Support is provided by Teacher Booker's own support team, which is separate from any team within the council. Please note that "the Teacher Booker team" can refer to two different groups depending on context: our support team, or the staff within a council who manage Teacher Booker locally. If it isn't clear which is meant, please check, as responsibilities differ between the two. Below is a clear breakdown of what we do and don't handle, so queries reach the right place first time.
What we do
When you contact support from within the platform, you're speaking directly to Teacher Booker's own team, not the council’s team. We handle technical faults with the platform itself, such as error messages or something not behaving as expected.
What we don't do
The items below don't sit with us. They're owned by the council or the school, and need to be raised there directly. You can find contact emails for council teams here
Owned by the council
Topic | Detail |
Inviting workers / account approval | Only the council can send the platform invite or approve an account. |
Approved subjects, roles & year groups | The council sets and controls these, including role changes such as moving from Pupil Support Assistant to Teacher. |
New applicants joining a supply pool | Recruitment and registration sit with the council, not the platform. |
Payslips & pay queries | Payroll sits with the council. The platform doesn't store payslips. |
Name / personal detail changes | Needs to come from the council so platform records match internal records. |
Availability blocked by an ongoing contract | Common with maternity cover and similar placements. The block comes from the timesheet tied to that contract, not a setting we can edit. If the contracted days change, the school or council needs to update the timesheet, and the calendar updates on its own once that's done. |
Owned by the school
Topic | Detail |
Job offers, applications & interview scheduling | Recruitment and interview decisions belong to the school. |
Cancelling or changing a confirmed booking | Only the school or council can cancel or amend a booking; this then clears the worker's availability calendar automatically. |
Correcting job/timesheet details | If a part-time post was booked as full-time, for example, only the school or council can amend their own job posting or timesheet to fix it. |
Common misunderstandings
Because chat is run by Teacher Booker directly, and not by the council, these points of confusion come up often:
What we're hearing | What's actually true |
“HR/Payroll say I'm all set up” | Being on the council's internal HR or payroll system is not the same as being invited to Teacher Booker. Always check the platform directly for an actual invite before assuming you're ready to work. |
“The council said Teacher Booker can sort my subjects/role” | Approved subjects, roles and year groups are entered and controlled by the council. Our support team can view these but cannot add or change them.
What you are approved for can be seen in the ‘Additional Information’ section |
“My internal system shows me as approved” | Internal systems like council HR platforms don't sync automatically with Teacher Booker. An update on one side doesn't carry over to the other, so the platform has to be updated separately. |
“I was told to ask live chat about my payslip / interview / job offer” | None of these sit with chat. They need to go to the council or school directly instead (see above). |
(School) “We can't find this worker to book them” | Usually a search filter issue rather than a missing account. Searches default to ‘General Cover’, but plenty of workers are approved under something more specific – primary teachers, for instance, are often set up as ‘Primary Class Teacher’ instead. Try the relevant subject or role filters first, and only come to chat if the worker genuinely doesn't appear. |
“I need to change my email address” | We can't switch the email on an existing account. The council needs to send a new platform invite to the updated email address instead – come to us only if that invite doesn't come through. |
Worth knowing: workers can already see their own approved subjects and roles under ‘Additional information’ on their profile, and most how-to questions are already covered in our Help Centre.