tomas	Grade 9 chemistry, Joseph	Free
Room C (10 seats)	Free	Grade 9 English, Priya	Grade 11 maths, Tomas	Grade 11 biology, Hana

The free cells are spare capacity. Riverside's fall at 4 pm and 7 pm, the hardest hours to fill, so a new Monday batch would have to suit learners who can come early or stay late.

Tutors who teach in several batches

In most centres a few tutors carry most of the batches, and their hours shape the timetable more than the rooms do. Start each term by writing down every tutor's available hours, the part-timers especially. At Riverside, Hana is a university student who can only teach after 6 pm on weekdays, and Tomas teaches at a school until 4:30, so neither of them can take a 4 pm batch.

Then place tutors in order of how few free hours they have. The tutor with the tightest week goes in first, and those who can work any evening fill the gaps. A few habits help after that:

• Keep a tutor with four batches in one evening in the same room where you can, so they can use the change between classes to get ready.
• Put a tutor's batches of the same level on the same days. If Amir teaches two Grade 10 maths batches, both can sit the same weekly test in the same week.
• Avoid splitting a part-time tutor's evening at both ends, such as 4 pm and 7 pm with nothing between. They end up paid to wait, or they stop coming for one of the two.

Match batch size to the room

A batch of six learners in the 20-seat room at 5 pm takes the centre's largest room in its busiest hour. Put the biggest batches in the biggest rooms during the peak blocks, and move small batches to small rooms or to quieter hours.

Set a maximum size for each batch before enrollment opens, based on the room and on how much individual checking the subject needs. For example, a Grade 6 English batch where the tutor reads every learner's writing might stop at 10, while a Grade 12 revision batch could take 20. When a batch is full, keep a list of waiting families. Once there are enough of them to fill a group, open a second batch in a quieter block and offer it to them first.

Exam season timetables

A few weeks before school exams, parents who were relaxed in October all want extra sessions. Planned in advance, exam season fills empty slots and brings in extra fees. Left to the last minute, it turns the timetable upside down for a month.

Riverside plans its exam season timetable a month ahead. Extra sessions are added to the batches that have exams, so attendance and fees stay with groups that families already know. The weekend blocks and the 4 pm slots that older learners normally avoid take most of the extra sessions. Batches for younger learners, whose exams come later, are shortened for those weeks, which frees tutors such as Amir for the older classes. The changed timetable has a start date and an end date, and the normal one comes back on a fixed day.

Telling parents about a change

Every timetable change sets off a round of messages, so aim for a single round. Send one notice per batch with the old time, the new time, the start date and the end date, at least a week ahead. Parents whose child is getting a new tutor should hear about it in a separate, personal message, because that is the change they will ask about. Try not to change times in the middle of a week, when learners are most likely to turn up at the old time.

Setting up batches and timetables in SkoolBro

SkoolBro uses school words on screen, and a tuition centre maps onto them without much effort. Your session is an academic year. Each level, such as Grade 10, is a grade, and each batch is a class section within it, for example "Grade 10 Evening B". Subjects are attached to the batch, each with its own tutor, who is set up as a member of staff. Your time blocks are periods, and your rooms are rooms. You then fill in each batch's weekly timetable by choosing a subject and a room for each day and period, Saturday and Sunday included.

One detail shapes how you set up the blocks. SkoolBro keeps one list of periods for each campus, used on every day of the week, and periods cannot overlap. Riverside's weekday blocks run from 4 pm to 8 pm and its weekend blocks from 9 am to 1 pm, so the two sets sit side by side without trouble. If your Saturday classes start at 4:30 while weekday classes start at 4:00, settle on one set of times for both.

Parents and learners see the batch timetable in the portal, and a change can go to one batch as an announcement, by email and in the app. Text messages and WhatsApp are coming. Tutors ask for leave in SkoolBro and another person approves it, so you can see who is away before the week starts.

Two limits are worth knowing before you plan. Each learner belongs to one batch per session, and that batch can hold several subjects with different tutors. A learner who takes maths with one group and English with a different group cannot be in both batches at once today, so check how your learners are grouped during the trial. Exam date sheets with times and rooms are not built yet, although each test paper carries its date, and exam season sessions go into each batch's own timetable. The features overview lists the rest. For the staff side, see our article on tutor and learner records, and if you also run longer courses, managing courses and batches in an academy looks at the same questions on a larger scale.

Questions

How long should a tuition batch session be?

Many centres use 60 or 90 minutes for school-age learners. Choose one or two standard lengths, because mixed lengths leave gaps in a room that no other batch can use.

How many learners should one batch have?

Let the room and the subject decide. A batch where the tutor checks every learner's written work may stop at 8 or 10, while a revision batch can take 20. Set the limit before enrollment opens.

Can one learner be in two batches in SkoolBro?

Not today. Each learner is placed in one class section per session, and that section can hold several subjects with a different tutor for each. If your learners mix subjects across different groups, test this during the trial.