Sector · Courses, private schools and learning centres
School staff attendance: tutor hours, branches and part-time contracts in one record
In a course centre or private school some staff are full-time administrators and some are tutors who come a few days a week. A tutor’s pay usually depends on the hours they teach, and those hours are added up by hand at month end. This page explains what clock-in records solve in an institution that runs on teaching hours, and what they do not.
What makes tracking hard in courses and schools?
What makes it hard is that pay is planned in hours and work in lessons. A tutor teaches on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings; one week a lesson is cancelled, another week a make-up lesson is added. At month end, “how many hours did you teach?” is answered from the tutor’s own notes and the secretary’s logbook.
In courses with several branches, the same tutor teaches at one branch in the morning and another in the evening. When the timetable is in one place, clock-ins in another and the pay calculation in a third file, the three sources drift apart and nobody notices.
Administrative staff, by contrast, work fixed hours: reception, accounts, cleaning. The same institution has two patterns and both must add up correctly on the same timesheet. One is thought of in lessons, the other in office hours; the record keeps both in the same unit, hours and minutes.
What does Turkish law say about part-time tutors?
In short: a tutor working up to two thirds of a comparable full-timer is part-time; they may not be treated differently for that reason alone, and hours above their contract are paid with an uplift.
| Topic | Rule | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Part-time definition | Work of up to two thirds of comparable full-time work | Working Time Regulation art. 6 |
| Equal treatment | No different treatment for being part-time without a justified reason; divisible pay benefits are proportional to time | Labour Law No. 4857 art. 13 |
| Hours above contract | Work above contracted weekly hours and up to 45 is work beyond contractual hours, 25% uplift | Labour Law art. 41 |
| Time off instead | The tutor may take 1 hour 15 minutes off for each such hour | Labour Law art. 41 |
| Weekly rest | At least 24 uninterrupted hours within each 7-day period | Labour Law art. 46 |
There may be specific legislation on the working hours of teachers in private education institutions; we have not verified it on this page. The table summarises the general rules of the Labour Law.
How the system is set up in an education institution
QR in the staff room
The code in the staff room is tied to that branch’s location. Tutors scan it before class and clock out with the same code afterwards.
Shared tablet
A tutor who does not use a phone in class picks their name on the tablet by the door and clocks in with a personal PIN.
Branch = department
Each branch is its own branch of the department tree; a branch manager sees only that branch’s staff, head office sees all.
Two branches in a day
With multiple clock-ins per day enabled, a tutor clocks in at one branch in the morning and another in the evening; each record keeps its own location.
Contracted weekly hours
Each tutor’s contracted weekly hours go on their record; hours above it appear on the timesheet as work beyond contractual hours.
Monthly hours report
The timesheet shows days and hours per person, filters by branch and exports to PDF, CSV and Excel. An approved month is locked.
Make-up lessons and changes
When a lesson moves, the tutor’s shift for that day is entered in advance as a future-dated change and applied automatically on the day.
Leave requests
Tutors and administrators open leave requests from their phones and see their remaining leave and the stage of their request.
Lesson or hour? A tutor’s week
Example: a tutor with a 15-hour weekly contract teaches 40-minute lessons. The system measures time spent at the institution, not lessons.
| Day | Lessons | Clock-in–out | Recorded time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | 4 lessons (40 min + 10 min break) | 17:00–20:20 | 3 hours 20 minutes |
| Thursday | 4 lessons | 17:00–20:20 | 3 hours 20 minutes |
| Saturday | 6 lessons | 09:00–14:00 | 5 hours |
| Week total | 14 lessons | — | 11 hours 40 minutes |
Whether pay is per lesson or per hour is a matter for your contract. The system keeps time in hours and minutes; per-lesson pay and payroll are calculated in your accountant’s software. Also settle by contract whether the short breaks between lessons count as working time or as rest breaks (rest breaks are not counted as working time, Labour Law art. 68).
What the system does NOT do in an education institution
It is not school management software; it manages staff only.
- It does not build timetables. It is not a tool for resolving classroom, subject and time clashes; it records the time a tutor spends at the institution.
- It does not calculate per-lesson pay. Records are in hours and minutes; no part of pay is calculated in the system, and the payroll input package goes to your accountant.
- No student attendance or parent communication. Student data does not go into this system; no student information should be entered into it.
- It does not measure online lessons by itself. A tutor teaching from home can clock in, but because the record is outside the defined work area it is flagged or blocked depending on the company setting; we set the rule for remote teaching together during onboarding.
What to decide before setup
- How early should tutors clock in before class? The company sets the lateness tolerance; a delay within tolerance does not shorten the timesheet.
- How are short breaks counted? If you define them as breaks they are deducted from net time; if you count them as work they are not. Choose in line with your contract.
- Travel between branches — time between two branches falls between clock-out and the next clock-in and is not on the working record. Explain this to tutors at the outset.
- Personal phone or the institution’s tablet? If personal phones are used, explain to staff in writing that location is collected only while a shift is open.
What changes when tutor hours are tied to a record?
Tying tutor hours to a record turns the month-end total from a statement into a measurement. The tutor clocks in with the code or tablet in the staff room and clocks out at the same place. At month end there is one timesheet instead of the secretary’s logbook, the tutor’s notes and the accounts file, and the tutor sees their own record on their phone.
The second change concerns the contract. Because a part-time tutor’s contracted weekly hours are on their record, hours above the contract appear as a separate timesheet item. Work beyond contractual hours does not build up unnoticed; if the tutor wants time off instead of the uplift, you discuss it on the basis of the record.
The third change is across branches. Head office receives every branch’s monthly timesheet in the same format, so hours per tutor at one branch can be compared side by side with another. A branch manager sees and approves only their own branch; administrators’ leave and absence are kept on the same screen under the same rules.
Setup is light. The staff list is uploaded by CSV, each branch is defined with its location and QR code, and shift types are written together. No hardware is needed; for a tutor without a phone, or who prefers not to use one, a tablet at the door is enough.
A tutor’s personal data: where is the line?
Tutors often use their personal phones, so what the system collects should be clear from the start.
- Location only during shifts — location is collected only while a shift is open and the app is open; location received after class is not stored.
- No biometrics — fingerprints and face recognition are not used. The Turkish Data Protection Board’s principle decision No. 2026/921 held that processing biometric data for attendance is unlawful even with explicit consent.
- Photo optional — if the institution wishes, a photo is requested at clock-in and only attached to the record; no face matching is done.
- Retention set by the institution — location and photo records are destroyed when the retention period set by the institution ends; an employee privacy notice template is ready in the panel.
Sources
- Labour Law No. 4857
- Regulation on Working Time under the Labour Law
- Personal Data Protection Board, principle decision No. 2026/921 of 29 April 2026 (public announcement)
The article references in this guide are based on these official texts (in Turkish). Legislation can change; check the current text before acting.
When courses and schools ask
Our tutor has a 15-hour weekly contract but taught 20 hours; what happens?
The 5 hours above the contracted 15 and up to 45 are work beyond contractual hours, paid at a 25% uplift (Labour Law No. 4857 art. 41). If the tutor wishes, they may take 1 hour 15 minutes off for each hour instead of the uplift. Those 5 hours appear as a separate item on the timesheet; your accountant calculates the amount.
How does the system count 40-minute lessons?
The system counts the time between clock-in and clock-out in hours and minutes, not lessons. Four lessons with breaks between them are recorded as 3 hours 20 minutes. If you define the breaks as rest breaks they are deducted from net time. If you pay per lesson, you track the number of lessons separately under your contract.
The same tutor teaches at two of our branches; how is the timesheet split?
Each branch is defined as a separate work area and department. The record keeps the location of whichever branch the tutor clocked in at. With multiple clock-ins per day enabled, the tutor can work at both branches on the same day; filtering the timesheet by branch shows hours at each separately.
If a tutor forgets to clock out after class, does the timesheet inflate?
No. A tutor who forgets to clock out gets a reminder; if the record still stays open, it is closed by company rule and flagged separately as an “automatic clock-out”. The branch manager enters the real time if needed, and the correction is kept with who and when. An open record does not reach the timesheet as inflated hours.
Which day is the weekly rest for a tutor who teaches on Saturday and Sunday?
Labour Law No. 4857 art. 46 does not tie the weekly rest to a particular day; it requires at least 24 uninterrupted hours of rest within each 7-day period. A tutor working weekends can have the weekly rest on a weekday. In the system weekly rest days are entered with the rotation pattern, and weekly rest appears as a separate timesheet item.
What happens to tutor records when the course closes for the summer?
Records and past timesheets stay in the system; no shifts are assigned for the closed period. For reopening you can enter the shift plan in advance as a future-dated change. How the closed period is treated for contracts and leave depends on the type of contract; settle that with your adviser.
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