Cover access (co-teachers for a set time)

5 steps 12 min Updated 4 November 2026

When a teacher is away, Cover access makes a colleague a co-teacher of the absent teacher's Google Classroom classes for a set time. In the sidebar it's under Engagement (some messages in Realsmart still call it Classroom → Cover access; it's the same page). Realsmart adds the cover teacher to the classes in Google Classroom, keeps them there while the cover lasts (the nightly Classroom sync leaves them alone), and removes them automatically when it ends. Every grant, revoke and removal is recorded.

Realsmart makes the change in Google Classroom through this school's existing Google sync connection, acting as the school's Google admin — the same connection the nightly Classroom sync uses. Giving cover is an explicit agreement to that, so the page asks you to confirm it every time.

What a cover teacher can do

Google Classroom has no "cover" role: a cover teacher is a full co-teacher of each class until the cover ends. For up to 28 days, and possibly from another school in your trust that shares your Google domain, they can:

see pupils' names, photos and email addresses, all their work, and the class calendar;
see guardians' names and email addresses;
invite or remove guardians where your school lets verified teachers manage guardians — and that applies to all of the pupil's classes at the school;
remove pupils — and removing a pupil deletes their grades from the gradebook, which ending the cover can't undo;
remove other co-teachers and invite more teachers (Realsmart doesn't remove teachers they invite — see Teachers added during the cover);
share the class's Drive folder and teacher group email. When the cover ends they lose access to the class; files they made stay theirs.

Make sure your safeguarding lead and your data protection impact assessment are happy with this before you use cover access. Co-teachers and admins can also remove a teacher in Google Classroom itself at any time.

Before you start

Cover access must be switched on for your school by Realsmart. Until it is, the page isn't in the sidebar. (If the school still has live cover after it's switched off, the page stays so you can revoke it: a banner says New cover can't be given here.)
Google sync must be live for the school (on, not in preview), and Google must be connected. If not, the page says New cover can't be given right now and why: Connect Google first: add the Google admin user and domain under Google Workspace → Settings. or Google sync isn't live for this school, so Realsmart can't add co-teachers. Live cover can still be revoked.
No new cover can be given while provisioning is frozen between school years (Provisioning is frozen for this school between school years, so no new cover can be given until it reopens.). Cover already given still ends on time, and you can still revoke it.
You need permission to give cover access to classes (see Who can give cover). In the MAT overview the page says Pick a school: cover is given at one school at a time.

Give cover

The Give cover card has four steps and a confirmation.

Step 1: Who is away, and when

Under Absent teacher, type at least two letters of their name or username and choose them (only admins and mentors at this school are listed). Choose the Day (today or later). Realsmart then looks up their classes.

Step 2: Classes

Realsmart lists the absent teacher's lessons that day from the timetable, with their times, and ticks every one that has a Google Classroom class. The timetable is there for schools that sync timetables to Google Calendar, from yesterday to about five months ahead; without it, Realsmart lists the classes they teach on any day instead — untick the ones that don't need cover. Lessons with no Google Classroom class are named (Not in Google Classroom, so not offered) but can't be chosen. Use Add another class (type at least two letters) to add any active class of your school, then Add. Up to 15 classes at a time.

Realsmart can only offer classes it knows about: those linked to your MIS groups, and — if your school uses Classroom reporting or the live Classroom widgets — the classes it keeps a copy of. A class a teacher made in Classroom themselves, with no link to a group, may not be offered.

Step 3: Cover teachers

Choose one colleague to cover every class, or add more and choose who covers each class (a Choose… list appears beside each class). Type at least two letters of a name or username. Only admins and mentors with a Google account are listed — never pupils, placeholder accounts or the school's Google admin account. Colleagues at another school in your trust can be chosen only when their school shares your Google domain (the school's name shows beside them); a class belongs to the school Google Classroom says owns it.

Step 4: Until when

Cover ends: At the end of that day (23:59), At the end of a later day or At a set time. Cover lasts at least an hour and at most 28 days. Choose an optional Reason (Absence, Meeting or CPD, Trip or visit, Other) — there's no free-text box, so never a note of why someone is away.

Step 5: Confirm

Read What a cover teacher can do, tick the box agreeing that Realsmart may add and remove co-teachers through the school's Google sync connection, and select Give cover (it stays greyed out until you've chosen a class and a cover teacher and ticked the box). A confirmation (Give cover?) spells out what a co-teacher can do; select Give cover again.

Cover for today reaches Google Classroom within a few minutes (the page says Cover for N classes is on its way.). Cover for a later day shows as Upcoming and is added when it starts (Cover for N classes is booked.). The page updates by itself every few seconds while anything is being added or removed.

Active and upcoming cover

Every live cover grant at the school, held ones first and then soonest end first — including cover teachers gave from the launchpad. Filter by Teacher, Class or Day. Each row shows the class, the cover teacher (and their school, if it's another), when it runs, who gave it and whether it was given here or from the launchpad, and its status:

Status	What it means
Upcoming	Booked for later; added when it starts.
Adding…	Realsmart is adding the cover teacher in Google Classroom.
Active	They are a co-teacher until the time shown.
Removing…	Revoked, or left by the cover teacher; Realsmart is removing them.
Ended — access remains	The cover has ended but Google won't remove them, because they own the class or its Drive folder, or the class's owner account was deleted. They still have full access: these rows sit at the top in red. Remove them in Google Classroom, or transfer the class to a new owner. Realsmart keeps trying hourly for a day, then daily.

Revoke ends one cover now (confirm Revoke this cover?); Revoke all ends every live cover at the school (confirm Revoke all N live cover grants?). Either removes the cover teacher from the class within a few minutes, whatever settings are switched on or off, and is recorded in the audit trail.

If cover access is switched off for the school while cover is still live, the page stays available to show and revoke it until the last one has gone.

History

Cover that ended (Ended), was revoked (Revoked) or couldn't be added (Not added), newest first, with who gave it, how it ended and, for cover that couldn't be added, why — see Troubleshooting.

Teachers added during the cover counts anyone who became a teacher of the class while the cover lasted, other than the cover teacher and the class's own MIS teachers; pending teacher invitations counts invitations still waiting. Realsmart doesn't remove those people — check them in Google Classroom.

Cover records are kept for 24 months, then deleted.

Who can give cover

Admins with the Give cover access to classes permission (the full admin preset has it; a reduced admin only if it's added in their access settings), at their own school or at a school of their trust they haven't been barred from under Admin permissions. Realsmart's own staff can't give cover at your school.
Mentors who arrange cover, without an admin account: an admin who can change school settings switches on Mentors on the cover list can give cover in the Cover managers who aren't admins card at the bottom of the page and adds them to the Cover list (Add a mentor to the cover list). They then see Cover access in their sidebar, at their own school only. Taking someone off the list stops them at once. A mentor whose own profile blocks it shows Blocked on their profile here and can't give cover until that's cleared.
Teachers, from the launchpad: when Cover access is switched on under Launchpad widgets, staff can add a colleague to their own classes from their My classes card, and see and leave cover they've been given. That cover appears here too.

How the nightly sync treats cover teachers

The page says whether Realsmart removes teachers who aren't in the MIS at your school. Either way, a cover teacher stays in the class until the cover ends: the nightly Classroom sync never removes someone with live cover, and the group's Classroom tab shows them as Covering until … rather than as someone the sync will remove. If someone was already a teacher of the class before the cover, Realsmart leaves them there when it ends.

If Google sync is switched off or to preview while cover is live, Realsmart adds no new cover but still removes live cover at its end time. School settings → Sync services warns you when that's the case (for example 3 cover grants are live at this school. With Google sync off, Realsmart adds no new co-teachers, but it still removes these at their end time).

Troubleshooting

While you give cover (nothing is given when you see one of these):

"Choose a cover teacher." or "Choose a cover teacher for (class)." Pick someone in step 3 (and, with several cover teachers, one for each class).
"Choose today or a later day.", "Choose the day of the absence.", "Choose the day cover ends." or "Choose the day and time cover ends." Fix the dates in steps 1 and 4.
"Cover must last at least an hour. Choose a later end." and "Cover can last at most 28 days. Choose an earlier end." Change the end time.
"Choose up to 15 classes at a time." Untick some and give cover in more than one go.
"One of the classes isn't an active Google Classroom class of this school any more. Find the classes again." Choose the absent teacher again to refresh the list.
"A cover teacher must be an admin or mentor here (or at a school sharing this school's Google domain in the trust) with a Google account. Choose them again." The person you chose has no Google account, or isn't staff.
"(Name) already has N live cover grants; one person can have at most 30." and "You can give at most 60 class covers a day, and you've given N in the last 24 hours." Limits per cover teacher and per person giving cover.
"Tick the box to confirm Realsmart may add co-teachers to Google Classroom through the school's Google sync connection." Tick the box in step 5.
"Cover access can't be given at this school yet. Live cover can still be revoked." Cover access isn't switched on for your school: ask Realsmart support.
"You can't give cover access at this school." or "You can't revoke cover access at this school." You don't have the permission here (see Who can give cover).
"Cover couldn't be given: the change couldn't be recorded in the audit trail. Try again in a moment. Nothing was given." Try again.
"This page is for (school), but you have switched to the MAT overview since. Reload the page to carry on." (or "reload to manage (other school). Nothing was changed."). You switched school in another tab. Reload.

In the history, why a cover shows "Not added" (or an explanation under Ended):

Google says this class has as many teachers or members as it can take. / Google says this colleague is in too many classes or groups. Google's own limits. Remove someone from the class, or choose another cover teacher.
The cover teacher is a pupil in this class in Google Classroom. Choose someone else.
The cover teacher has no Google account. / The cover teacher's Google account is suspended. / The cover teacher isn't an admin or mentor any more. Check the person's account.
The class isn't active in Google Classroom (archived or not yet accepted). Cover can only be added to active classes.
The class or the cover teacher belongs to another school. The class and cover teacher must be at the same school, or schools that share a Google domain in the trust.
The person who gave it isn't an admin or mentor any more. / …can't give cover access at this school. / …isn't a teacher of this class. (cover given from the launchpad).
Provisioning is frozen for this school between school years. / Google sync isn't live for this school. / Cover access was switched off before it could start. / Cover access was switched off for the launchpad before it could start. Give the cover again once the school is live.
Realsmart couldn't sign in to Google as the school's admin. Check the Google connection under Google Workspace → Settings.
Google didn't answer in time. / Something went wrong in Google. / Realsmart couldn't finish this. Check the class in Google Classroom. Check the class in Classroom and give the cover again.
Its times weren't allowed: it had already ended, or it was shorter than an hour or longer than 28 days. / The cover teacher already had as many live cover grants as one person can (30). / The person who gave it had already given as many covers as they can in a day (60). / Too many classes were chosen at once (at most 15). The limits above.
They were already a teacher of this class, so Realsmart left them in place. / They are now one of the class's MIS teachers, so Realsmart left them in place. / Another cover for the same person and class is still live; that one removes them when it ends. / They had already left the class. / It ended before Realsmart added anyone, so there was nothing to remove. These are explanations, not problems.
They own the class or its Drive folder, so Google won't remove them. Remove them in Google Classroom. / The class's owner account is deleted, so Google won't remove anyone. Transfer the class to a new owner. These show as Ended — access remains (in red, at the top of the live table).

Other questions

I can't see Cover access in the sidebar. Cover access isn't switched on for your school, or you don't have permission to give cover (an admin needs Give cover access to classes; a mentor needs to be on the cover list at their own school).
The Give cover card isn't there. A banner at the top of the page says why (Google isn't connected, Google sync isn't live, provisioning is frozen, or cover access isn't switched on for your school).

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