A simple live Week A/B indicator for school websites
Many schools run a two-week timetable, the A/B week rotation system. Families and students then ask the same question all year each monday: Is this Week A or Week B?
The usual answer is a static PDF, a calendar image, or a line on the school website that someone has to update. That works until a holiday pauses the cycle, the term restarts on the wrong label, or the website says Week A while the timetable office is working from Week B.
We built a free school week rotation calculator for that small but recurring problem.
It lets a school set:
- cycle length, such as Week A / Week B or a longer rotation
- the anchor date that proves which week the cycle starts on
- whether holidays pause the rotation or still advance it
- the weekday that starts the school week
- custom labels and a simple site-friendly theme
The output is a live indicator schools can paste into a website, parent portal, or intranet. The widget reads the settings from the URL. There is no login, no backend, and no timetable data to upload. It only answers the rotation-week question so that everyone is on the same week.
The calculator starts with one date you trust.
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Example:
- Cycle: two weeks
- Labels: Week A and Week B
- School week starts: Monday
- Anchor date: 1 September 2026
- Anchor label: Week A
- Holiday pause: 26 to 30 October
The tool finds the week that contains the anchor date, then counts full school weeks from that point to the target date.
If holidays pause the timetable, holiday weeks do not advance the count. If the school chooses advance mode, every week increments the cycle, even across breaks.
That distinction matters. Some schools keep the A/B sequence moving through holidays. Others pause during half-term so the next teaching week resumes where the timetable left off. The calculator supports both because schools use both patterns.
A static Week A/B page is easy to publish and easy to forget.
A live website embed gives families the answer on the page they already check. It can sit on:
- the school homepage
- a parent information page
- the timetable page
- an intranet dashboard
- a student portal page
The school can also test dates before copying the embed. That matters at term boundaries, after holiday weeks, and around special weeks where the normal rotation changes.
The widget shows the rotation label only. It does not publish lesson times, room changes, cover, or staff calendars.
For a full school timetable, this kind of a simple rotation label is only one part of the solution. A full school-year planning system still needs terms, groups, teachers, rooms, lesson rules, constraints, and published timetable views.
If you only need a live Week A/B indicator, this very simple and free embedding tool is enough.
Try it here: https://smootables.com/en/tools/school-week-rotation-calculator
