ABSTRACT
Since the timetable will determine the whole life of the school for a year, writing it needs to be made an accessible, not a reclusive business. The comprehensive school timetable has reached the absurd point because of a failure to think hard enough about the school's purpose. The result is that the timetable for the first five years will have to accommodate some or all of a number of elements which set up conflicting logistic pressures. The aficionados of computer timetabling have therefore accepted that in spite of all the work involved in preparing the input data, the result will in any case have to be completed by hand. The act of timetabling has become associated in the popular mind with mathematical skills, but all staff, regardless of specialism, are able to make shrewd contributions when shown a layout of the type described.
