ACT primary schools
Timetable software that plans ACT release time against the real entitlement.
ACT public school teachers are entitled to at least three hours of release time a week, or an average of six hours a fortnight, 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.
Already run one? Send the file and it is in Bell Path within 48 hours, with Daily Cover free for two weeks.
- Planning time
APT
The Victorian word, for now
- Full-time entitlement
At least 3 hours a week
More when teaching time passes 21 hours a week
- Duty
Yard duty
The Victorian word, for now
- Relief teacher
Relief teacher
- Support staff
LSA
Learning support assistant
- First year of school
Kindergarten
You want release time planned against the real entitlement, not checked by eye.
In many ACT schools, release time is worked out from the agreement, then checked against the timetable one teacher at a time.
The ACT Public Sector Education Directorate (Teaching Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2023-2026 entitles teachers to no less than three hours of release time a week within school hours, or an average of six hours a fortnight.
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.
What goes wrong without it.
The release entitlement is a fixed number, so any shortfall has to be explained.
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 Bell Path does.
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
- A timetable for your LSAs: who each one supports, and when
- 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
Planning stories.
Composite examples of common planning situations, not reports from one school.
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 sets no less than three hours of release time a week within school hours, or an average of six hours a fortnight. Bell Path applies three hours a week as the minimum 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?
Partly. Bell Path says learning support assistant and Kindergarten for ACT schools, and calculates the ACT entitlement correctly, but release time still shows as APT, the Victorian term. 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.
We are a Catholic or independent school. Do these figures apply to us?
The figures on this page are for government schools. Catholic and independent schools work to their own agreements, so enter your agreement’s figure during setup and Bell Path checks every teacher against it the same way.
How Bell Path compares with 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 and universities, priced in US dollars.
Bell Path vs Tes Timetable, powered by Edval
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 it against Bell Path.
Publish a timetable you can trust.
Send the timetable you already have and we load it within 48 hours, with Daily Cover free for two weeks. Building a new one? Setting up your school and previewing part of it is free.