Hogwarts timetables

[Ravenclaw_scientist]

Piggybacking off of all the Hogwarts Curriculum talk, the Claws have been discussing how much we love making timetables for our characters but how difficult it is. I'm in the process of making timetables for my current WIP so I'd love to know:

1. What process do you use to make your timetables? Do you use Excel or some fancy software? Do you start with times, subjects or teachers?

2. What's you're Hogwarts school day? As a teacher irl I am so interested in how people have set this out! 

3. What are your invented teachers to make up for the clear issues with current teaching numbers/ to fit with the era you're writing in.

4. Share your timetables! 

[ImaRavenclaw]

I found this timetable somewhere online a million years ago, before I started writing fan fiction I think, but maybe near the beginning, and pretty much never looked back unless a story really required it to be different (like my specialized program in The Great Tale of Me, Lyra Malfoy where my OCs Audrey and Ben, and I believe maybe Albus?? take more than the max level of courses in a term. 

[Ravenclaw_scientist]

8 minutes ago, ImaRavenclaw said:

 

I like this! I think it's a good spread of morning and afternoon classes; but no morning break? Poor babies!

[beyond the rain]

 Looking at my Raising Helena universe, what I've gathered from Lennie's 6th year timetable is: 

Monday - charms (morning), ancient runes (afternoon) 
Tuesday - potions (morning) herbology (afternoon)
Wednesday - transfiguration (morning) defence (afternoon) arithmancy (afternoon)
Thursday - Muggle Studies (morning) COMC (afternoon) 
Friday - half the staff are available for tutorials in the morning, the other half are available in the afternooon

There's probably stuff I'm missing...but I really am making things up as I go along! 

 

Raising Helena is a next gen fic, and I have a few OC teachers! I also have a couple of characters from the books have moved around for my very AU fic: 

ancient runes - Professor Saoirse Ravensmoor  - FC Ruth Negga+ - former Ravenclaw, rules with her heart most of the time
arithmancy - Professor Hermione Granger-Snape - FC Emma Watson - Head of Gryffindor and Deputy Headmistress, joined the staff in 2016
charms - Professor Calpurnius Hebble - FC Colin Firth+ - former Hufflepuff, is the most positive staff member in all of Hogwarts, absolute sweetheart
comc - Gameskeeper Rubeus Hagrid - FC Robbie Coltrane - former Gryffindor, says he will work at the castle until he dies - he owes it to Albus Dumbledore. None of the next gen crew go to see him really, only Lennie. 
defence - Professor Severus Snape - FC Alan Rickman - Head of Slytherin, former Head and deputy Head of the school, threatens students less (half bc of his age, half bc of hermione)
divination - Professor Sybil Trelawney - FC Emma Thompson - former Ravenclaw
flying instructor - Madam Holly Jones - FC Tessa Thompson- former Gryffindor, rumoured to be dating Professor Ravensmoor
head healer - Madame Verity Credence - FC Maxine Peake+ - former Slytherin, very strict no nonsense healer. Offers a training scheme to older students on weekends and weeknights
herbology - Professor Neville Longbottom - FC Matthew Lewis - former Gryffindor, keeps mostly to himself but enjoys talking to his plants and will talk about the war. Can be seen in the Greenhouses doing both. 
muggle studies - Professor Evelynn Meadowes - FC Celia Imirie+ - Head of Ravenclaw, first muggle studies teacher to actually be muggle-born. She offers extra curricular clubs on muggle technology and how to use it! 
potions - Professor Vladislav Dragomir - FC Jon Kortajarena+ - studied at Durmstrang, was hired last minute to replace Severus Snape - who moved from Potions to Defence. 
transfiguration - Professor Dearan Cadaver - FC Adrian Dunbar+  - former Slytherin, generally very quiet, strict, and intimidating. Can make a classroom silent with just a look. 

-- 

my former head of hufflepuff was Professor Romilda Mars, FC Olivia Colman+ - she was one of the ministry's best aurors; she was very chaotic and impulsive. 
 

I know I haven't covered all of the staff, but some of them don't feature in the fic at all, so I haven't gotten around to them! I'm sure I'll  meet the librarian, caretaker (though I think it's still Filch) and astronomy teacher soon! 

 

Essentially this fic is set in 2019/2020, so I thought I'd write some OCs rather than try and fail to do a lot of canon characters justice. Headmistress is still Minerva McGonagall, only because I love her too much to throw her out. She is on the verge of retirement, especially with the third generation of Potters .-. 

[ImaRavenclaw]

@Ravenclaw_scientist I'm pretty sure there's a fifteen minute break between the 9 and 10 am class or the 10 and 11:15 am class. Each class is an hour right, so where did that fifteen come from? My best guess is that it's a break

[mymischiefmanaged]

Oh I don't always do this but have done timetables in a BIG WAY for the Marlene McKinnon novel I'm planning. I mean, have literally worked out all the names of the seventh year students and their subject choices, and have then made a school timetable in google sheets with each subject so that none of the students are meant to be in two places at once (which is a nightmare and I'm very impressed by how anyone does this job in real life). Then I made another version of the timetable just showing Marlene's subjects and free periods because she's my main character and so those are the relevant times, but I like knowing where other characters would be at those times so having the whole school version too is helpful.

My seventh year timetable looks like this. I'm also a teacher irl and enjoy trying to fit all the subjects together. I like the idea of one midnight NEWT Herbology class a week to deal with plants that come out in the nighttime, plus it saved me from not being able to fit Herbology anywhere else. I also put Arithmancy into a study time block because it didn't fit elsewhere and I figured the Arithmancy students are probably all hard workers and wouldn't mind. This timetable is full, but each character would have lots of blanks in their timetable for study periods. I also gave them a slightly longer lunch break than in normal UK schools because I figured they're in a literal castle and probably lose a big chunk of their lunch just getting to the hall and back. 

Seventh Year Timetable
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
7.30-9	Breakfast in the Great Hall
9-10	DADA, Divination	Transfiguration, History of Magic	Ancient Runes, Potions, Care	Transfiguration, History of Magic	Arithmancy, Herbology
10-11
11-11.15	Break
11.15-12.15	HoM, Transfig	Charms	Muggle Studies	DADA, Divination	Runes, Potions, Care
12.15-1.30	Lunch in the Great Hall
1.30-2.30	Charms, Muggle Studies	Ancient Runes, Potions, Care	DADA, Divination	Arithmancy, Herbology	Charms, Muggle Studies
2.30-3.30
3.30-6	Arithmancy	Free time/Study time
6-7	Dinner in the Great Hall
7-10	Free time/Study time
Midnight	Astronomy	Herbology	Astronomy	Astronomy

I don't think it's necessary at all but I'm finding it helps with some of my planning and drafting, because I already have set constraints for where each character should be so the story feels more grounded somehow. It also means I have a list of the members of each class, which I think helps keep the story feel real and interesting, because I won't fall into that trap of 'all the main characters share all their classes and nobody else is every mentioned as being there' (which is definitely what I've done in the past).

TL;DR - I don't always put in this much effort to fictional timetables but when I do I love it.

 

[Ravenclaw_scientist]

On 6/3/2020 at 6:36 PM, mymischiefmanaged said:

 

Seventh Year Timetable
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
7.30-9	Breakfast in the Great Hall
9-10	DADA, Divination	Transfiguration, History of Magic	Ancient Runes, Potions, Care	Transfiguration, History of Magic	Arithmancy, Herbology
10-11
11-11.15	Break
11.15-12.15	HoM, Transfig	Charms	Muggle Studies	DADA, Divination	Runes, Potions, Care
12.15-1.30	Lunch in the Great Hall
1.30-2.30	Charms, Muggle Studies	Ancient Runes, Potions, Care	DADA, Divination	Arithmancy, Herbology	Charms, Muggle Studies
2.30-3.30
3.30-6	Arithmancy	Free time/Study time
6-7	Dinner in the Great Hall
7-10	Free time/Study time
Midnight	Astronomy	Herbology	Astronomy	Astronomy

 

There are many things I love about this timetable! First, the double lessons which I think may solve the castle size issue to some extent. The midnight herbology is fascinating! But that does make a lot of sense. Thats something I might integrate into my timetables in the future. I also think that 3 lessons a week for NEWTs seems super reasonable, how many OWL subject lessons per week do you think people would have? 

Do you think that timetables could work on a two week rotation to allow students to take both transfig and HoM for example? 

I'm really interested that this is a 7th year one as I've just done a massive in depth version of my 7th years too. I love to add teachers in, I imagine there's two teachers per subject and three for core subjects, with younger teacher taking years 1-3 and more experienced teachers getting the older years. This is my protagonists (7th year): 

And this is my idea of an OWL timetable (it's Albus Severus's. He did not want to take arithmancy but did't want to be without Scorpius more.)

[Professor McGonagall]

I actually based most of my initial timetables off my own timetable at my high school. Basically, you'd have one day (Monday) be a review day of the last week and then every day you'd have three classes like so:

8:00 - 9:30 : First Period

9:30 - 10:15 : Work Period

10:15 - 11:45 : Second Period

11:45 - 12:45 : Lunch

12:45 - 2:15 : Third Period

2:15 - 3:00 : Work Period

 

Monday would be hellish. 

8:00 - 8:45 : First Period

8:45 - 9:30 : Second Period

9:30 - 10:00 : Work Period

10:00 - 10:45 Third Period

10:45 - 11:30 Fourth Period

11:30 - 12: 30 Lunch

12:30 - 1:15 Fifth Period

1:15 - 2:00 Sixth Period

2:00 - 2:30 Work Period

 

I'm now working with something like American universities in mind. They have head of departments, so obviously there are more potions teachers than just Snape. In that case, I'd say about two periods a day at most for each person in the department, so that would be 14 faculty at most in each department for the core classes or 98 at most for those core classes. I use Google Sheets by the way, because I don't know how to use Excel very effectively. The best way would be to look at somewhere like Eaton to see how they structure their timetables. 

 

[grumpy cat]

On 6/11/2020 at 5:32 PM, Ravenclaw_scientist said:

Do you think that timetables could work on a two week rotation to allow students to take both transfig and HoM for example? 

one thing that some unis here practice (architecture and medicine being some of them) is doing one intense class for one whole semester for double the classes and then doing another one that would have previously clashed during the second semester during the time slots that would usually be reserved for both that class and the one they did during the first semester. i feel like i explained this poorly lol :I

but to use hp as an example - say in an ordinary timetable someone would have 4 double classes of transfiguration and 4 double classes of dada per week for the duration of both semesters. to make it easier on students, they could have 8 double classes of transfiguration in the first semester (finishing the semester with the newt exam in transfiguration so that there's not an entire semester between finishing classes and taking the exam) and 8 double classes of dada in the second.

[Raspberry_cordelia]

Ooh, I love timetables.  I'd just like to add that this could be a really good logic puzzle, for people who are good at developing those.  In terms of the Hogwarts timetables, it should also be considered what classes each house has with each other.  I believe at least in the lower years, classes were 2 houses each, but I think starting in their NEWT years, due to the weeding down of students, it became all houses together.  I've always had so much admiration for my guidance counselors who have to schedule stuff, but also a bit of jealousy - I love puzzles!

[Predictable Chaos]

There are a variety of Hogwarts schedules on the Internet including the ability to make your own. They show the daily schedule having anywhere from four to eight academic blocks per day with lunch in the middle. With the exception of Monday morning during fifth year (in which the students attended two double classes before lunch), JRK seems to have visualized three blocks before and three blocks after the midday meal. 

6 blocks a day x 5 days = 30 academic blocks a week.

Assumption: each subject will have 3 three academic blocks per week.

THE STUDENTS:
Years 1 and 2-, a student takes 7 subjects; however, Astronomy is at night. (We’ll assume 2 academic blocks for a practical at night and one for theoretical during the normal school day.)

7 subjects x 3 blocks per subject = 21 blocks (including 2 at night) No problem!

Years 3-5- a student takes 9 subjects. (7 plus 2 electives)

9 subjects x 3 blocks per subject = 27 blocks (including 2 at night) Again no problem!

This also makes sense for Hermione to need a time turner because she would need 9 additional blocks beyond the typical schedule which obviously don’t fit in the third year schedule.

Years 6-7-a student takes less classes but I will assume spends more time in each class. Hermione Granger took seven, so we’ll use that number.

7 subjects x 4 blocks per subject =28 blocks

[Halie_15x_]

hi! I had a question, what program do you guys use to create the timetables? i was going to use google sheets but it can get tiresome so i was wondering if you guys had any other alternatives! 

Halie_x_

[Margaret]

2^ne  year  timetable  at  Hogwarts.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Defence	Herbology	History of Magic	Charms	History of Magic?
Transfiguration	Potions.	Charms	Defence	History of Magic
History  of  Magic	Defence	Transfiguration		Transfiguration
	Transfiguration	Potions.		Potions.
Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch.
Potions	Charms.	Herbology.	History  of  Magic.	Charms
	Charms		Potions.	Defence

No Transfiguration on Thursdays, no Charms on Mondays.

The gaps are just in order to have some leeway if I suddenly realise I need a class to take place on a day I hadn't planned it for.

As regards my invented teachers, I have Hestia Jones teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, a young OC called Lydia Blackburn teaching Transfiguration. Potions...changes a bit. Slughorn teaches it in my characters' 1st year, a young brilliant Potioneer called Philip Fairfax in 2nd year and a rather fluffy, not too competent middle aged witch whose name I don't remember in 3rd year. I had an actual Muggle planned to teach Muggle Studies. His older brother was a wizard and it is explained that he can see Hogwarts because he knows about it and because he was so young when he learnt about the wizarding world that he didn't have the same mental block an adult or teenager would have. I have a bumbling, genius in his field but complete incompetent out of it called Professor Cavandish teaching Ancient Runes.

A