When a Teacher Calls in Sick at 6:45 a.m.: A Preschool Cover Plan

Every preschool manager knows the message. It arrives before sunrise, a teacher is ill, and the doors open in under two hours. What happens next depends almost entirely on decisions made weeks earlier, on an ordinary afternoon, when nobody was under pressure. Settings that handle absence well are not luckier or better staffed. They have written down what to do, so the morning becomes a sequence of steps instead of a series of phone calls made in a panic.

This article sets out the parts of a cover plan that actually get used: who to call and in what order, how to run a lighter day without children noticing much difference, and how to keep ratios and supervision safe throughout.

Start from your ratio floor, not from the rota

Before any cover plan, you need one number for each room and each part of the day: the minimum number of qualified adults required by the rules that apply to you. Ratios and qualification requirements differ between countries and sometimes between regions, so take them from your current licence conditions and the latest guidance from your regulator, not from memory or a colleague at another setting.

Then write down two things for every room:

• The legal floor — the fewest adults you can have with the expected number of children.
• The working floor — the number you actually need to run the room properly, which is usually higher because of nappy changes, a child who needs one-to-one support, or a room layout that splits sight lines.

Absence planning is about protecting the legal floor at all times and getting as close to the working floor as possible. If the morning arrives and you cannot meet the legal floor for every child booked, the plan must say what happens next — and that decision should not be improvised.

The ranked cover list

A cover list is a short, ordered document, kept where whoever opens up can find it. Rank matters because the first two calls should be the ones most likely to work.

1. Staff on shorter shifts that day who could extend. Ask, do not assume, and record the extra hours.
2. Part-time staff on their day off who have said in advance they are open to occasional calls, and the hours they can usually do.
3. A small bank of regular relief staff who already know the children, routines and building. Two or three reliable people are worth more than a long list of strangers.
4. Agency staff, if you use them, with the agency’s early-morning number and the documents you need to see before they work with children.
5. The manager or deputy going into ratio. This works for a day; it does not work for a week, because nobody is then running the setting.

Next to each name, note their qualification level and which rooms they know. A relief worker who has only ever covered the older room may be less useful in the baby room than the order suggests.

A reduced day that still feels normal to children

Even with cover found, the day is usually thinner: a stranger in one room, the manager pulled away from their own work. A pre-written reduced timetable takes pressure off everyone.

What to keep

• Arrival routine, meals, sleep and toileting at their usual times. Children feel changes in these more than anything else.
• Outdoor time, ideally with the whole group outside together, which can make supervision simpler rather than harder.
• Familiar adults in the rooms with the youngest or most unsettled children. Move cover staff to the room that copes best with a new face.

What to drop or simplify

• Activities that need heavy setup or one adult fully occupied with a small group, such as messy cooking or a planned outing.
• Non-urgent observations and paperwork, which can be caught up later in the week.
• Visits, tours for prospective families and meetings that would take a qualified adult out of ratio.

Write the reduced day as a single page per room. On a bad morning nobody wants to design a timetable.

Merging rooms: rules written in advance

Combining two groups for part of the day is a common way to cope, and it is also where most of the risk sits. Decide the rules on a calm day:

• Which rooms may merge, at which times, and up to what total number of children for the space available.
• Age mixing limits, especially where very young children would share space with older, more boisterous ones.
• Who is in charge of the merged group. One named adult, not two adults each assuming the other is watching.
• Registers. When children move rooms, the register moves with them and is checked aloud. Many incidents happen in transitions.

If a merge would breach your ratio or space limits, the plan should say so plainly and move to the next option, not leave it to judgement in the moment.

When there is no cover: the hard options

Some mornings nothing works. The plan should list, in order, what you do rather than trying to stretch ratios:

1. Ask families who have said they can be flexible whether they could collect early or keep a child at home that day. Some settings keep a short list of families who have offered this.
2. Delay opening of one room, or open for core hours only, after telling families as early as possible.
3. Close a room for the day, as a last resort, with a clear explanation.

None of these is pleasant, and fee arrangements for closures should be in your terms and conditions so the conversation is about logistics rather than money. Running under ratio is not on this list.

Telling parents and staff

Parents notice a new face at drop-off. A short, calm line is better than silence:

Ms Lan is unwell today. Mr Tom, who covers with us regularly, is with the Rainbow room. The day will run as usual.

Avoid sharing health details about the absent colleague. For staff, the message is about who goes where, what has been dropped from the day, and who to ask. A single message to the team group at a fixed time, for example 7:15, stops the stream of individual calls to the manager.

Building the bench before you need it

A cover list is only as good as the people on it, and relief staff do not appear on the morning you need them. Some groundwork pays off:

• Induct relief staff properly. Give them the same building walk-through, safeguarding briefing and emergency procedures as permanent staff, and let them shadow a full session before they cover alone.
• Keep their checks current. Background checks, first aid certificates and any required training expire. A relief worker with lapsed paperwork cannot help on the day, however willing.
• Bring them in regularly. A paid half-day each month or a role covering planned leave keeps faces familiar to the children, so an emergency day is less unsettling.
• Ask part-time staff once, in writing. Whether they are open to occasional early calls, and which days never work. It avoids pressure on people who have said no and saves wasted calls.

A one-page room sheet

Each room should have a single sheet a stranger can read in three minutes: the daily timetable, children with allergies or medical plans and where their medication is kept, who may collect whom, sleep arrangements, and the name of the most experienced adult to ask. Keep it current and keep it somewhere staff can see but visitors cannot. Cover staff who have this sheet make far fewer of the small mistakes that unsettle children and worry parents.

After the day: what to record

• Who covered, for how long, and in which room, for pay and for your ratio records.
• Whether the cover list worked in the order written, and who did not answer.
• Anything that went wrong in transitions or merged groups.
• Patterns. If absence spikes on certain days or in one room, that is a workload or wellbeing question, not just a cover question.

Review the plan every term with the people who actually open the building. The best version usually comes from the deputy who has used it at 6:45 a.m., not from the manager who wrote it.

Frequently asked questions