What Do You Do When This Happens?

Yesterday I was supposed to have two classes, one was going to be a final exam where I had scheduled each student a specific time to come in for their oral exam. The other class was going to be the last one before the final where we would review and I would discuss the final in more details. Neither class happened. I showed up to the first class, where we were supposed to have the final, to find the whole class sitting there. Now since had told them, quite a few times to make sure they understood, that they should only come during their times I was pretty confused. At first I thought I had my dates confused and that I was actually supposed to give the final on Wednesday, but after reviewing my notes I saw that yesterday in fact was supposed to be the final. I asked the class what was going on.

They said that a number of the students were absent since they still hadn't come back from the break, one also said something about a big Chinese test the other day. Now if they had brought this up last time it would have been fine I just would have had the final a class later but no one mentioned it, despite the fact that this should have been something they would know. I was left trying to figure out what to do. Rather than have the whole thing piecemeal I decided to wait a week for the final but I wasn't happy about it. Since this was supposed to be the last class I just sent them home because I hadn't prepared anything besides the final exam.

In the afternoon class, which was supposed to be the last class before the final. I showed up to find only six out of 42 students there. What's more they seemed really surprised to see me. I eventually figured out that they had only come to the classroom to watch a movie and the whole class thought that there would be no class today and the final on Wednesday. While I had planned on giving the final on Wednesday I still hadn't told them an important detail so I have to delay the final until next Monday. This one at least seemed like an honest miscommunication but now next Monday I'm going to be giving finals all day which is not pleasant.