Win Coll Timetable Changes

The beginning of the new academic year brings with it a further increase in overall pupil numbers as St Cross, the new boarding house, opens for business. One consequence of this, and the opening of St Catherine in a year’s time, is that the school’s academic timetable has been given a significant overhaul.

The 2026 timetabling change is not the first in living memory. 2012 was probably the most recent change. However, for a complete overhaul and change of direction, that undertaken by Mathmā Don (later Undermaster) Roger Baxter in 1972 takes some beating. Below, we republish a critical review of the changes, written by Colin Badcock (Coll, 1939-43; Co Ro, 1949-92), then editing and writing for The Trusty Servant. Despite Colin’s contrived dislike for the timetable (it seems to be dislike of change more than anything) he fails to hide completely his admiration for Baxter’s powers of computation.

Leap forward 54 years and you can polish your admiration for Dr Jamie McManus (Co Ro, 2001- ), the mastermind behind the new timetable. Whereas Baxter had 12 subjects, 68 dons and 571 pupils to accommodate, McManus has had to contend with a matrix involving 26 separate subjects, 104 dons, and 760 pupils (growing to 900 over the next 3 years) for a total of 3500 lessons per fortnightly cycle.

Jamie explains the results thus:

I may be a doctor, but I am not a Time Lord. The desired increase in number of sets would require those homes of Wykehamical learning, Flint Court, Music School, Science School and the Sports Centre, to behave in Tardis-like fashion if the shape of the day, timetable and curriculum developed in 2012 for a school of about 700 continued to obtain. To make more efficient use of the square footage on the campus and ensure that the pattern of the school week continues to serve the academic and wider education aims of the College, a new shape of the day and the week has been adopted with the Winchester 'hour' now 45 minutes long (rather than the 35 minute ‘hour’ until last term) and the lesson pattern rotating on a fortnightly cycle. It is not just the academic timetable that has been reimagined. The new shape of the day also includes changes to evening timings and allows for a more efficient and effective ekker programme.

With 70 lessons per cycle, 104 dons, and 760-900 pupils to consider, the complexity of the timetable has grown beyond the single side of A4 handed to me when I took over the timetable from Dr Richard Shorter (Co Ro, 1980-2013) for a stint as Timetabler between 2005 and 2009. Indeed, at the start of 2026 the school was good enough to purchase for the Timetabler a super-sized monitor screen simply so that he could see all the detail of the multi-coloured rug - as one colleague nicknamed it – all at once, without the need for a very powerful magnifying glass.

In addition to the changes to the timetable, the curriculum has a significant new addition this year: every pupil will have one lesson a week of “Forum”. Binath Philomin (Co Ro, 2023- ), Head of Forum, explains that:

“Div asks pupils to think seriously about ideas within and beyond the realms of the liberal arts. Forum lessons ask pupils to think seriously about themselves, other people and the world they are now entering. Forum seeks to do for the personal development of Wykehamists what Div has long done for their intellectual ambition: to create the space in which curiosity, reflection and character can flourish beyond the formal curriculum.”

A NEW TIME-TABLE

The Trusty Servant, December 1972

We have a new time-table this half. I do not mean that we enter and leave div. rooms at different clock-times, but that what subjects are taught when and to whom have changed fundamentally. Minor horrors like having five periods in the time-table on Tuesday and Saturday mornings have been with us for some time; major nicenesses, like school ending at 12.15 on three mornings a week, have survived all changes. What is new is a different and wider range of possible combinations of subjects. Everbody seems to like the new time-table, except me. Except me, everyone seems to understand it. I have therefore, on sound Wykehamical grounds, elected myself to write an article about it.

A fair amount of paper was generated by the change. "These notes accompany the skeleton of the time-table" said one circular. Another began "You already have a notice looking like this one. The notation used on it, while unambiguous, is proving too confusing. This notice and notation replaces it". The whole thing was remarkably good tempered, and to me utterly unintelligible. The Headmaster began it all. Up there on the bridge I guess he can see where he is going. Heads of Departments and other clever dons sent him minutes about what they departmentally desiderated; he knew what he was after too; I just bet anybody who was listening (a diminishing number) that we would all end up doing more Science; the rest was Greek to me.

Then there was a Time-Table Committee. And there's another thing I never understood; how did they manage without my own sharp and penetrating mind? At the very centre of the web was a diminutive doctorial figure, short of inches but bursting with every other quality, with a mind like a computer and a heart of gold. He is, inevitably, a Mathma don, and his name is Dr. Roger Baxter.

The first thing to do was to program him. One "m" and no "e". Quickly his memory banks were filled. Get more flexibility in "A" level choices; get Mathma dons and Science dons out of their staffing jam by varying the hours when those subjects are taught; get Latin in Middle and Junior Part into sets, or no-one will ever pass "O" level in that under-taught subject; "B" ladder div. dons are sacred cows and their milk has a pure white unity that must not be curdled, mixed, or in any way soured; the position of a div. don in Middle Part is crucial-therefore do not put Latin into sets; for div. subjects join the "A" ladder to the "B"; no, to the "C" ladder; no, surely to the "B"? Leave the question of "A" ladder div. subjects open.

With so clear a brief to guide him, Baxter's computer cells began to whirr quietly. An hour and a half later the first draft was ready.

How often, I asked him, did he have to re-draft? One does not re-draft, if one has a mind like his. One "gets the ground floor right", then one tightens up the nuts and adds the rest to it. I did not, of course, altogether follow, but I think I quote him accurately.

The point de depart is the arranging of three "A" level subjects for men in Senior Part and above.

There are 35 periods in the time-table; mark out 7 of them for 1 block of subjects, 7 for another block, and 7 for a third; then you have 14 periods left in which to fit div. subjects and the minority subjects; mark off 8 for div. subjects. You are nearly home.

Now,-and here is one of the nubs-if lots of options are going to be available, then key subjects will have to appear in more than one "block"; that is to say, people who are combining French with German will do French in a different block from those who are combining French with, say, Mathma. Thus you can make more use of your French dons than you could if all Senior Part did French together. But you need to work out carefully what gets blocked with what. On this depends the number of possible combinations of subjects. There are in fact 120 theoretically possible combinations of 3 "A" level subjects on the "A" and "B" ladders alone; of these 91 different combinations would theoretically work on Baxter's time-table. Of the 29 that won't work perhaps the most to be regretted are anything that combines Spanish with German, or Latin with Russian. But you could of course make these combinations possible, and others impossible, by altering the subjects in each block.

It probably took Baxter another 10 minutes to work in a few refinements. There are dons who teach both at the top of the school and at the bottom and middle; it is no good making a time-table which prevents them doing so. It wastes time to walk to and from Science School too often; this little fact is "easily accommodated" in the new arrangements. We end up with most dons teaching slightly more, even with an extra linguist. We end up with Latin in sets, not divs, in Middle Part and below; we end up with 7 hours Science in everybody's time-table for the first 2 years up to Science "O" level. Everybody is happy, except some, and though I understood why when I began this article, the point has now slipped my grasp.

I harp again on one fact, and then leave you with a diagram. When you consider the capacity of Dons' Common Room to split exactly fifty-fifty on almost any issue, and to defend their chosen view with subtlety and passion, it is miraculous how good tempered the entire operation was. Consultation and consideration were complete. The new scheme works for all divs in the school except one. In that one div. the whole thing is a cosmic mess. Happily its div. don has bowed to the general air of good temper, and, indeed, has kindly consented to write this article.

Now, just imagine you are, say, a "B" ladder man. Think of 3 subjects you would like to do at "A" level (be sensible); thought of them? Now look at the diagram below, and if the 3 subjects appear in 3 separate blocks, you are in business. If not, then you probably haven't been sensible.