The aim of this research was to create, test and evaluate a method for the analysis of secondary school timetables. The method reduces timetables to a simplified schematised standard form, a structure which shows systematic relationships amongst a timetable's main epistemological features. The method was applied to ten timetables collected in 1985 and 1986 from a range of Queensland secondary schools. Nine of the ten timetables proved to have a well- defined internal structure. The analyses of the ten timetables led to the induction of generalisable results, which were also supported by theoretical considerations of an abstract structure. The evidence of the timetable structures supports the general predictions of reproduction theory about types of relationships of knowledge, but there are also specific features which suggest the potential of this method to contribute to the studies of the micro-politics of schools advocated by S J Ball. The results suggest that some features of subject curricula can be explained in terms of the structure of the timetable within which those curricula operate. The reduction of timetables to a standard form facilitates comparisons and contrasts between them and, it is suggested, between schools.