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SOAS Timetable Policy

In accepting the recommendations of the recent Teaching Room Audit, the Learning and Teaching Policy Committee requested that the Timetable Working Group should provide proposals for a School Timetabling Policy. At the working group’s meeting on 8 May 2003, this document was discussed and revised, and was, with minor modifications, approved by the Learning and Teaching Policy Committee on 14 May 2003, and subsequently by Academic Board and Faculty Learning and Teaching Committees.

1. Teaching day and week

  1. The core teaching day is from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Notwithstanding the below constraints, all full-time academic staff should be available to teach within these hours.
  2. Wednesday afternoons should be kept free from undergraduate teaching.
  3. One-hour classes are 50 minutes long, starting at 5 minutes past the hour and finishing promptly at 5 minutes to the hour.
  4. In accordance with the block system, which seeks to reduce clashes, two-hour classes can only start at the following times: 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm.

2. Constraints on teaching availability

  1. All full-time academic staff are guaranteed at least one day a week free from timetabled teaching activities.
  2. Favourable consideration will be given to members of staff with children under six years old, or with disabled children under eighteen years old, or with recognised disabilities.
  3. Teaching will not be scheduled at the same time as regular internal seminars or departmental events which individual academic staff are expected to attend when the Timetable Co-ordinator is informed of this restriction.

3. Timetable Construction

  1. As much of the timetable as possible should be carried over from the previous year.
  2. Lectures should be ‘locked’ in position, and given first priority when allocating rooms. Tutorials will be fitted in around these lectures, in keeping with staff availability as detailed above.

4. Teaching rooms

  1. Teaching rooms are allocated on a best-fit basis.
  2. Activities involving staff or students with a disability will be appropriately timetabled.
  3. There is no distinction to be made between the School’s various teaching sites (College Buildings, Brunei Building, Faber Building, Vernon Square). However, on request, a whole day’s activities for a department can be timetabled in Vernon Square.
  4. Staff will not be required to make more than one journey between the Russell Square and Vernon Square sites in a day.

5. Requests for timetable change framework

  1. All requests to be made by academic staff via email, reasons for automatic change being:
    1. Staff Clash
    2. Student Clash (between courses students are expected to take)
    3. Vernon/Russell back to back Staff
    4. Vernon/Russell back to back Student
    5. Room not large enough
    6. Room too large
    7. Room layout inappropriate
    8. Room unsuitable for purpose
    9. Time slot no longer required

b. Changes for other reasons must be approved by Associate Deans Learning and Teaching.

6. Adherence to the published timetable, and cancelled courses and room bookings


Academic staff have an individual responsibility to

  1. adhere to the latest version of the published timetable (accessible via the SOAS website).
  2. report to the Timetable Co-ordinator when
    1. courses are cancelled.
    2. a room booking is no longer required.
    3. they are unable to teach in their allocated room owing to someone else using it.