For relief teachers
Walk in already knowing the day.
Every Bell Path cover day can be handed over as a brief: one link, sent by text, that opens on the relief teacher’s phone. It gives the exact times, the real rooms, the reason behind every session, and the class plan the teacher left, written in full sentences.
Relief teachers need no account and no app. The link is the whole thing.
The usual welcome
Relief teachers are used to arriving blind.
The run sheet is on a bench somewhere
You arrive at a school you have never seen, and the plan for your day is a printout in a staffroom nobody showed you. Some days you find it at lunchtime.
"Session 2" means nothing yet
Every school runs different times. One school has fifty minute sessions and the next has an hour. A sheet that says "S2" without the clock time helps nobody who is new.
Acronyms all the way down
APT, NCT, SSG, "cover DFB after the split". A day sheet should speak in sentences to the one person in the building who does not know the shorthand yet.
The day sheet
Seven questions, answered before they are asked.
The sheet comes from the school’s cover plan, so it always matches what the office decided. There is no login and there are no unexplained acronyms.
The exact times
Your day runs 9:00 to 3:30. Recess is 11:00 to 11:23. The times are spelled out whenever the school has recorded its bell times, because the person reading the sheet may work at five different schools in a week.
Where you are, room by room
The sheet names the classroom, the art room, and the oval for yard duty, not just a class code.
Why you are in each room
When your class goes to Music, the sheet says who you are covering next and why: their teacher is getting a planning hour. Knowing why changes how the whole day feels.
What changed since this morning
Plans move. The page updates every time it is opened, so it is never a stale printout. When the office changes the day, Bell Path can email or text the update in one click.
What to do on arrival
Where to report, where the keys are, and how sign-in works. This is the note the office always means to give at 8:45 and never gets to.
The teacher's own plan for the class
When the teacher you are covering has shared a class plan, it sits under each session: what to teach, the links and files, and anything about the class you should know. Lesson files open on the school laptop with one short code from the brief. The plan opens the first time you open the school’s text on the day, or after a six-digit code sent to your phone if the link reached you another way. It is checked once for the day, so keep the text to yourself.
A way to say how the day went
At the end of the day the brief asks how it went. Mark each session as planned, partly done, changed course or not reached, add a line, or record one voice message and Bell Path writes the transcript. Or tap that you left a handwritten note. Nothing chases you afterwards.
In her own words
Knowing what to expect before the school day.
A casual relief teacher on working at schools that use Bell Path.
Casual relief teacher
Australian primary schools
I love being given the information before the school day. It helps me know what to wear, how to prepare, and exactly where I’m going when I arrive.
I much prefer working at schools that use Bell Path now because it makes my job easier.
For principals and daily organisers
Look after the people who cover your school.
Relief teachers talk to each other
A school that hands over a clear, kind day gets its calls answered next time cover is short. A good day sheet is the easiest way to become a school relief teachers want to come back to.
Day one goes better for the kids
A relief teacher who knows the times, the rooms, and the reasons teaches from 9:00, instead of decoding a printout until 9:40.
Changes reach the person in the room
Change the day and every day sheet link shows the new plan. Follow-up emails and texts go out only when something the relief teacher would read has changed.
You already did the work
The day sheet comes from the cover plan your office already built. It is one link you copy, text or email, with nothing extra to maintain.