ACT primary schools
Timetable software that plans ACT release time against the real entitlement.
ACT public school teachers are guaranteed three hours of release time a week under the Education Directorate enterprise agreement. Bell Path treats that as a minimum for every teacher, works it out properly for part-time staff, and tells you before you publish if the timetable misses it.
What you are looking for
You want release time planned against the real entitlement, not checked by eye.
ACT schools usually arrive here working out release time from the agreement, then checking it against the timetable one teacher at a time.
The ACT Public Sector Education Directorate (Teaching Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2023-2026 guarantees teachers a minimum of three hours of release time a week within school hours. A fixed number makes the arithmetic clear, and it makes a shortfall hard to excuse: either every teacher received their three hours, or somebody did not.
Bell Path treats that entitlement as a minimum for every teacher. For part-time teachers it works the release out from the days they teach, and it models a job-share as two real people rather than one full-timer. The final check before you publish names who is short, by how much, and what would fix it.
After the timetable is published, the same tool runs the week. It plans daily cover, builds duty rosters with a fairness record, keeps wet weather plans and event timetables, and gives every teacher a staff portal showing their own week.
The problems
What goes wrong without it.
School leaders describe these problems to us before they start with Bell Path. It is built to stop each one.
The release entitlement is a fixed number, so a shortfall is not a judgement call. Somebody has to explain it.
Part-time release is estimated rather than worked out from the days a teacher teaches.
Duty lands on the same reliable people, with no fairness record to point to.
Cover, duty and the timetable live in three separate documents that drift apart by week three.
What it does
From school setup to a timetable you can explain with confidence.
What it handles
- The three-hour weekly release entitlement treated as a minimum, worked out properly for part-time staff
- Job-shares modelled as two teachers with their own days, each receiving their own release
- Duty rosters that share the load fairly across the term
- Day sheets for relief teachers, with the classes, rooms, duties and handover notes
- Part-time teachers, job-shares, composite classes and specialist rotations
- Daily cover, wet weather plans, event timetables and an operations calendar
- A staff portal where each teacher sees their own week
Why schools choose Bell Path
- The ACT entitlement is built in, so nobody has to remember it
- The final check names the teacher, the shortfall and the fix before anything is published
- Built for Australian primary schools, not adapted from secondary or corporate scheduling
- The timetable, duty and daily cover live in one place
Related stories
Stories from schools like yours.
Each story is built from the patterns schools describe to us. Names and identifying details are left out.
Three job-share pairs and one specialist who also taught a class.
The assistant principal was holding the job-share and specialist arrangements in spreadsheets and her own memory. She entered them into Bell Path once, then reviewed one timetable instead of four drafts.
A timetable the assistant principal could defend before term started.
Every time one detail changed, the whole draft needed another night of checking. She entered the real rules into Bell Path once, then reviewed the result instead of rebuilding it.
FAQ
Questions schools ask before they start.
How much release time do ACT primary teachers get?
The Education Directorate (Teaching Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2023-2026 guarantees a minimum of three hours of release time a week within school hours. Bell Path applies that automatically and works it out for part-time staff. You can model your own school on the planning time calculator under Tools.
Does Bell Path use ACT-specific wording?
Not yet. Bell Path calculates the ACT entitlement correctly, but on screen it currently uses the Victorian term, APT. We have not guessed at ACT vocabulary without an ACT school telling us what their staffroom says. If that is you, tell us and we will change it.
How does Bell Path handle job-shares?
As two real teachers with their own working days, not one combined full-time entry. Each receives their own release on the days they work, and the final check confirms both did.
Is Bell Path built for primary schools?
Yes, and only primary schools. It handles planning time, part-time patterns, job-shares, specialist lessons and composite classes. It does not build secondary school timetables.
Also compare
How Bell Path stacks up against other options.
Bell Path vs TimetableMaster
Both products build school timetables. Bell Path is built only for Australian primary schools. TimetableMaster describes itself as an AI-powered scheduling platform for schools, colleges, universities and coaching institutes. That difference in focus is most of the comparison.
Bell Path vs Tes Timetable, powered by Edval
Bell Path is a guided timetabling product for Australian primary schools that you run yourself. Edval is a long-established Australian timetabling suite that now sits under the Tes brand as Tes Timetable, powered by Edval. This page is for a primary school weighing one against the other.
Ready when you are
Publish a timetable you can trust.
Bell Path builds the timetable from the details you give it, checks it before staff see it, and keeps working through the term for cover and duty rosters.