Six Weeks of Leave Plans: Preparing Cover Before You Go
Quick answer: Build the six weeks as one sequence with numbered days, not thirty separate lessons. Print a master calendar, keep every day's materials in one labeled box, and name a colleague as the contact so the cover teacher is not messaging you. Assume two days will be lost to assemblies and build the slack in from the start.
What do I hand over first?
A one-page map of the six weeks, before any lesson materials. The cover teacher needs to know where the unit ends before they can judge whether day nine went well. Everything else hangs off that page.
- A dated calendar with day numbers, topic, and what is collected that day.
- Two assessment points with the marking scheme already written.
- A named colleague in the building who answers questions instead of you.
- Seating charts with the three things you would tell a new teacher about the class, written plainly.
- Two spare days of work for the weeks that collapse.
How much detail does a long-term sub actually need?
More than you think for routines, less than you think for pedagogy. A qualified cover teacher can run a lesson. What they cannot guess is that fourth period lines up outside, that the copier code is taped inside the desk drawer, or that one student leaves at 1:40 for a program. Write the operational things down and trust them with the teaching.
For the teaching itself, hand over a sequence they can follow by page number. A complete curriculum with a set order, such as World History Complete for Middle School, removes the nightly planning that makes long-term cover fall apart in week three.
Print-and-go for tomorrow morning
- Physics Escape Room: Lever Law & Pulleys, Grades 7-9 — $12.99, instant download
- 50 No-Prep Substitute Lessons, Elementary — $29.99, instant download
Planning longer cover? World History Complete for Middle School holds a full sequence from $149.90. Every download has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
What should I prepare for the days that go wrong?
Keep a spare drawer, clearly labeled, with three standalone days that fit anywhere in the sequence. A fire drill, a snow day, a cover teacher who is themselves absent, a unit that runs short. Without spares, the class gets a movie, and once that happens in week two you have lost the room for the rest of the leave.
Standalone puzzle days work here because they need no continuity. A printable physics escape room can be dropped into any week without disturbing the order of the unit.
How do I keep the work gradeable while I am away?
Decide before you go who grades what. If the cover teacher grades, give them the rubric and the exemplar, and accept their judgment. If you plan to grade on return, say so in writing and set up a labeled tray per class so six weeks of paper does not become one drift of paper. Set two collection points rather than thirty, or you will come back to a bin.
Ask for one email a week, on a fixed day, with three lines: where the class is, who is struggling, what ran out. Anything more and you will be working through your leave. Anything less and you return blind.
What should I not do before a long leave?
Do not start a new unit in your last week. Do not leave plans that depend on your accounts, your files, or a platform seat that expires. Do not promise the class you will be checking in, because you will either break the promise or spend your leave teaching. And do not leave the hardest unit of the year for someone else to introduce cold.
Frequently asked questions
How far ahead should I start preparing?
Four weeks for a planned leave. The materials take a weekend; the calendar and the handover conversations take longer than that.
Should I meet the cover teacher before I go?
Yes, in the room, for thirty minutes. Walking them past the storage, the copier and the seating plan is worth more than any document.
What if the school cannot find a subject specialist?
Then the materials have to carry more of the load. Pick a sequence with printed instructions, worked examples and answer keys on every task.
How do I take the class back on my return?
Reteach nothing in week one. Spend a lesson finding out what stuck, then repair from there. Publicly undoing the cover teacher's work costs you more than the gap does.
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