Cover Work · Pro Feature

Set the cover work before you ring in

Being off is the expensive kind of absence. You still owe the class a lesson, the person covering it may teach a different subject entirely, and whatever you leave has to work without you in the room. Click the lesson in your timetable, choose Set cover work, and you get a sheet a non-specialist can pick up and run.

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Cover Work is available on the Pro plan · £3.49/month or £34.99/year

📄 Written for a non-specialist ✅ Answers always included 🖨️ Print the whole day 🔒 No pupil data ✏️ You edit every word

Why setting cover work is the job nobody wants

Cover work always gets written at the worst possible moment. You are ill, or you have been pulled onto a trip, or you found out at 7am. The window is small, you feel rotten, and the work still has to be on the system before registration.

So it gets rushed, and the rushed version causes its own problems. A task that assumes the class remembers last lesson does not survive contact with a supervisor who teaches PE. A worksheet with no answers comes back as a pile on your desk for the day you return. A vague instruction like “continue with the booklet” leaves thirty pupils and one adult all guessing.

Teacher Task Manager drafts cover work from the lesson itself. It already knows the class, the subject, the year group and how long the lesson is, because it is reading your timetable. What comes back is a self-contained activity written for whoever is standing in, with a marking section so the work can be checked in the room rather than waiting for you.

What the cover work generator does

A usable cover lesson in a couple of minutes, then yours to edit.

📅
Starts from your timetable

Open the lesson you will miss and the class, subject, year group and lesson length are already filled in. Nothing to retype while you are trying to get back to bed.

📄
Written for a non-specialist

The activity is spelled out so a cover supervisor, or a teacher of another subject, can hand it over and run it using pen and paper rather than your resources.

✅
Answers always included

Every sheet carries a mark scheme covering the questions set, kept visually separate and labelled clearly so it is not handed out with the work.

🔗
Continue, or standalone

Ask it to follow on from your scheme of work so the class keeps moving, or to write a self-contained task that assumes nothing about where the class has got to.

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Add your spec

Paste a topic list or a paragraph of your syllabus, or upload a spec PDF you already have. The file is read in your browser and never uploaded, so only the text you end up with is used.

🖨️
Print the whole day

Once every lesson that day has a plan or cover work, Day covered prints the lot as one pack, ready to leave with the cover supervisor or drop at the office.

What a cover sheet looks like

An example, generated and ready to edit.

You give it: Year 8 Geography · Rivers: erosion and deposition · 50 minutes · standalone activity

Cover work

Rivers: erosion and deposition

Draft
Class
Year 8
Subject
Geography
Length
50 minutes
Type
Standalone

Notes for the cover supervisor

  • Pupils need exercise books and a pen. No textbook or computer required.
  • Read the task aloud, then pupils work independently in silence.
  • Collect books at the end and leave them on the teacher’s desk.

The activity

  1. 10 min
    Read and label

    Pupils copy the short passage on river processes and label the three stages described.

  2. 25 min
    Questions 1 to 6

    Written answers in full sentences, working independently from the passage.

  3. 15 min
    Extended answer

    Explain why deposition happens more often near the mouth of a river.

Answers (not for pupils)

  • 1. Erosion wears away the bank and bed.
  • 2. Deposition drops material when the river slows.
  • 3 to 6 and the extended answer are marked in full on the sheet.

If they finish early

  • Draw and annotate a cross-section of the river at each stage.
  • Write three questions to test a partner next lesson.

Fully editable, with Regenerate if it is not quite right. Printing puts the activity first and the answers on a separate page.

One pack for the whole day

Cover work is rarely one lesson. If you are off, you are off for the day, and the office wants everything at once rather than five separate emails.

Each lesson in the planner shows a badge once it has cover work set, and every day header shows how far through the day you are. When every lesson has either a plan or a cover sheet, a Day covered button appears and prints the whole day as a single pack: each activity, each set of notes for the supervisor, and each mark scheme on its own page behind it. Hand it in, or leave it on the desk, and the day is genuinely handled.

Cover work sits inside the lesson planner rather than in a separate tool, so a lesson you had already planned can become cover work without starting again, and it carries the topic across with it.

Your data and the AI

Cover work is drafted from the subject, year group, topic and lesson length, plus any spec text or constraints you add. No pupil names and no pupil information are involved at any point.

If you upload a spec PDF, it is read in your browser and the file itself is never sent to our servers or stored. Only the text you end up with is used, and it is treated as something you have supplied rather than something we have checked, so it is worth a glance before you rely on it. You can see exactly what is sent and what comes back on our AI & Data transparency page.

Frequently asked questions

What is cover work?
Cover work is the lesson a teacher leaves for their class when they will not be there: off sick, on a course, out on a trip or covering another commitment. It is usually run by a cover supervisor or a teacher from another department, so it has to be self-contained and possible to run without the subject specialist in the room.
Does the cover work include answers?
Yes, always. Every sheet includes a mark scheme for the questions it sets, kept visually separate and clearly labelled so it is not handed out with the work by mistake. That means the work can be marked in the room instead of waiting on your desk until you are back.
Can a non-specialist actually run it?
That is what it is written for. The activity is spelled out step by step, the notes for the supervisor cover delivery only, such as what pupils need and what to do with the books at the end, and the task is designed around pen and paper rather than your own resources.
Will it follow my scheme of work?
It can do either. Choose Continue the scheme and it writes work that follows on from where the class is, so they keep moving. Choose a standalone activity and it writes something self-contained that assumes nothing about what has been covered, which is usually the safer choice at short notice.
Is the cover work generator free?
It is part of the Pro plan, from £3.49 a month or £34.99 a year. The timetable, tasks and notes are free to use with no card needed, so you can set your timetable up first and see whether the app suits you.
Is any pupil data sent to the AI?
No. Cover work is drafted from the subject, year group, topic and lesson length only. No pupil names or pupil information are sent at any stage.

Other ways Teacher Task Manager fits your school week.

Lesson plan generator

Plans drafted from a slot in your real timetable.
Teacher planner app

Replace a paper planner with one built around school life.
Planner comparison

What to look for in a teacher planning app.
Workload management

Spot overloaded weeks before they become last-minute problems.

Be off without the 7am scramble

Cover Work is part of Teacher Task Manager Pro: £3.49 a month or £34.99 a year. The timetable and task tools are free to use first.

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