The right teacher
in every classroom.
How an independent Queensland school took the 6am scramble out of relief staffing and ensured the best matched relief teacher arrived fully briefed to every classroom.
- Job fill rate
- 100%
- Typical time to fill
- 2m 35s
- Zero touch
- 53% of jobs
- Admin time returned
- ~5 hrs a week
Term 3 2026, in numbers
- Absences managed
- 208
- Relief placements
- 133
- Staff on platform
- 97
- Pilot to full adoption
- One term
- Permanent staff rating Relay “Great”
- 93%
- Relief teachers rating Relay “Great”
- 100%
- Admin time returned
- ~200 hrs a year
- Jobs filled, typically within
- 2m 35s
Live production data from the Relay reporting dashboard, Term 3 2026. Admin time returned is the school’s administration team’s own estimate of about 12 minutes saved per automated job — not a system calculation.
The problem every school leader knows
Ask any Deputy or Head of School about the hardest part of their week, and relief staffing is near the top of the list. It starts before sunrise, it can’t be planned for, and it lands on senior leaders at the very moment they should be preparing for the day.
The 6am scramble
Absences arrive by phone and text from 6am. Someone works through the relief list by hand, chasing unanswered calls and callbacks until a teacher confirms — often close to 7am.
Availability over suitability
Under time pressure, the class goes to whoever answers first — not whoever knows the students, the year level or the subject best.
Teachers walking in blind
Lesson plans travel by email, are printed on arrival and handed over minutes before the bell. Extra duties are explained at the office door.
A hidden cost to senior staff
The coordination spills into evenings and early mornings for some of the most stretched people in the school.
No data, no audit trail
Placements live in call logs and inboxes, so there is no reliable record of who covered what — and no way to plan ahead.
Families choose a school for its standards, its culture and its teachers. Every lesson led by a rushed, under-briefed stranger chips away at that promise.
Why generic platforms weren’t enough
Relief staffing platforms already exist, and they have helped schools move beyond the phone list. Most work by casting a wide net: a job goes out to as many available teachers as possible, and the first to accept gets it.
Availability
A gap gets filled. Whoever is quickest to their phone wins the job.
Suitability
The teacher who knows the students, the year level and the subject. The school needed a system that protected its standards — not one that simply filled a gap.
The school decides who sees each job
Relay is a purpose-built platform designed around how a Deputy’s office actually runs. It works with the school’s own vetted relief pool, so every teacher is someone the school already knows and trusts.
Routing rules
Each job is offered to relief teachers who match the school’s priorities: year level, subject specialty and preferred staff.
Visibility controls
The school chooses which teachers can see which jobs. Work is shared fairly and transparently — not grabbed by whoever is quickest to their phone.
Priority staff placed automatically
The school’s most trusted relief teachers are confirmed without needing to apply.
Leaders stay in control
Remaining applications are ranked for the Deputy to approve, and leaders can assign a teacher directly at any time.
Briefed before they arrive
Lesson plans, class context, administrative notes and extra duties land on the teacher’s phone before they reach the gate.
A complete record
Every absence and placement is logged, giving the school a full audit trail and a dashboard for reporting and planning.
The same morning, twice
Every job filled. Most with no admin touch at all.
Over Term 3 2026, Relay managed 208 absences and made 133 relief placements across 97 staff. Every job put to the relief pool was filled, typically in just over two and a half minutes.
More than half of all jobs were posted, matched and accepted with no admin action at all — returning around 5 hours a week to the administration team, close to 200 hours across a school year.
For school leaders
The early-morning call-around has largely disappeared — and after-hours coordination with it.
For students and families
Classes are covered by teachers the school has chosen, who arrive knowing the plan, the class and their duties. Learning continues with minimal disruption.
For staff
Relief teachers get fair, transparent access to work and walk in prepared.
For the Head: what you need to know before signing off
Relief before the bell, at your school
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