Best program schedule?

[gymcoach26]

We are trying to revamp our class schedule to meet the growing demands of our gym. We are almost getting more students than we can handle, which is not a bad problem to have, but we want to make sure we are being as efficient as possible.

Our gym is not that big (1 set of bars, 1 high beam, 3 low beams, a vault, a tumble trak, trampoline, one main floor and smaller "stretching and conditioning area" and one of each mens events). Our gym is pretty recreational with many 1-2 hour rec classes but we also offer boys and girls teams as well as an excel team. Part of the reason I think we have so many students is that we offer such a convenient schedule -morning or afternoon preschool classes, girls and boys classes running simultaneously (why not sign your son up while he is fidgetting for his sister to be done), and oh yea let's not forget beginner or advanced tumbling classes thrown in. We have classes right after school, but also offer some later evening classes for those working parents.

How does your gym handle the scheduling, to ensure that all classes and team get enough time on each event...

How many classes do you offer at once? And do you start new classes at varying increments? (For ex. would it be better to have one or two classes start at 3:00, then another at 3:30, 4:00, 4:30, 5:00 so they are spaced out in start and end time, but overlapping or is it better to have a bunch of classes come in at once say 4-5 and then when they leave have another bunch of classes 5-6?)

How many of each level class do you offer throughout the week? It would be helpful to know your total number of students for this question too

Do you limit your rec classes to the earlier times and keep evenings open for team? If so, does this turn away parents who can't get their kids there right after school.

Thanks for reading, your advice is appreciated!

 

[marie83]

Have tried my best to answer your questions below. It sounds like we have similar clubs, and it is definitely difficult to organise! We have over 500 gymnasts per week through our door including rec, development, competitive MAG and WAG, adults, special olympics and pre-school!

How does your gym handle the scheduling, to ensure that all classes and team get enough time on each event...

Because we are quite a busy club we have to have quite a tight schedule. EVERY class we run has a timetable pinned to the wall and MUST be followed!!! On the timetable, all of the groups are told exactly where they should be doing their activity - We may have 2 groups doing the same apparatus at the same time - vault for example. One group will be on the vault run up, the other group will have to vault on the tumble track. We have 3 beams - one group will be assigned to one of the 'end' beams and the other group will have the other 'end' beam - the one in the middle is usually left free just to keep the groups separated!
One group will use one set of bars, the other will use one of the p bar rails (we have 2 sets of A bars but one is over the pit so not really any good for rec kids!) and so on and so forth.

We have our boys in completely separate to girls and they use all 6 pieces of equipment - even if their class is only 1 hour long. In order to make this work, they have a 2 week timetable - Pbars, Floor and Vault on odd weeks and High bar, Rings and pommel on even weeks!

We try to do circuits on every apparatus as we have a "No Queues" Policy as much as possible, so even if the gymnasts only have 10 mins on each apparatus, they are still doing something the whole time!


How many classes do you offer at once?
Up to 4 (Usually no more than 40 gymnasts in the gym at once)

And do you start new classes at varying increments?
We tend to vary our start times eg on a Tuesday our beginners start at 4.30-5.30 then the next class starts at 5.45-6.45. 15 minute gap is to ease car park congestion. However at the same time as these classes, our development squad is in from 4.45-7.00. By the time they start at 4.45, the rec class warm up is over so the floor area is free for the dev squad to warm up.

At 6.45 our elite girls and MAG squad come in (there are only 5 gymnasts in total in both of these squads!) They warm up whilst the development squad are cooling down and being dismissed, then train until 8.45.
The Next 2 classes start at 7.00 and end at 8.45

How many of each level class do you offer throughout the week? It would be helpful to know your total number of students for this question too

Pre-School - 2 per week ( approx 15 per class, gymnasts attend 1 class per week)
Beginner girls - 2 per week (Approx 30 in each class, gymnasts usually only attend 1 class per week)
Jun, Int, Sen Girls - 1 (between 8 and 25 at each level)
Beginner boys - 2 (Approx 30 per class, gymnasts usually only attend 1 class per week)
Jun, Int, Sen boys - 1 (approx 10 at each level - classes for each level are run at the same time as each other)
Mixed classes (mixed age, ability, level gender etc) 1 per week
Squads have set hours which they must attend.

Do you limit your rec classes to the earlier times and keep evenings open for team? If so, does this turn away parents who can't get their kids there right after school.

Our beginners classes start at 4.30, then more advanced classes in evening from 6.45 onwards usually. Team is on separate days.
Primary school usually finishes at 3.00 here so most children can usually get to the gym by 4.30. If not, we offer them a weekend class.

 

[AmandaLynn]

Okay... So.

Our gym has about 600 students, 2 floors (that are actually attached), 2 sets of bars, about 5 beams, and one vault table. also, we have a tumble track, trampoline and a rod floor. We have an all star cheer squad in the gym two nights per week, JO team from levels 2-7, X-Cel/Prep Bronze and Silver (two separate Silver groups), developmental girls and boys classes, and up to 5 recreational classes going at a time. Oh yes... and also three different levels of tumbling classes...

For the most part, all of our classes and team practices begin on the half hour. Our team coaches stagger their practices so that the groups overlap by an hour most days. While the younger group is finishing their last event, the older group will be running, warming up, stretching, etc. for 30 minutes. Then both groups condition together for 30 minutes. Then the younger group leaves and the older group begins work on the apparatus.

We have implemented a floor rotation this year. Each class/team/group has a place to be and a time to be there. It's important that people follow it as close to exactly as they can. We have a biweekly schedule, which means that each group gets to each event every other week. I also try to ensure that if a group comes more than 1X per week, they rotate events each practice. In other words, I don't want the team groups to have floor and bars for all of their practices in a week and not touch Vault or Beam. kwim?

It's a lot of work to sort it out, but if you want some help, please feel free to PM me and I'll help out as much as I can. I actually kind of like working on schedules and rotations. It's like a big puzzle and I'm a nerd like that.

 

[gymcoach26]

Thanks for the responses so far!

Marie- surely I am misunderstanding something- 30 kids in a beginner class? I like the idea of the 15 min in between classes as it would alleviate some of the turn style in and out feeling when classes are letting out and new kids coming in. It would also be nice for coaches to catch their breath and collect thoughts!

Amanda- Sounds similar to our gym (650 students with most being afterschool). That extra floor space would be key for us! With only one floor we can divide it in half/ thirds to allow more than one group to do floor at a time, but with the boys rings over the floor and mushroom practice going on there it kinda defeats the purpose of an extra floor rotation when its not being used for that and the majority of our students are girls!

We use an 8:1 ratio with rec classes which I think is pretty standard. I feel like cutting back to a 6:1 class ration would help because it would give kids more time on the actual equipment, but I doubt the owner will go for that

Do you find kids learn slower on the biweekly schedule compared to the hitting every event each practice? I envision kids missing class and then only getting to bars once a month, but maybe it would force better attendance

 

[AmandaLynn]

We use an 8:1 ratio with rec classes which I think is pretty standard. I feel like cutting back to a 6:1 class ration would help because it would give kids more time on the actual equipment, but I doubt the owner will go for that

Do you find kids learn slower on the biweekly schedule compared to the hitting every event each practice? I envision kids missing class and then only getting to bars once a month, but maybe it would force better attendance

We're also at an 8:1 ratio for our school aged classes, and 6:1 for Kinder (AKA "Preschool") classes. We do have a small separated area for our preschool classes with a small (unsprung) floor space and a set of preschool bars/rings/p-bars.

We do not have much issue with the rings at this point, as we really don't have a boys program to speak of. We have a new coach that is working some high bar with the boys classes on our strap bar and working some mushroom with a mushroom that he brought in from when he was a gymnast. But they are primarily conditioning and tumbling classes. We have no rings, Pommel Horse, or P-Bars.

Regarding kids learning more slowly on a biweekly schedule, I don't think so. If we're trying to hit all four events in a class, that's like 10-12 minutes per event. By the time you explain stations and get moving, that's about 7-10 minutes... If you're lucky. With 8 kids in a class, that is simply not enough time for them to get anything accomplished. We do 55 minute classes (to give the instructors 5 minutes between classes to use the restroom, talk with parents, etc.) and a 15 minute warm up/stretch (Ideally, I'd do 10 minutes, but it works better with our rotation to do 15, so that's what we're running with. I will sometimes do some mild conditioning or a game for a few minutes so that it isn't 15 minutes of stretching.), then 2 20 minute rotations.

Our teams are on 30-45 minute rotations, depending on how long the practice is. The 2 hour practices are generally 30 min run/warm up/stretch, 30 min conditioning, and 2X 30 minute rotations. 3 & 4 hour practices have the same warm up and conditioning time allotted, but are on 45 minute rotations on each event. Occasionally, the team will have 5 minutes extra on an event and lose 5 min on the following event because of the way the recreational rotation needs to work and the fact that we do not have separate recreational and team equipment.

 

[pattymello]

Wow. My gym has 1000 members in our rec, competitive, beginner, trampolining and school programs. Just realizing now what a good job the program managers are doing...

 

[AmandaLynn]

Wow. My gym has 1000 members in our rec, competitive, beginner, trampolining and school programs. Just realizing now what a good job the program managers are doing...

There is SO much that goes into it all. I'm learning as I go a bit, as the gym that I began coaching at before I moved down here had a system in place already. It's quite an undertaking to start from scratch. :boggled:

 

[Aussie_coach]

You need a very tight apparatus schedule to make it all work. I would perhaps use the conditioning area as your warm up area. And each class warms up in that area then moves to apparatus. ie first class warms up at 3:00, then moves onto second apparatus while second class moves onto apparatus. Then you have a better use of the equipment. There is always a class warming up, ready to go straight to apparatus as soon as the group before are done. It wastes space to not start the next group until the group before is completely finished because you have no one using apparatus while they are warming up. This way you can get more classes in each day.

Some gyms then worry that they can't do that because the coach is still with the group before, but you can have a specialist warm up coach. This is often a great role for a younger trainee coach. They can warm up the group while the coach is finishing the previous class. Or even a senior gymnast or team captain can take warm ups.

It is not uncommon to have 30-40 kids in a beginners class is many gyms. But that would not be with one coach or on 1 set of equipment. Lets say you started a beginners class at 4:00PM with 40 kids. They are all on the floor doing some warm ups, conditioning and stretching together. Then they split into 4 groups of 10 with 4 coaches and each goes to a different part of the gym and they rotate around each station each 10-15 minutes. This is space saving as well. If you made it 4 separate beginners classes you would need to do 4 separate warm ups which will take up valuable space. The same with teams, they can warm up together then split off into their level groups.

I don't think 15 minutes in between classes helps your schedule. If your coaches take 4 1 hour classes a night thats an hour of non useful time while they are sitting around. They could be a lot fresher if they still did the 4 classes and went home an hour earlier. When you have only afternoons and Saturdays to get all your classes done you need to keep the pace fast. You can reduce the car parking problem by doing as suggested earlier and start your next classes warm up before the previous class is finished. Then the drop offs will be done before the pick ups for the next group.

A ratio of 6:1 sounds great. But reducing the ratio to that number won't help you fit more kids in the gym and will reduce the profitability of your program.

 

[gymgurl]

We are a very busy club and quite big, we could easily have 100 gymnasts in the gym at once. We stagger start times but my old club used to warm up level 1 - 10 together i.e. we all ran around the floor and did the same stretching and flexibility. Then groups/levels were separated around the floor for some strength (note this gym from what i can remember had rec times completely different to team times) we then all split off into groups and do each apparatus.

How many classes all at once?
we have 3 separate teams with about 3 or 4 or sometimes 5 squads on any give team (the teams are State Stream (SS) , NDP and IDP) Boys I think have 4 squads in total. Normally we will have about 8 squads all at once so it can be tricky to organise. We have a set timetable that everyone must follow e.g. group 1 is on bars from 5 - 5:30 etc.

Do you stagger warm up?
Yes, some squads start at 4, others 4:30 and then the beginner squads (level 1/2) 5:00. It works quite nicely

How many classes of each level do you offer per week

Most rec kids come once a week, pre levels once or twice,
Team (SS):
level 1 - 2 come 2 - 3 days a week
level 3 - 3 days a week
level 4 - 3 days a week
level 5/6 - 4 days a week but exceptions can be made to miss one training session

NDP i don't know the exact days but i would say add an extra day to each level

we have a coach gymnast ratio of 1:8 - 1:15 as you can't get another coach until you reach 16 unless its a trainee coach
each squad has 8 - 16 gymnasts with 1 - 2 coaches

Do we have beginners classes earlier
Yes with the exception of level 1/2 which start later but finish earlier

 

[GymBee97]

I'm only a mom but I know that our gym on Fridays after 6pm there are only teams in the gym until 8:30 and on Sundays for 4 hours its just teams in the gym. the rest of the days of the week are a mix of teams and rec classes. the team coaches sign up for equipment they want to use on certain days of the week for certain times of the night depending on where they think the team needs more work. The rec classes plan their lessons around that. I don't really know the schedules for the rec classes as we don't do them so I don't really pay attention but I know that the rec classes do their warm ups as one big group on the floor at the same time with all the rec coaches then break off and rotate through events.

 

[marie83]

Again, answered below

Thanks for the responses so far!

Marie- surely I am misunderstanding something- 30 kids in a beginner class?
Actually having done the sums below, we usually have waaay more - however not everyone turns up every week!
Our beginners work on British Gymnastics Proficiency awards and are split according to the badge they are working on.
The only true beginners are really in our first class on a Tuesday, the Saturday class or one of our satellite club classes. We just call them beginners until they have finished their proficiency awards!

Our classes go like this:

Tue 4.30-5.30 Beginners badges 8,7,6 - In our Jan-March Term we had 22 gymnasts working on badge 8, 14 on badge 7 and 9 on badge 6. So 45 in the class in total but of course not everybody turns up every week.
I can't quite remember how the groups were split - but we'd have had at least 8 groups some would have been gymnasts working solely on one badge, and others would have been mixed. The ratio would have been around 6:1

Tue 5.45-6.45 Beginners badges 5,4 - There were approx 37 in this class - but by the time this class started, the gymnasts in the development squad will have finished their warm up and conditioning and will be onto apparatus, so possibly fewer groups with a larger ratio, but coaches/volunteers can double up, so gymnasts get more attention.

Fri 5.00-6.30 Beginners badges 3,2,1 - 49 gymnasts in total - only class going on at this time. Again I can't remember the exact split, but there will have been something like 1:8 - so probably 5 or 6 groups.

Sat 1.00-2.00 - 27 gymnasts split between 4 groups. Ratio of 6:1

Satellite club Tue 4.15-5.15 - 34 gymnasts split between 4 groups - largest group had 9 gymnasts to 2 coaches. The smallest group had 5:1, smaller group because the gymnasts were aged 3 and 4 so needed fewer people to distract them! lol

Satellite club Wed 4.15-5.15 - 15 gymnasts!!! Smallest class! Ratio is 5:1 - only 3 groups!

I like the idea of the 15 min in between classes as it would alleviate some of the turn style in and out feeling when classes are letting out and new kids coming in. It would also be nice for coaches to catch their breath and collect thoughts!

It is really nice to have a break! At our satellite club we don't get any time at all between classes!

Amanda- Sounds similar to our gym (650 students with most being afterschool). That extra floor space would be key for us! With only one floor we can divide it in half/ thirds to allow more than one group to do floor at a time, but with the boys rings over the floor and mushroom practice going on there it kinda defeats the purpose of an extra floor rotation when its not being used for that and the majority of our students are girls!

I know this bit was directed at Amandalynn, but thought I'd chime in too!
On Saturdays we have to divide our floor into 3 - We do bench/floor beam work on one third, Floor on another for half the class, then half way through the class another class starts and they warm up on 2 thirds of the floor! It's enough to make you go cross eyed with all the activity!
As soon as the final group has finished on the bench/floor beam, the boys coach comes and whisks them away and sets up her rings, mushroom and other pommel equipment in their place!

We use an 8:1 ratio with rec classes which I think is pretty standard. I feel like cutting back to a 6:1 class ration would help because it would give kids more time on the actual equipment, but I doubt the owner will go for that

As you can see from the above, our ratios are pretty much all over the place! We find that in an hour long class, the gymnasts get approx 3 goes on the bars each and the rest of the time would be doing a circuit. They might get more goes on bench and beam because more than one person can use the beam at a time etc They get loads of goes on vault and floor however!
We do try to make sure that every class is running at a profit - but all profit goes straight back into the club.
Although there are only 15 gymnasts in one of our classes, only 2 coaches are paid and we also have 3 volunteers, so it is still in the black!

Do you find kids learn slower on the biweekly schedule compared to the hitting every event each practice? I envision kids missing class and then only getting to bars once a month, but maybe it would force better attendance

It does make a difference in my opinion and isn't ideal - At our satellite club we have to rotate bars and beam on a bi-weekly basis. It does make the gymnasts focus more and most do attend each week - we do bench work every week though, so they aren't too far behind on beam as they are practicing what the need on the benches!

Also realised I made a mistake in my first post - it is more like a maximum of 55 in the gym at one time, not 40! Think I was going back a few years!

 

[AmandaLynn]

It's really kind of neat to read about how other gyms work. I'm loving reading everyone's responses to this thread!

 

[mustlovejumping]

Alright, I'm not a coach or an owner but I do see quite a bit that goes on during my adult classes, so I might as well throw out what I've seen in case it helps at all My gym is fairly large and has a good amount of equipment, and I'm sure we easily have around 60 gymnasts in there at once. We have preschool classes in the morning and afternoon, but we have two separate preschool gyms so those classes never conflict with anything else. Our girls and boys rec classes are all in the afternoon (except saturdays) and are offered on several days and at several different times on some of those days. My gym has large girls and boys teams and the boys basically have their own corner. I know absolutely nothing about the boys team schedule but I'll tell you as much as I can about the girls team. We have about 6 main team coaches (although not all of them coach every level) who specialize in different events and each team level has a very specific schedule for every day they are in the gym. Since the groups switch off between coaches, it is easy to have several levels in the gym at once because they can all be at different stations with different coaches. I believe some of the rec classes also switch coaches part of the way through the class (i.e. they have one coach for conditioning or stretching and one for event stuff). We are lucky to be able to have so many coaches and I think that's the main reason why our schedule seems to work so well. It is much easier to plan a schedule when you don't have to worry about a certain coach being available for an entire class time.

 

[Aussie_coach]

I find it interesting to read that some gyms have team classes sign up for the equipment they want and rec classes work around it. I don't see that this is best practice. I feel it would work better the other way around. Team should work around the rec classes. Rec kids are in the gym usually once a week, most likely for no more than 1-2 hours. Often as it is they get to apparatus once a fortnight. If an apparatus is missed they might not touch it again for a month. They should get priority.

A team gymnast is in the gym 3-6 times a week, for 3-4 hours. Much more time to get to all the events.

 

[AmandaLynn]

I find it interesting to read that some gyms have team classes sign up for the equipment they want and rec classes work around it. I don't see that this is best practice. I feel it would work better the other way around. Team should work around the rec classes. Rec kids are in the gym usually once a week, most likely for no more than 1-2 hours. Often as it is they get to apparatus once a fortnight. If an apparatus is missed they might not touch it again for a month. They should get priority.

A team gymnast is in the gym 3-6 times a week, for 3-4 hours. Much more time to get to all the events.

I create the rotation in our gym and I fill in the team schedule first and work the rec classes in around it. However... In the process of working out the rotation, if I need to bump a team off of an event early or make them stay somewhere a bit longer in order to accommodate a rec class, then that's what needs to happen. This is for exactly the reasons that you mentioned. Those rec kids are only in the gym one time per week and only get to the events every other week. If they get bumped from where they are supposed to be, they will go 4 weekk by the time they get to that event again.

The reason that I start with the team is because their rotations are 45 minutes(on average. Like I mentioned, theyre are times when they vary by about 5-10 minutes to accomodate a rec class), compared to 20 for our rec classes. I like to think of it like a puzzle and begin with the biggest pieces first.

However, I'm not sure that I'd be okay with a system in which they *sign up* for apparatus and have to be worked around. What if they sign up for a specific apparatus for 45 minutes or an hour at the same time every Thursday? Then any rec classes in the gym at that time on Thursdays would never get to that apparatus.

 

[hawaii_gymnast]

Competitive and pre competitive is in the gym when there are no rec classes going on.
Preschool classes run morning and after noon on specific days and then evenings. Then beginner through to advanced rec run most days in the evenings. Beginner is 1 hour and advanced is 2 hours. Mixed in is 1 1/2 hour teen classes and adult classes.
Classes start at the same times, we warm up with the badge level kids together, pre school kids together and then classes that are over an hour long. Then we break up into classes after 10 minutes for 1 classes and 25 minutes for over hour classes.
Ratio is about 6:1, if more than 6 there is generally an assistant with the class so 7-8:2. There is a set rotation everyweek and all classes rotate at the same time. We also run on the odd and even week system so you dont get every rotation every week but you will definately get it every two weeks. As well our gym runs a max of 5 classes at a time, one at each apparatus plus tumbletrack.
It works out really well for our club to seperate rec and competitive as we have a fairly small gym and the we have much longer rotations for competitive so we would really just be in the way.

 

[gymcoach26]

We have always had rotation schedules in the past and that has been working because teams were in from 5-8 while most rec classes were in earlier (with the exception of Tuesday evenings when we offered late night rec classes). There may have been an hour overlap between rec and teams, but the teams were mainly warming up and conditioning, so that didn't take away from rec kids getting to an apparatus.

This year, because our teams have gotten so large, they will be staggering their start times. Lower levels will be coming right after school. Boys will be coming an hour and a half later. And upper levels from 5:30-8:30. This is going to mean there are teams in the gym ALL the time, and at some points every team will be in at once.

We want to be fair to the rec kids who are only in 1-2 hrs per week that they get an opportunity on each event, but also want to be fair the team kids who obviously need longer than a 20 min rotation on an event. With our old schedule it was a bit easier since they would have the entire floor to themselves from say 7-8 to run full floor routines. With the lower levels in earlier I'm not sure how we are going to accomodate teams needs of having the entire floor for a length of time or being on an apparatus for an entire hour! Time for an expansion! lol

It's good to hear success from other people. I know we will make it work, it's just the initial process is overwhelming

 

[AmandaLynn]

We have always had rotation schedules in the past and that has been working because teams were in from 5-8 while most rec classes were in earlier (with the exception of Tuesday evenings when we offered late night rec classes). There may have been an hour overlap between rec and teams, but the teams were mainly warming up and conditioning, so that didn't take away from rec kids getting to an apparatus.

This year, because our teams have gotten so large, they will be staggering their start times. Lower levels will be coming right after school. Boys will be coming an hour and a half later. And upper levels from 5:30-8:30. This is going to mean there are teams in the gym ALL the time, and at some points every team will be in at once.

We want to be fair to the rec kids who are only in 1-2 hrs per week that they get an opportunity on each event, but also want to be fair the team kids who obviously need longer than a 20 min rotation on an event. With our old schedule it was a bit easier since they would have the entire floor to themselves from say 7-8 to run full floor routines. With the lower levels in earlier I'm not sure how we are going to accomodate teams needs of having the entire floor for a length of time or being on an apparatus for an entire hour! Time for an expansion! lol

It's good to hear success from other people. I know we will make it work, it's just the initial process is overwhelming

Your gym sounds a lot like ours. We have our JO team in the gym from 3:30-8:30 every night. (Two groups per night. Most nights, they overlap by an hour). Our Prep Opt team is there three nights per week. One of those nights, there are two prep opt groups on the same night. We also have rec classes from 3:30 until 7:30 most nights (typically between 3 and 5 classes going at any given time) and tumbling from 7:30-8:30.

The second floor is our saving grace most of the time and it's very difficult to make it work on the two nights per week that we have our all star cheer team in the gym.