We're on the third week of this series on efficient class scheduling and curriculum design. Last week we discussed curriculum, and how that ties into your scheduling.

This week, it's time to talk about actually creating a schedule that allows your school to scale and grow.

And, I'm going to start by looking at various ways different school owners and business systems manage their class schedules, and discuss their pros and cons.

Let's get started...

First, Answer The Most Important Questions

If scheduling is all about making sure you can scale your school while keeping your clients happy, then we have to answer those two very important questions in order to evaluate whether a schedule "works" or not.

So, you have to ask yourself:

The Common "Every Day The Same" Schedule

The good old "every day the same" schedule is the way most martial arts school owners set up their classes. In this scheduling method, classes are scheduled at the same time every single day of the week.

So, Monday through Thursday (or Friday and even Saturday in some cases), each class is held at the exact same times. For example:

5:00 - Ages 4-6

6:00 - Ages 7-12

7:00 - Teens 

8:00 - Adults

This is a very safe way to set up your schedule. Unfortunately, it doesn't allow you to scale your classes very well. It will work out fine at first, when all your students are more or less at the same level of experience, and everyone is a beginner who has the flexibility of attending class on any given day.

But later when your classes fill up, or when your first group of beginners advances, you'll find yourself having to designate some class days as "beginner" and some as "advanced," and your students won't like having less days on which they can attend class.*

It's okay to START OUT with this kind of schedule (not exactly the one above, and I'll explain why later this week). And in fact, most school owners will. But, as your school grows you're going to need to adjust and expand it in such a way that your school can scale while keeping clients happy. More on this in the next couple of emails.

The "A/B Day" Schedule

Ah, the venerated "A/B Day" schedule. This sort of schedule evolved when taekwondo and karate instructors discovered that teaching forms takes up A LOT of class time, and that when you're teaching forms it's damned hard to fit much else into your classes.

Here's how it works:

The "Open Class" Concept

In the "Open Class" schedule, anyone can come to class at any time on any day. This works out great for your students, because they have the ultimately flexibility to attend classes.

However, it's the least organized schedule, and it only really works under certain conditions. The problems with this schedule are two-fold:

• Over-crowding - You'll end up with some class days being the most popular, and everyone will want to show up to those classes. Pretty soon, you'll have forty students coming to the 6:00 pm class Monday night, and three people coming to the 7:00 pm class on Thursday night. No bueno.
• Inefficiency - Same reasons apply here. I don't like teaching to empty rooms. Therefore, I want to make sure I spread my students out over my schedule as evenly as possible. Yes, that means I have to exert some control over when students can attend class, but there are ways to do it that also offer convenience as well.

Typically, you'll see this schedule when schools are running a private lesson business model. In this business model, students pay a higher tuition rate than the norm in their area, and they get a certain amount of private lessons per week (typically, one or two half-hour sessions per week).

The group classes are simply a bonus, as most students won't attend them and will only attend their private sessions with the instructor and/or his staff. So, over-crowding probably wouldn't be an issue... except for the fact that this model typically works best in a small footprint school (because who wants to pay for 3,000 square feet when you're only teaching one or two students at a time?)

However, this business model is VERY labor-intensive. Rather than teaching a few hours a night, the school owner who follows this business model has to teach all day long, because they are teaching private lessons to every student in their school.

I prefer the group class model, because it allows me to reach more students in less time. Work less, reach more people... seems like a winner to me.

- - -

Alright, that's a look at some of the more common schedules you'll see in martial art schools. Tomorrow, we're going to start looking at how to set up a schedule that is both convenient for your clients, and that allows your dojo to scale as it grows.

Stay tuned...