Approval pack
School Approval Pack
A printable pack for schools reviewing Bell Path before entering live school data.
- Operator
- Dimitrios James Gregory Hooke ABN 59 429 101 462 trading as Bell Path Timetabling
Top actions
Hand this to a principal, business manager or ICT lead in one step. None of these actions shares school data. They only act on this public page.
Go straight to the evidence or checklist your reviewer needs.
Decision guide
What the school needs to decide.
Each row gives Bell Path's current position and the action the school should take before entering live school data.
ST4S and external approval
Not externally assessedWhere data is stored
Hosted in AustraliaCore timetable data
Student names not requiredOptional features
School controlledCompanies Bell Path relies on
8 named companiesApproval record
Keep with school recordsCommercial terms
Price and refund position.
- Price today
- One subscription covers the whole school, from $679 to $12,599 a year depending on school size. There are no per-user fees. Setup and a timetable preview are free.
- Refunds
- A full refund within 30 days. A pro-rata refund is considered from day 31 to day 90. If Bell Path does not work for your Term 1 timetable, Bell Path reviews the request even outside those windows.
How to use this pack
This pack is for principals, assistant principals, business managers, ICT leads and privacy reviewers who need a short, practical summary before a school enters live data into Bell Path.
Print it and keep it with your procurement, privacy, School Council or leadership approval records. It supports your review. It does not replace an assessment by your school, your sector, your Department or a lawyer.
What Bell Path is
- Software for Australian primary schools that builds the school timetable and plans teachers’ planning time, daily cover, yard duty, wet days and event timetables.
- An account the school owns, where leadership can set up, review, publish and export its planning.
- A tool that supports school decisions. Generated timetables, cover plans and public calendars still need a person at the school to review them before they go out.
What Bell Path is not
- Bell Path does not replace Compass, CASES21, eduPay, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or any other system your school, diocese or Department provides.
- Bell Path is not Department-approved, ST4S-assessed, ISO-certified or SOC 2-certified, and it is not on a government panel. If that ever changes, Bell Path will say so in writing.
- Bell Path is not designed to store health records, behaviour records, parent contact lists, enrolment records or whole-student profiles.
ST4S readiness
ST4S (Safer Technologies 4 Schools) is a national security and privacy assessment of software used in schools. Arc Software is the Victorian Department’s catalogue of the software it provides and the ST4S reports it has published. Bell Path has not been assessed under ST4S and is not on Arc Software, so your school should run its normal software approval checks.
Bell Path documents itself in the way an ST4S review expects: what data it holds, which companies it relies on, who can access what, what can be shared publicly, how support works, and how to keep the data you enter to a minimum. That is readiness material, not a completed assessment.
This pre-fills a written request that your school can keep with its review records.
Where school data is stored
Bell Path is an Australian business run from Victoria, and its servers are in Australia: the website you sign in to, database holding your school information, timetable generator, virus scanning of those files and scheduled jobs that send notices and publish cover run in Melbourne, and the files staff upload for a CRT and database backups are stored in Sydney.
Email, text messages, payments, sign-in and the optional AI features come from separate companies, which may process limited information outside Australia.
Part by part:
- The website you sign in to: Melbourne, Australia.
- The database holding your school information: Melbourne, Australia.
- The timetable generator: Melbourne, Australia.
- Files staff upload for a CRT: Sydney, Australia.
- Virus scanning of those files: Melbourne, Australia.
- Database backups: Sydney, Australia.
- Scheduled jobs that send notices and publish cover: Melbourne, Australia.
This pre-fills the written request covering the application, database, backups, email and support tools.
Answers for your privacy assessment
These are the questions a school privacy assessment, Privacy Impact Assessment or procurement form usually asks, with Bell Path’s answer to each one written so you can paste it straight in without rewording.
Copy them all at once, or copy a single answer. Nothing here is a completed assessment: the assessment is your school’s decision and belongs in your school’s records. If your form asks something that is not answered here, email it in and the answer will be added to this pack so the next school gets it too.
- What is the product and what is it used for?
- Bell Path is timetabling software for Australian primary schools. It builds the school timetable and teacher planning time, then runs the week from it: who covers an absent teacher, who is on yard duty, wet day arrangements and event timetables.
- Who is the supplier and what is their ABN?
- Dimitrios James Gregory Hooke ABN 59 429 101 462 trading as Bell Path Timetabling. Based in Victoria 3089, Australia. Contact hello@bellpath.com.au.
- What personal information does it collect?
- Timetable setup: the school name, staff names, roles, working days, availability, planning-time entitlements, classes, rooms, subjects, bell times, meetings and every generated timetable. Daily operations, where the school uses them: cover plans, casual relief teacher names and contact details, school maps, class handovers, linked files, limited verified student support instructions relevant to one assignment, prepared PDFs, records of who opened or printed what, optional return handovers, yard duty, wet day records, public calendar events and export records. Education Support, only if the school turns it on: student names, year levels, support minutes, funding context, assigned blocks and support notes. Running the service: account holders’ names and email addresses, sign-in records, support requests and anything attached to them, billing contacts and invoice records, internal usage records linked to school and user accounts, and technical records including request metadata, security logs and error reports.
- Does it collect student information?
- Not to build a timetable. Student names are not needed and should not be entered for timetabling. Student information is only held if the school turns on the Education Support feature, which the school controls. Bell Path is not designed to hold health records, behaviour records, enrolment files, home addresses or parent contact details.
- Where is the information stored?
- Bell Path is an Australian business run from Victoria, and its servers are in Australia: the website you sign in to, database holding your school information, timetable generator, virus scanning of those files and scheduled jobs that send notices and publish cover run in Melbourne, and the files staff upload for a CRT and database backups are stored in Sydney. Email, text messages, payments, sign-in and the optional AI features come from separate companies, which may process limited information outside Australia. The companies Bell Path relies on are named in the Bell Path School Approval Pack.
- Is any information stored or accessible outside Australia?
- Bell Path’s own servers are all in Australia. The website you sign in to: Melbourne, Australia. The database holding your school information: Melbourne, Australia. The timetable generator: Melbourne, Australia. Files staff upload for a CRT: Sydney, Australia. Virus scanning of those files: Melbourne, Australia. Database backups: Sydney, Australia. Scheduled jobs that send notices and publish cover: Melbourne, Australia. Separately, the email, SMS, payment and optional AI companies named in this pack process limited information outside Australia, so some offshore processing remains.
- Who can access our school’s information?
- Staff at your school who you have given an account, checked on every request against their school membership and role. Bell Path’s owner, for support, billing and keeping the service running. Staff at the companies named in this pack can technically reach the systems they operate, in the way any hosting or email provider can. An assigned casual relief teacher can open the non-sensitive outline of the day they are booked for from the random booking link, without an account or a code. The sensitive parts, meaning class handovers, student support instructions, restricted files and saved school logins, stay shut until a possession check passes against the mobile number your school recorded for that person, with verified school email as a fallback.
- Is the information encrypted in transit and at rest?
- In transit, yes: every connection between a browser and Bell Path uses HTTPS, and Bell Path connects to its own database over an encrypted, certificate-checked connection. At rest, uploaded files and database backups are encrypted, and Bell Path encrypts each backup itself with a key it holds away from the hosting provider. The running database’s own disk is not encrypted at rest, because the Australian provider does not offer it. The database is not reachable from the internet at all; only the Bell Path application can connect to it.
- Which other companies handle our information?
- Bell Path relies on these companies: Cloudlets (VPSBlocks) in Melbourne (the website you sign in to, the database holding your school information, the timetable generator, virus scanning of uploaded files, and the scheduled jobs that send notices and publish cover); Amazon Web Services in Sydney (storing the files staff upload for a CRT and for encrypted database backups); Cloudflare in countries around the world (the bellpath.com.au domain name records, which is how a browser finds Bell Path; web requests go straight to Melbourne and do not pass through Cloudflare); Stripe in the United States, India and other countries (payment processing, hosted checkout, invoices, and subscription records); Resend in the United States and Japan (transactional email delivery where configured); ClickSend in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Brazil, Vietnam and the Philippines (SMS delivery to casual relief teachers where a school uses CRT notifications); Google in the United States and other countries (consent-based advertising conversion measurement where enabled); OpenAI in the United States (reading a PDF, photo or document only when a school staff member presses Read with AI for that file (staff lists, existing timetables, school setup documents, term planners and Education Support rosters); OpenAI doesn’t use it to train its models and normally deletes it within 30 days, but may keep it longer if the law requires or to stop misuse; a school can turn this off in Settings with No AI).
- Has the product been externally assessed or certified?
- No. Bell Path has not been assessed under ST4S (Safer Technologies 4 Schools), is not on any Department approved-software list, and holds no ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certification. It publishes the material an ST4S review asks for, which is readiness material rather than a completed assessment. Run the checks your school or sector normally requires for new software.
- How long is information kept, and how do we get it deleted?
- Your school’s information is kept while the account is open. Email hello@bellpath.com.au to export or delete it. Some records are kept where law, accounting, security, backups, audits or disputes require it. Encrypted database backups are kept for a limited recovery window and then expire automatically.
- What happens if there is a data breach?
- Bell Path tells each affected school as soon as it knows the school is affected. Where a breach is likely to cause someone serious harm, Bell Path also tells the people affected and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, following the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. Tell your school’s own privacy contact as well. Reach Bell Path at hello@bellpath.com.au.
- Can the supplier complete our privacy assessment for us?
- No, and no supplier should. The assessment is the school’s decision and belongs in the school’s records. Bell Path’s job is to give you accurate answers, in writing, quickly. Ask for anything missing and it will be added to this pack so the next school gets it too.
Which privacy rules apply to your school
Which framework your review sits under depends on your sector, not only your state. This catches out non-government schools most often, because their review usually sits under the Commonwealth rules rather than their state’s public sector law. Confirm your own school’s position rather than assuming it.
ST4S (Safer Technologies 4 Schools) is shared across every Australian state and territory government sector, the Catholic and independent sectors, and New Zealand. It is administered by Education Services Australia. Bell Path has not been assessed under it, so whichever sector you are in, your school runs its own checks.
- Catholic and independent schools, every state and territory: Your review almost certainly sits under the Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth) and the Australian Privacy Principles rather than your state’s public sector privacy law. Coverage is not automatic from being non-government: it follows from things such as annual turnover above three million dollars, being part of a covered organisation, or holding health information as a health service provider, which is why most schools are caught. Confirm your own school’s position before relying on this. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner oversees it. The National Catholic Education Commission and Independent Schools Australia jointly publish a Schools Privacy Compliance Manual covering the principles and breach notification.
- Victorian government schools: The Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) and its ten Information Privacy Principles apply, overseen by the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner. Follow the Department’s schools privacy policy and its software approval process. The Department is clear that a supplier must not complete the school’s assessment for it.
- New South Wales government schools: The Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (NSW) applies, with guidance and oversight from the Information and Privacy Commission NSW, alongside the Department’s own vendor assessment process.
- Queensland government schools: The Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld) applies to the Queensland public sector.
- Tasmanian government schools: The Personal Information Protection Act 2004 (Tas) applies to the Tasmanian public sector, with complaints handled by the Tasmanian Ombudsman.
- Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory and ACT: These jurisdictions handle public sector privacy differently from one another, and the position has changed recently in some of them. Check the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s current list of state and territory privacy legislation, and your Department’s own software approval process, rather than assuming the rules match another state.
What data each feature holds
- Timetable setup: the school name, staff names and roles, classes, rooms, subjects, bell times, meetings, availability, planning-time rules, constraints and the generated timetables.
- Agreements: the staff member, the original and agreed allocation, any compensation entered, the reason, the status and the history of changes.
- Daily operations: cover plans, CRT (casual relief teacher) names and contact details where entered, school maps, class handovers, linked files, limited verified student support instructions relevant to the assignment, PDFs Bell Path prepared, print windows a person opened, paper copies a person confirmed as ready, recorded paper locations, optional return handovers, yard duty, wet day records, public calendar events and export records.
- Education Support, only if the school turns it on: student names, year levels, support minutes, funding context, assigned blocks, ES staff and support notes.
- Account, billing, support, security, analytics and audit records needed to run, secure, support and bill for the service.
Data Bell Path does not need
- Student names are not needed to build a timetable.
- Health information, behaviour records, disability details, family contact details, home addresses and enrolment files should not be entered unless a specific feature genuinely needs a limited piece of that information and the school has the authority to use it.
- Use class labels, year levels, initials, groups or staff-only notes wherever that is enough.
The main risks
- Processing or storing data outside Australia may not meet your school’s or sector’s requirement.
- A user may enter more personal information than the feature needs.
- PDF exports, public links, screenshots or email attachments may be shared beyond the people they were meant for.
- A wrong role, or an account left open after someone leaves, may give access to someone who no longer needs it.
- An outage at a hosting company, a fault in the application or a failed export may interrupt the school at a busy moment.
- Generated timetables and cover plans still need leadership review before they are published or acted on.
What Bell Path does about them
- Every request to a school workspace is checked on the server against the person’s school membership and role.
- Administrative access to sensitive areas is limited and logged.
- All traffic runs over HTTPS (an encrypted connection).
- Passwords are never stored as plain text.
- Payments go through Stripe’s hosted checkout, so Bell Path never sees or stores card numbers.
- Exports are generated when you ask for them, and the school should treat them as controlled records.
- Reusable school-issued credentials are never printed.
- Error and monitoring records are used to find reliability and security problems.
What the school should do
- Confirm whether your school or sector requires data to stay in Australia before entering live data.
- Complete any procurement, privacy impact, security, ST4S or Department approval your school requires.
- Enter only the information the school needs for timetabling and planning the week.
- Review who has access regularly and remove staff who no longer need it.
- Keep exported PDFs and shared links inside the school’s normal records and communication rules.
- Review generated timetables, daily cover, yard duty and Education Support outputs before they are published or acted on.
- Keep a printed or local copy of the published timetable and the day’s plan, in case an online service is ever unavailable.
What risk remains
Even with all of the above in place, some risk remains: data is processed outside Australia, Bell Path depends on other companies to run, users can enter more than they need to, exported documents can travel, and the school relies on generated outputs. A school that cannot accept those risks should not enter live data until the written commitments, approvals and technical arrangements it needs are in place.
CRT day outline, protected information and resource shelf
An assigned CRT can open the non-sensitive day outline from the random booking link issued for that assignment without a Bell Path account or verification code. Class handovers, student support instructions, restricted files and School access vault values remain protected until one possession check passes: the first open of the booking text Bell Path sent to the assigned CRT’s stored mobile number within the last twelve hours, or a six-digit code sent to that number, with verified school email as a fallback.
A teacher without a Bell Path account can use an expiring contribution link limited to the date, class or session they own. It does not open the wider school workspace.
The separate resource shelf code opens only the lesson resources already attached to that CRT brief. It does not open student support instructions or School access vault values.
Public calendar links and the school code
Public calendar links are for events the school chooses to show parents and students. Only items the school has marked as visible are published.
A school code makes the link harder to stumble on, but it is not a substitute for a staff login. Staff-only notes, drafts, internal notes, reminders, unpublished items and non-public checklist items are removed before anything is shown publicly.
Access and accountability
- People using the signed-in school workspace are checked against their school membership and role.
- Every request is checked against the person’s school membership and role.
- Sensitive changes are recorded against the school: exports, timetable publishing and locking, member changes, account deletion and selected calendar actions.
- Schools should remove accounts for staff who have left, and should not share logins.
Deleting, exporting and keeping data
To export or delete your data, or for help with an account or procurement, email hello@bellpath.com.au. Bell Path may keep some records where the law, accounting, security, backups, audits, disputes or abuse prevention require it.
Keep your own copies of published timetables, exports and approval records, following your school’s normal record-keeping rules.
For your finance office / new-vendor setup
- Legal entity: Dimitrios James Gregory Hooke ABN 59 429 101 462 trading as Bell Path Timetabling.
- Registered business name: Bell Path Timetabling.
- ABN: 59 429 101 462.
- GST registration status: not currently registered for GST.
- Contact email: hello@bellpath.com.au.
- Payment methods: Stripe checkout for annual or termly billing. Bank transfer is available for annual billing only. Choose "Pay by invoice" in Billing; Bell Path emails the invoice within 24 hours and keeps a copy in Billing for download.
- Bank details appear only inside the invoice. They are not published on the website.
Companies Bell Path relies on (subprocessors)
A subprocessor is another company that handles some of your data on Bell Path’s behalf. Bell Path uses these companies to host, secure, monitor, support and bill for the product.
| Company | Where | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudlets (VPSBlocks) | Melbourne | The website you sign in to, the database holding your school information, the timetable generator, virus scanning of uploaded files, and the scheduled jobs that send notices and publish cover |
| Amazon Web Services | Sydney | Storing the files staff upload for a CRT and for encrypted database backups |
| Company | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Countries around the world | The bellpath.com.au domain name records, which is how a browser finds Bell Path; web requests go straight to Melbourne and do not pass through Cloudflare |
| Stripe | The United States, India and other countries | Payment processing, hosted checkout, invoices, and subscription records |
| Resend | The United States and Japan | Transactional email delivery where configured |
| ClickSend | Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Brazil, Vietnam and the Philippines | SMS delivery to casual relief teachers where a school uses CRT notifications |
| The United States and other countries | Consent-based advertising conversion measurement where enabled | |
| OpenAI | The United States | Reading a PDF, photo or document only when a school staff member presses Read with AI for that file (staff lists, existing timetables, school setup documents, term planners and Education Support rosters); OpenAI doesn’t use it to train its models and normally deletes it within 30 days, but may keep it longer if the law requires or to stop misuse; a school can turn this off in Settings with No AI |
Support during busy school periods
The in-app support form records which page you were on, what kind of request it is, how urgent it is and what you were doing, so urgent timetable, export, cover or setup problems can be picked up quickly.
Keep local copies of the records you need to run a school day, including downloaded timetable PDFs, in case any online service is ever unavailable.
Current service health is published on the Bell Path System status page. Bookmark it so you have somewhere to check if the app is ever unreachable.
School review checklist
Tick each point as the school works through it, then record the decision below.
0 OF 6 CONFIRMED
Review record
Complete this on screen before printing, or print first and fill it in by hand. Ticks and sign-off details stay in this browser. Nothing is sent to Bell Path.
Keep the completed review with the school's records.
Your browser's print dialog can save the complete pack as a PDF.