Help
How to set up and run a primary school timetable.
Help pages for setting up and running Bell Path, open to anyone, no account needed. They are written for the person doing the work, usually an assistant principal who also teaches, and they say plainly when a step is fiddly.
Getting started
What to have ready before you begin, and how to enter your bell times.
What to have ready before you start
The six things to collect before you start, so setup takes one sitting instead of stopping halfway while you go and find them.
ReadSetting your bell times and session structure
How to enter your bell times, and why they change what every teacher is owed in Victoria and Tasmania.
ReadStaff and classes
Part-time teachers, job-shares, and teachers who are both classroom and specialist.
Adding part-time teachers
How to enter a part-time teacher. Enter the days they work, not the fraction, and Bell Path works out the entitlement from the days.
ReadSetting up a job-share
How to set up a job-share. Enter two teachers, not one combined teacher. Combining them is the most common setup error in primary timetables.
ReadTeachers who are both classroom and specialist
How to set up a teacher who has their own class and also teaches a specialist subject. Enter both roles and Bell Path keeps them from clashing.
ReadPlanning time
How entitlements are worked out, what to do about a shortfall, and staff agreements.
How planning time is calculated
How Bell Path works out each teacher’s weekly planning time. Australia uses two different systems, and which one applies to you decides whether your bell times matter.
ReadWhat to do about a planning-time shortfall
What a planning-time shortfall means and the four ways schools close one. A shortfall means your school has promised more release than it can supply, and rearranging the week cannot create supply.
ReadRecording and removing staff agreements
How to record a staff agreement and how to remove one. An agreement records a teacher accepting less than their entitlement. Record the reason and the compensation, and remove it as soon as it is no longer needed.
ReadGenerating the timetable
The Final Check, why a timetable will not generate, and regenerating after a change.
Reading the Final Check
What the Final Check tests before you generate, what its labels mean, and how to clear each item.
ReadWhy a timetable will not generate
The four usual reasons a timetable will not generate, and how to narrow down which one you have. Three of the four are about supply, not scheduling.
ReadRegenerating after a staffing change
How to update the timetable after a staffing change. Change the setup, generate a new version, and compare it. The previous version stays exactly where it was.
ReadFortnightly timetables: Week A and Week B
When a subject or meeting cannot fit every week, mark it fortnightly. Bell Path places it in one week of the two and still checks planning time in both.
ReadRunning the week
Daily cover, yard duty rosters and wet days.
Covering an absence on the morning
How to cover an absence on the morning: add the absence, see who is free, choose cover, and publish the plan.
ReadBuilding a yard duty roster
How to build a yard duty roster. It comes from the timetable, balances across the term, and keeps a record you can show a staff member who asks.
ReadRunning a wet day
How to run a wet day. Declare it and the outdoor roster converts to indoor supervision on the same screen.
ReadWhat the relief teacher receives: the CRT brief
One text, one link. What opens straight away, what waits behind a six-digit code, how the absent teacher adds their class plan, and what the relief teacher can leave at the end of the day.
ReadSharing with staff
Exports, printed packs, and what teachers can see and change in the staff portal.
Exports and printed packs
What you can export and what to check first. Whole-school, per-teacher and per-class packs are built to be printed and handed out.
ReadWhat staff can see and change
What teachers see in the staff portal and what they can do there. Teachers get their own week and a way to ask for changes. Editing the timetable stays with the planner.
ReadStill stuck
Tell us where the step stopped making sense.
If the next action was not obvious, that is a flaw in Bell Path rather than in you, and knowing exactly where it happened is the most useful thing you can send us.