Which timetabling software fits an Australian primary school?
Most pages with this title are written by one of the vendors on the list, and so is this one. We have tried to make it useful anyway. The table below shows every option side by side, ticks and crosses included, and the page says plainly when another product is the better choice.
Each mark summarises what the vendor’s own public pages said when we reviewed them in July and August 2026. A No can mean the feature is not offered, or only that it is not shown publicly. Hover a mark for the detail. The linked comparisons carry the sources, and product pages change, so confirm with each vendor before you decide.
Start here
Primary and secondary schools have different problems
Secondary timetabling is about student subject selection. Hundreds of students choose electives, and the software builds lines so that as many of those choices as possible can run at the same time. Rooms and teacher loads follow from that.
Primary timetabling has none of that. Every child stays with their class all day. The hard part is the staff. Every classroom teacher has to get their planning time, when the specialists who release them have their own load, when a third of the staff work part time, and when two teachers share one class. A meeting that clashes with teaching is a mistake nobody notices until Tuesday.
A secondary product used in a primary school is full of elective tools you will never use, and has no idea what planning time is. That is the whole reason to split the shortlist before you compare features.
The shortlist
Who each option is built for.
Ordered by how close each product sits to an Australian primary school. Bell Path's row has a weakest-when column like everyone else's.
Product
Evaluation
Strongest when
Weakest when
Bell PathThis site
Australian, built by a Victorian primary teacher
Australian primary schools only
Evaluation
Free setup and a generated preview of your school’s real timetable. A subscription unlocks the full week, sharing and downloads
Strongest when
Planning time, part-timers, job-shares and specialist rotations are the hard part, and you want daily cover, yard duty and wet day plans to come from the same timetable
Weakest when
You need a free trial of the full product before you commit, your school requires data to be stored only in Australia, or you need any secondary timetabling
DayGrid
Australian
Australian primary schools
Evaluation
30-day full-access trial, no credit card
Strongest when
Building class lists matters as much as timetabling, your school requires data stored in Australia, or you want a full trial before talking to anyone
Weakest when
You want daily cover, wet day plans, event timetables and an operations calendar to run from the timetable
Tes Timetable (formerly Edval)
Australian origin, now part of Tes
Secondary primarily, with a primary offering
Evaluation
Demo only, with no public pricing
Strongest when
You are a large or secondary school, you want an established product that connects to other systems, or you want to pay a timetabler to build it with you
Weakest when
You are a small primary school that wants to do the setup yourself and see the price before talking to sales
Timetabling Solutions
Australian, Geelong and Brisbane, established 1984
Secondary, widely used by independent schools
Evaluation
Purchase, with paid training courses available
Strongest when
You want the longest Australian track record in the category and are willing to pay for training, or to have the timetable built for you
Weakest when
You want software that runs in a web browser rather than installed on a computer, or you are a primary school with no dedicated timetabler
Griddle (Compass)
Australian, built with Deakin University
Secondary primarily, integrated with Compass
Evaluation
Demo, with a switching offer for schools on another product
Strongest when
Your school already runs on Compass and you want the timetable and events in the same place
Weakest when
You are not a Compass school, or your problem is primary planning time rather than student subject choices
aSc Timetables
Slovakia
Schools worldwide, primary and secondary
Evaluation
Unlimited free trial, with export watermarked until you buy
Strongest when
You want to build your whole timetable before spending anything, or you need the software in a language other than English
Weakest when
You need Australian planning-time entitlements, yard duty, or words that match your staffroom
FET
Open source, Romania
Anyone, with no commercial support
Evaluation
Free, permanently
Strongest when
There is no budget at all, and you have someone technical who enjoys the setup
Weakest when
You need support, Australian planning-time rules, or anything that happens after the timetable is generated
What to ask
Seven questions to put to any vendor.
The answers sort the options faster than a feature list will. Under each question is what a good answer sounds like.
01
Does it know what planning time is called in my state, and how much my teachers get?
Every state sets its own planning-time rules, and they differ by more than two hours a week between the highest and the lowest. Victoria and Tasmania cap face-to-face teaching hours. New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory each publish a fixed weekly release figure.
The vendor can tell you your state’s rule without looking it up, and the software checks it for you rather than leaving it to whoever builds the timetable.
02
What happens when a teacher calls in sick at 7:42am?
Building a timetable happens once a year. Covering absences happens every week, usually by someone under pressure with the timetable printed beside them. If the software stops at the timetable, that work stays manual for the other forty weeks.
Cover, yard duty and wet day plans read from the current timetable, not from a second copy that somebody has to keep in step with it.
03
Can it handle a job-share without me lying to it?
Two teachers sharing one class is ordinary in Australian primary schools, and it breaks a surprising amount of software. The usual workaround is to enter them as one made-up full-time teacher, which gives the wrong person planning time on the wrong day.
You can enter both people with their real days, and the software gives each of them their own planning time.
04
Will it stop a broken timetable reaching staff, or just let it through?
A timetable with a hidden clash or a missed entitlement is worse than no timetable, because it has already gone to staff. Someone then has to explain it.
The software checks the timetable before staff see it, and when something is wrong it names the teacher, the rule and the fix.
05
Who does the setup, and how long does it take?
Timetabling software has usually assumed a dedicated timetabler. Most Australian primary schools do not have one. The job belongs to an assistant principal who is also teaching.
A school leader can do the setup themselves in an evening, and the vendor tells you plainly how long it took at schools like yours.
06
Where does the data live, and what is collected?
Your procurement review will ask. The best answer is often that a piece of information was never collected in the first place.
The vendor can say plainly where data is stored, and which parts of the product work without student names at all.
07
Is the price published?
A vendor that will not show a price before a call is telling you the price depends on what it thinks you will pay.
The number is on the website, and it is the number on the invoice.
Privacy and safety
The privacy rules that apply to an Australian school
Some vendor pages written for Australia lead with GDPR compliance. GDPR is the European Union’s privacy law. The OAIC (the Australian privacy regulator) says it can reach an Australian organisation in defined circumstances, such as having an establishment in the EU or offering goods or services to people in the EU, and that the position for an Australian government agency is more complex again. A school that thinks it might be caught should take its own legal advice. Either way, a vendor’s GDPR position does not answer what an Australian school procurement review asks.
These are the rules an Australian school is asked about. Ask every vendor on your shortlist, this one included, how it answers each of them. This is a buyer guide, not legal advice.
Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles
Nationally, to the handling of personal information
What it asks
What personal information is collected, why, how it is stored and secured, who it is disclosed to, and how a person can access or correct it. The Notifiable Data Breaches scheme sits under the same Act.
Bell Path
Bell Path publishes a privacy policy written against the Act and the Australian Privacy Principles, plus separate data handling and security pages for your review.
State and territory privacy law
Government schools, under their own jurisdiction
What it asks
Victorian schools work to the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 and its protective data security standards. New South Wales, Queensland and the other jurisdictions each have their own equivalent. The obligation sits with the school, which is why the school asks the vendor.
Bell Path
Bell Path provides a printable school approval pack and a risk assessment you can file with your school’s own privacy impact assessment. They support that review. They do not replace it.
Child Safe Standards and the National Principles
All Australian schools
What it asks
Whether a system that touches children, staff supervision or duty of care can demonstrate who was responsible for what, and when. Yard duty and supervision records fall squarely inside this.
Bell Path
Yard duty rosters, wet day supervision and daily cover all keep a record of who was rostered where. That record is what a school needs when a supervision question is asked after the fact.
Safer Technologies 4 Schools (ST4S)
Edtech products assessed for use in Australian schools
What it asks
ST4S is a national, shared security and privacy assessment of education software, so that every school does not have to repeat the same review of the same product.
Bell Path
Bell Path has not been assessed under ST4S and does not claim to be. It publishes where it stands on each ST4S area so a school can see that before asking.
Data residency
Where a school makes it a procurement condition
What it asks
Whether school data is stored in Australia.
Bell Path
Bell Path does not currently store school data only in Australia. If your school requires that, confirm it with us before relying on Bell Path. DayGrid publicly states that its data is hosted in Australia.
Two honest answers
Where Bell Path fits, and where it does not
Bell Path fits if
You are an Australian primary school and planning time is the reason the timetable is hard
Part-time staff, job-shares, specialists who also teach a class, and specialist rotations all have to fit together
You want the timetable to keep working through the term as daily cover, yard duty, wet day plans, event timetables and an operations calendar
The person doing this is a school leader, not a timetabler, and wants to finish the setup in an evening
You want the price published, and a printable approval pack for your School Council or leadership team
Pick something else if
You are a secondary school, or a P-12 school that needs secondary lines and student subject selection
You need a free trial of the full product before you commit. Bell Path lets you generate and inspect part of your school’s real timetable for free. DayGrid offers 30 days of full access, and aSc offers an unlimited trial with a watermark on exports
Your school requires its data to be stored only in Australia
You want the vendor to build the timetable for you. Tes and Timetabling Solutions both sell that as a service. Bell Path is built for the school to run itself
You need software to build student class lists. DayGrid does that. Bell Path deliberately does not collect student names for core timetabling
Questions
What schools ask before shortlisting.
What is the best timetabling software in Australia?
It depends on the school type. For secondary schools, look at Tes Timetable (formerly Edval), Timetabling Solutions or Griddle. For primary schools, where the hard part is staffing and planning time rather than electives, the two products built for the job are Bell Path and DayGrid. aSc Timetables and the free, open-source FET both work, but neither knows Australian schools.
Is there free timetabling software for Australian schools?
Yes. FET is free and open source, but it is a desktop program with a steep learning curve, no support and no Australian planning-time rules. Bell Path lets a primary school generate a free preview of its real timetable before paying. aSc Timetables has an unlimited free trial with watermarked exports. DayGrid offers a 30-day full-access trial, no credit card.
Why is primary school timetabling different from secondary?
Secondary timetabling is about student subject selection, and primary timetabling is about staff. In a secondary school the software builds lines so as many elective choices as possible run at once. Primary classes stay together all day, so there are no lines. The hard part is giving each teacher their planning time around part-time days, job-shares, specialist rotations and meetings.
Does GDPR apply to Australian schools?
Usually not, but it is not a flat no, and it is not what your procurement review turns on. The OAIC says the GDPR can reach an Australian organisation that has an establishment in the EU, offers goods or services to people in the EU, or monitors their behaviour, and that the position for an Australian government agency is more complex again. A school that thinks it might be caught should take its own legal advice. An Australian school is normally reviewed against the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, its own state or territory privacy law, and the Child Safe Standards. This is general information, not legal advice.
How much does school timetabling software cost in Australia?
From free to quote-only. Tes Timetable, Timetabling Solutions and Griddle require a demo or quote. DayGrid publishes pricing from $1,495 a year excluding GST, scaled by school size. Bell Path publishes one annual subscription per school, from $679 a year for up to 100 students, and founding schools pay $1,000 for their first year. FET is free.
What is planning time called in each Australian state?
APT in Victoria, RFF in New South Wales, NCT in Queensland and Northern Territory, NIT in South Australia, and DOTT in Western Australia. They stand for additional planning time, release from face-to-face, non-contact time, non-instruction time and duties other than teaching. Victoria and Tasmania derive the entitlement from a face-to-face teaching cap. The others publish a fixed weekly release figure.
Is Bell Path suitable for secondary schools?
No. Bell Path is built for Australian primary schools only. It does not do student subject selection or secondary lines. A secondary or P-12 school should look at Tes Timetable, Timetabling Solutions or Griddle.
Sources checked July 25, 2026
Vendors change their products, prices and trial terms. Every row above was checked against the vendor’s own public pages on the review date, and the privacy guidance linked below on July 27, 2026. Planning-time figures come from each state’s published agreement or workload guidance. Those agreements are renegotiated, so confirm the current figure for your own state, and confirm current details with each vendor before you decide.
