stupid, stupid timetabling

i’m surprised that i havent posted anything on school in a while. it’s probably because i’ve been trying to avoid whingeing about the same stuff too often.

for those who have an inkling of how free i am at work – guess what? i’m even more free this term after i got my new timetable. while time has been passing by a little bit quicker now that i’ve put in more effort into finding a job (heh), mondays are still kinda rough and depressing, as that’s when i get my schedule for the week and find out that once again i have nothing to do for the week.

i’m back at my "base school” everyday. besides me, there are 3 other ALTs who rotate being at the school. there are 2 of us on monday, tuesday and thursday, and 3 on wednesday and friday.

unfortunately the timetabling is ridiculous. when i first looked at my timetable, it seemed pretty good cos i had a good number of classes each day. then, i was told that 6 periods worth of classes that are on the timetable do not actually occur this term, as the students are focusing on grammar and other aspects besides english conversation.

okay then. so almost a third of my timetable has been struck off. then i realise that about half of the remainder are normal junior high classes that more often than not do not require my presence. i am therefore left with only 2 classes on monday, tuesday and thursday each, 1 on wednesday and none on friday that will definitely happen. that’s a grand total of 7 definite classes a week, and i’ve pretty much mostly been doing just this little since term began. urgh.

and what i don’t understand is why there are so many classes scheduled for junior high anyway. i looked at the ALTs’ timetables, and discovered that between us we have 18 junior high classes than mostly don’t require us (so far we’ve, in total, gone for about 6 classes in a week or less). 18 periods of class is about what one well-utilised ALT works in a week – with better planning, my school could have done with 1 less ALT who could have then be placed FULL TIME at another school that will better benefit from his or her presence.

moreover, further inspection reveals that each of the 6 junior high classes – we have only 2 in each grade – is scheduled to have an ALT in class THREE times a week. that’s plain ridiculous as they only have english 4 times a week! and most regular junior high schools students get an ALT at most once a week. no wonder we never get a chance to go into class because it’s plain impossible to accommodate an ALT that often. why bother to schedule us in then??

who was the person who did the timetabling? did he or she not consider basic facts? did this person pencil in our schedules for the sake of making it seem like the school is making good use of foreign talent? (my school is a newly set-up integrated junior and senior high school, and it’s apparently quite highly regarded in the city – or at least, the city has grand hopes for it.) how could the many people who have no doubt seen the schedules – given japanese bureaucracy it must have passed through a dozen desks – ever questioned if the school really needs that many ALTs?

it makes me so angry that something like this could occur. urgh.