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!

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[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.

[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.