Resetting availability

At the beginning of each term you should go to the Housekeeping tab and set the term start date. We suggest that you make this the first day of the month (e.g. 1/4/2007 instead of 25/4/2007). This date is used to calculate ‘covers done’ and resets the count process for staff from this date. If the correct date is showing when you first open the form, please STILL CLICK the Set term start date button to refresh your covers data.

Initialising the cover system

Once you have completed this initialisation, you are ready to assign covers. You are also able to suspend lessons for a particular year group (e.g. for study leave) and organise invigilation from this form.

Recording a cover requirement

To record a cover requirement (because a teacher has just rung in sick for example) click the New absence button and record the details of when they will be absent. Read more...

Allocating cover staff

To begin allocating staff to cover lessons, select the Covers tab on this form and you will see a list of the lessons which require covering today. If it is not today you require there is a calendar pop-up for selecting the cover date. Just click the button alongside the date to see the calendar.

In the Select column the drop-down will give you a list of staff who are free and the number of covers they have done since the beginning of term. You can then select the most appropriate person for the cover. Alternatively you can overrule this by selecting any member of staff in the Cover column. The Weekly Covers button gives you a list of teachers who have done covers during the current week together with the number of covers done. The week starts on Sunday but if you open this on a Sunday it will show the numbers from the previous Sunday.

If the normal room for a lesson is being used for something else you can select an alternative room in the Alt Room column. If you unsure of capacity you can check this using the Rooms button on the Basics tab of the Timetable menu. By default the drop-down in this column will only show free rooms but if you wish to select from a complete list click the All rooms radio button.

If you wish you can add a note in the final column which will be included in the information distributed to cover staff.

Invigilation

Invigilation is also incorporated into the cover process.

Behind the scenes there is a dummy member of staff called Invigilation. The dummy teacher is marked as having left and will not impact on any staff reports. It has a mnemonic of Z9Z9Z. Please do not change this. We have also created a reason for absence which is ‘School Business’ / ‘Invigilation’. To use this feature, just click the New invigilation button.

The top row should be filled out - you can call it 'Invigilation' or change to (say) 'Maths Paper 1'. The Max pupils box is not currently being used but we are looking to incorporate room capacity in the future. Invigilators (the number of invigilators) is an essential field. The dates and periods get set as you require. The reason could be changed if you wish. The Room is optional but if selected will flow through to all further stages. Once this is set, click the Generate Covers button and cover these new requirements in the normal way.

All these new cover requirements sit on the normal cover reports as above. We will develop some specific invigilation timetable reports once the process is fully bedded down.

To review all the invigilation you have set up click the All invigilation button.

Suspended Lessons

Also on the Housekeeping tab is the Suspended lessons table. The columns can be sized as you wish. For a suspension to take place you MUST HAVE a year, start and end date. The Reason is optional.

Set the dates and once done click the Rebuild Availability button. This button checks all staff who are teaching the selected year for the given dates and adds their lessons to the Availability list for those times. When selecting a person to do covers, these ‘released’ lessons appear at the top of the selection list sub-sorted by covers done with the least at the top.

Absence Reports and Cover Lists
There is a variety of options for printing cover details – different schools have different requirements. All are accessible from the Reports tab of the this form. Select whichever suits your purpose. Cover Slips are designed to be cut into strips for putting in pigeon holes. The most powerful is Cover Requests which produces a list of pupils in the group as well as indicating the place and time. When you click the button and dialogue box appears asking if you want to send the cover lists to the relevant staff as an Email (click Yes) or simply print them out (click No). Absence report shows the staff absent and their cover requirements for a specific date (today by default).

You can also print a variety of reports showing absences or covers done for particular staff and/or over a range of dates.