August 9, 2021. How to create your master schedule for special education. Creating a master schedule can seem like a daunting task, especially in self-contained special education classrooms. Many teachers are responsible for multiple subjects across the day. The big question is, how do you do it all? I'm going to give you some quick tips when it comes to creating a master schedule. What content? A new teacher first needs to know what content areas they will be teaching. When you start a new school year, ask your administration if you are responsible for all academic content or just a few subjects. Your school may have multiple teachers that rotate through content areas. If you're like me, you teach it all. From life skills and academics to grooming and self-care, not to mention we also work on vocational skills, independence, and communication skills. Just thinking about creating your master schedule for all of those areas makes a teacher tired. Answer the following questions and write it down. What content areas will I need to teach? Schedule considerations. Next, a teacher needs to look at all the students' required classes and activities when they create their master schedule in a special education. Consider when the students have lunch, specials, related services, etc. Many of those times are not flexible and need to be consistent every day or throughout the weeks. Once you have an idea of what the schedule has, you can plug in content areas throughout the day. Answering the following questions and write it down. When do my students have lunch each day? When do my students have specials or electives? Do I have my related service minutes? When are those? If you don't have those yet, you can put in your content, but know your student may miss part or all of an activity each week. Content considerations. In my district, we have a requirement for the amount of time a student needs reading and math instruction in their day. You may also find this information on each student's additional services and placement pages in their individualized learning plan. For example, my students are required to receive 90 minutes of reading instruction daily and 45 minutes of math instruction daily. Legally, I need to make sure that throughout the day those minutes are met. Answering the following questions and write it down. How long am I required to teach reading? Math, community trips, life skills, science, cooking, vocational skills, any other content area? Lunches and breaks. Master schedule consideration. Take some time to consider a reasonable lunch break for your assistant. I typically start the lunchtime around 1045 and end lunch by 1. In my district, paraprofessionals get 30 minute lunch breaks and two 15 minute breaks. I try to space out the paraprofessional breaks as well. Aides get one 15 minute break before 1030 and one 15 minute break after their lunch, but at least an hour before the end of the school day. Work with your aides when setting up their lunch and breaks. This will help them feel included in the process. Previously, I had an assistant that liked to call her family on the other side of the world, so she needed time to do that with the time difference. I respected that and I let her choose an appropriate break to accommodate that. Answer the following questions and write it down. What time would be reasonable to take lunch breaks? Is there a time during the lunch that I need my assistants to support? Student lunchtime specials? When can my paraprofessionals take breaks? Pockets of time. Teachers need to create a master schedule in special education, but you need to look for pockets of time. Once you have all of that information, you should be able to start plugging in academic and functional content into your schedule. This can also be flexible. I know that by 2 o'clock, my students have difficult time focusing, so I try to front load my day with as much academic content as possible. Also, you need to consider the time increments that you want your classes to be. I typically do 15-minute increments so that bathroom breaks and hygiene time can easily be embedded. Here's an example of what my schedule has looked like in past years. In a couple weeks, I'll have another post about how to decide the type of delivery of instruction when lesson planning. Hope you have learned how to create your master schedule for special education. If you're looking for how to create a scope and sequence, read this post. Want to include stations and centers in your classroom? I got the post for you right here.