Hello and welcome to term 1!
Look, it’s fair to say that the mood in education at the moment is… tense. Between looming staff shortages, trying to get students back in the habit of face-to-face learning after the disruptions of last year plus the never-ending headache that is Omicron, 2022 has gotten off to a bit of a shaky start. That said, we’re here to remind you that we are here to help.
Scroll down for a refresher on some of the ways you can use ClassCover to make this term feel close to normal — even if it isn’t.
And remember, if you ever need to talk to us, you can chat to us via the icon on the bottom right side of the app or email us at support@classcover.com.au.
Check in with your casuals — save time and send a group message
Is your school facing staff shortages in the months ahead? With the impact of the pandemic lingering longer than we all hoped, many schools right around Australia are feeling the pressure. The good news is, ClassCover can help.
If you’re anticipating shortages in your full-time teaching staff due to factors like illness, one of the best ways to prepare your school and minimise the fallout is by leaning on your pool of casual, part-time teachers.
In order to do that, now is the perfect time to check in with the teachers on your list to make sure they are available and ready to work. While we encourage all the teachers on the ClassCover platform to update their availability regularly, at the end of a long summer break a little reminder from you, their employer, is always helpful.
So, what’s the best way to reach out to your teacher list when you’re already short on time? Did you know ClassCover lets you send an email or in-app message to all or part of your Teacher List at once?
We get a lot of messages like this 👇 from our school users, so we thought the time was right for a refresher on how it’s done.
1. Choose which teachers you want to contact
From your My Teachers page on the web, select all the teachers on your list or filter by name, star rating, whether they are active or not and more. Then click on ‘Email Teachers’ and a message box will appear.
2. Craft your message
You have 280 characters plus a link to include in your message.
3. Send
Hit send and you’re done. Did we mention it’s simple? Your message will be sent as an email directly to your selected teachers with your school showing as the sender.
Note: Group messages can currently only be sent from the web version of ClassCover.
Learn more about sending a group message to all or a select group of teachers on your school’s list.
Clean up your Teacher List
Now that you have contacted your pool of casual teachers and they have *hopefully* updated their availability in ClassCover, you should have a better idea of which teachers are free and willing to work this term.
To reduce clutter and ensure you are only contacting teachers that are available to work, now is the time to give your Teacher List a good spring clean. Here’s how it’s done:
1. Consult your Teacher List Health Checker
This handy little tool should be your school’s best friend. We designed the health checker to give an overview of the quality and activity of the teachers on your list at-a-glance. From your My Teachers page, check the percentage of active teachers you have on your list. If it’s high, say, 75% or above, you have nothing to worry about. If that percentage is on the low side, it’s time to do some trimming.
2. See which teachers are inactive
When you need to clear teachers from your list, start by finding the ones that are inactive. When a teacher hasn’t logged into ClassCover, or responded to a booking request for three months, they are automatically marked as inactive. From your My Teachers page, use the filters to show only teachers who are inactive.
3. Take action
Once you know which teachers on your list are inactive, you have a few options. You can choose to either hide inactive teachers — which keeps them on your list but will exclude them from your booking lists, bulk suspend, or bulk delete.
4. Rebuild your list
If after all this your Teacher List is looking a little light, you can choose to either post a call-out on the ClassCover Jobs platform or find new teachers in your area yourself using the Find New Teachers tool. While you’re at it, it’s also a good idea to check your ‘Teacher Requests’ page on either the web or mobile app. Pending teacher requests expire in 30 days, so you’ll want to check these regularly. Since we launched this feature late last year, we’ve had over 50,000 instances of teachers requesting to join a schools list.
In need of more info? Here’s a step-by-step guide on cleaning up your Teacher List.
Update your School Profile
With teacher shortages tipped to cause an increase in demand for casual teachers across the country, your school should do everything you can to put your best foot forward. One of the best ways to do this is by ensuring your School Profile is accurate and up to date on ClassCover. Just like schools pick and choose teachers based on the information in their profiles, this shifting dynamic may see teachers taking their pick from multiple school booking requests. Here’s a few quick things to update to ensure your school profile is attractive to casual teachers:
- School size — It may seem simple but including the number of students and staff at your school is a great way to give teachers an insight into what to expect at your school.
- Contact details — While ClassCover is here to facilitate communication between schools and teachers on the most part, having a name and phone number or email for the point of contact at your school can help teachers feel comfortable, particularly when teaching at a new school for the first time.
- Useful links or documents — If your school has any unique policies, procedures or expectations of your staff, linking to them from your School Profile is a must. This way, rather than wasting time explaining these details when your casual arrives at school, they can brush up beforehand and hit the ground running.
Are you following ClassCover on Instagram? We’re sharing new tips for schools there first.
