Overview
In late 2024, Broughton Anglican College, a K-12 school part of Campbelltown Anglican Schools, faced an urgent challenge: creating a complete timetable for the 2025 academic year — with very little time to spare.
Broughton turned to Navigate Education Services, whose expertise and independent perspective helped deliver a high-quality timetable before the start of the school year. The success of the project has laid the foundation for an ongoing partnership to support Broughton’s timetabling needs well into the future.
The Challenge
Timetabling is one of the most complex operational tasks for any school. It requires balancing multiple factors:
- student learning priorities,
- teacher loads,
- room availability, and
- curriculum requirements.
Typically, schools spend many months preparing their timetables. However, in late 2024, Broughton needed a full K-12 timetable created at short notice, just weeks before the start of Term 1.
The pressure was high, and there were three main risks:
- Student outcomes could be compromised if the timetable wasn’t carefully structured.
- Senior staff time could be consumed by timetable creation, taking them away from other essential start-of-year work.
- Personal preferences or biases could influence decisions if the timetable was built internally rather than independently.
“A strong timetable underpins the rhythm and quality of teaching and learning,” said Tim Hewitt, Principal of Broughton Anglican College.
“With the start of the year rapidly approaching, we needed expert support to ensure our students and staff could begin 2025 with clarity and confidence.”
The Solution: Navigate + Edval
Navigate Education was brought in to take ownership of the timetabling process.
Leveraging the school’s existing Edval subscription, Lucy and the Navigate team worked closely with Broughton leadership to quickly understand the school’s priorities and constraints. Their knowledge of Edval and experience with complex K-12 timetables allowed them to move fast while keeping student learning at the centre of every decision.
Key Elements of Navigate’s Approach
- Independent perspective – Navigate provided objective advice, free from internal biases or assumptions.
- Specialist Edval expertise – The team leveraged the full capabilities of Edval to solve scheduling challenges efficiently.
- Time savings for senior staff – Leadership and key staff were able to focus on other critical start-of-year preparations.
- Student-first design – Every scheduling decision was guided by what would best support learning outcomes.
“Lucy and the Navigate team were outstanding,” said Andrew Middleton, Executive Head of Campbelltown Anglican Schools.
“They stepped in at very short notice and delivered a timetable that met the needs of students and staff. Their independent advice and deep understanding of Edval gave us real confidence in the process.”
The Results
Navigate successfully delivered a fully optimised K-12 timetable before the start of the 2025 academic year.
The outcomes included:
- Delivery of an effective, clash-free timetable providing exceptional learning opportunities for students while supporting staff requirements.
- A smooth start to Term 1, with students and teachers beginning the year with clarity and confidence.
- More time for leadership, as senior staff were freed from the demanding task of timetable creation.
- Bias-free decision-making, with Navigate’s independent approach ensuring a fair and balanced timetable.
- A long-term partnership, with Broughton planning to work with Navigate on future timetables to maintain quality and consistency.
“We were thrilled with the outcome. Navigate gave us a timetable that truly put students first while supporting our staff. This experience has shown us the value of having a dedicated, independent partner for timetabling, and we look forward to continuing this partnership in future years.” Tim Hewitt
Looking Ahead
The project demonstrated how an independent, specialist approach to timetabling can deliver exceptional outcomes — even under extreme time pressure.
By combining expert knowledge of Edval, a student-first mindset, and the ability to work flexibly under tight deadlines, Navigate helped Broughton start the school year strong while setting a new standard for how the school approaches timetabling.
As Broughton and Campbelltown Anglican Schools look to the future, Navigate will continue to provide trusted advice and support for timetabling across the network.
Find out more about how Navigate Education can support timetabling at your school.