Relief Management is the module for organising cover teaching when staff are away. From a single Manage Relief page you can create relief for an absent teacher's lessons, assign relief teachers (checking their availability against the timetable), attach lesson plans and notes for the covering teacher, email assigned staff, and produce relief reports including a payroll export. Relief Management is a feature-switched module and must be enabled for your school — contact support.
Relief Management is the module for organising cover teaching when staff are away. From a single Manage Relief page you can create relief for an absent teacher's lessons, assign relief teachers (checking their availability against the timetable), attach lesson plans and notes for the covering teacher, email assigned staff, and produce relief reports including a payroll export. Relief Management is a feature-switched module and must be enabled for your school — contact support.
Before you start
- Permission — the Manage Relief page requires the Manage Relief permission (the relief manager). Subject leaders and individual teachers also have limited relief abilities from the timetable (see below).
- Relief teachers — a staff member is treated as relief staff when they hold the Relief Teacher role. Assign this role to your casual/relief staff so they appear correctly in the relief tools.
Where to find it
Go to Timetable > Relief > Manage Relief. The page has four tabs: Manage Relief, Create Relief, Relief Reports and Relief Resolution.
Screenshot: Manage Relief page showing the four tabs
Manage Relief tab — the day organiser
This tab shows the relief situation for a chosen day or week and is where relief teachers are assigned.
- Pick a date with Select Date.
- Choose Select Date View — Day View or Week View.
- Choose Select Staff View — Internal staff (teachers who need relief) or Relief staff (your relief teachers and what they are covering).
- Lessons needing a relief teacher are listed and highlighted. For each lesson, choose a teacher from the assignment dropdown, or use the bulk-assign option to assign one teacher to several lessons on a date at once.
- Use the Relief Teacher Options filter to control who appears in the dropdown: All Staff, Relief staff or Internal staff. The Only Available box (ticked by default) hides staff who already have a class or non-teaching commitment at that time.
Each staff option shows whether they are Relief Staff or Not Relief Staff, and either Available or the classes/commitments they already have in that period, so you can see at a glance who is genuinely free.
The tab also has an Auto Email Notification to Relief Manager setting (a per-school toggle) which controls automatic email notification of relief changes to the relief manager. When you email assigned staff, you are asked to confirm before the emails are sent.
Screenshot: day organiser with a relief teacher assignment dropdown open
Create Relief tab — covering an absent teacher
Use this tab to generate relief for all of a teacher's lessons over a date range:
- Select one or more teachers in Class Teacher.
- Set the Date Range and click Search — each teacher's timetable calendar for the range is displayed.
- Optionally choose a default relief teacher under Assign Default Relief Teacher.
- Click Create Relief and Assign. Relief records are created for the lessons; any lesson that already has relief is left alone (existing relief is not overwritten or reassigned to the default teacher).
The relief record
Opening a relief lesson shows the Relief Record, where you can record everything the covering teacher needs:
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Title | Short name for the relief record |
| Notes for Relief Manager | Internal notes for whoever organises relief |
| Details | Rich-text lesson details/plan |
| Attachments | Upload lesson material — doc, docx, ppt, xls, pdf or images; up to 5 files of 5 MB each |
| Relief Notes for Teacher | Notes for the relief teacher (up to 1000 characters) |
Records can be edited or deleted, and the relief plan can be downloaded.
Screenshot: Relief Record dialog with details and attachments
Setting relief from the timetable
With Relief Management enabled, relief is also integrated into Timetable > Information > View Timetable:
- Staff with the Manage Relief permission or the Subject Leader role can click a class on the timetable to set relief on that lesson.
- Any teacher can create relief on their own timetable in the same way, even without those rights.
- Lessons that have relief are marked on the timetable, and an Export Relief Plan button is available.
Relief Reports tab
The reports tab (also available as a standalone Relief Reports page) lets you search relief over a date range, for selected staff, optionally including unassigned classes. Three outputs are available:
| Report | What you get |
|---|---|
| CSV | The relief data as a spreadsheet export |
| Teacher Report | A PDF of relief taken, grouped by teacher, for the selected range and staff |
| EdPay tsx Report | A payroll export in EdPay format (employee, job, start/end work dates, paycode, hours and related columns) for paying relievers |
Screenshot: Relief Reports tab with date range and report buttons
Relief Resolution tab
If the timetable changes after relief has been created, some relief entries can become disconnected from their lessons. The Relief Resolution tab lists all relief entries that have been disconnected due to timetable changes, split by date. For each line you can:
- Reconnect it to the right lesson (optionally emailing the staff involved), or
- Delete it if it is no longer needed.
An auto-resolve option is available to reconnect entries automatically where possible.
Tips
- Assign the Relief Teacher role to casual relievers before the day starts, so the "Relief staff" filters and availability information work for them.
- Keep Only Available ticked when assigning — it prevents accidentally double-booking a teacher who already has a class that period.
- Use the EdPay tsx Report at the end of the pay period to transfer relief hours to payroll without re-keying.