Draft CRT notes from tomorrow's rough plan in one prompt

Draft CRT notes from tomorrow's rough plan in one prompt

The CRT notes you write when you are already unwell are the ones a stranger has to teach from at 8.45am. Nobody does their best work at 10pm with a fever and a laptop on their knees, so most CRT notes come out as "read pages 22 to 24 in silence" and a period is quietly wasted. This prompt does not fix the flu. It does give you a one-page brief a competent stranger can actually run.

The prompt

You are helping me prepare a one-page brief for a casual relief teacher (CRT) who will teach my class tomorrow. The CRT has never met these students. They will have five minutes to read this before period 1 starts.

CONTEXT

- Year level: [e.g. Year 8]
- Subject: [e.g. English]
- School type: [e.g. Victorian state secondary, NSW independent K to 12, Queensland Catholic primary]
- Period and length: [e.g. Period 2, 60 minutes]
- Where the class is up to in the unit: [ONE OR TWO LINES]
- My planned lesson for tomorrow: [PASTE YOUR ROUGH PLAN HERE, DOT POINTS ARE FINE]
- Students I want flagged (initials only, no diagnoses): [e.g. "MK works better with a movement break every 15 minutes; TP works better away from the door; JL has extra reading time on an ILP"]
- Adjustments the class already runs: [e.g. visual timetable on the board, reading buddies, seating chart on Compass, phones in the pouch]
- Non-negotiables in my classroom the CRT should hold the line on: [e.g. no hats, laptops closed during instruction, hands up not call out]

WHAT I WANT BACK

Produce the one-page brief in this exact structure, in plain prose a stranger can follow without me. Do not add flourishes. Do not use emoji.

1. LESSON GOAL. One sentence, in student-facing language, the kind that could go on the board.
2. DO-NOW (five minutes). A self-contained task the CRT can put on the board with no prep. Include the expected response so they can check work.
3. MAIN TASK (30 to 40 minutes). Step-by-step instructions. Name the resource. Name the page. Name the handout. If a slide deck is needed, say which slide to start on. If a video is used, give the timestamp range and the one question students answer while watching.
4. IF STUDENTS FINISH EARLY. One extension option that does not require me to have prepared anything new.
5. WHAT TO LEAVE FOR ME. Two or three things the CRT should collect, photograph or note so I can pick up where they finished.
6. WHAT NOT TO TEACH. Any concept or reveal I want to introduce myself when I am back. State it plainly so the CRT knows to skip it, not soften it.
7. SEATING AND BEHAVIOUR. Turn my flagged-students note into practical moves (e.g. "seat MK near the window, offer a lap of the yard at the 20 minute mark, do not remove them from the room for a first refusal"). No diagnoses. No sensitive information.
8. IF IT ALL GOES WRONG. One fallback activity the CRT can pivot to that still connects to the unit and needs nothing new printed.

CONSTRAINTS

- Australian English throughout (realise, analyse, colour).
- Fit it on one A4 page in 11pt. If it is running long, cut adjectives and combine steps, do not cut sections.
- Assume the CRT is a competent teacher who does not know my subject in depth.
- If I have not given you enough context to write section 3 (main task) safely, ask me ONE clarifying question and stop.

What it does well

The structured output forces you to say things you would otherwise leave implicit, especially the seating moves and the "what to leave for me" section. The underrated step is "what not to teach". It protects the moment where you introduce a big idea, so the CRT does not accidentally burn it as a five-minute recap on your way back into the room.

Where it falls over

It cannot see your printed handouts, your slide deck or your school's phone policy, so you still have to check the CRT actually has the resources named in the brief before you send yourself to bed. It also should not be told which students have IEPs, ILPs or safety plans. Those get handed to the CRT through your school's usual channel, not into a general-purpose model.

Try it like this

For primary teachers, swap "period" for "session" and add a transitions section for how students line up and move to specialist classes. For a two-day absence, run the prompt twice, once per day, and paste "what should have happened yesterday" into the day-two prompt so the CRT does not re-teach the same thing. If you only have five minutes, strip the context to year level, subject and "we are doing X tomorrow" and let the model draft a thin brief. A thin one still beats "read pages 22 to 24 in silence".

One good CRT brief means one fewer lesson quietly wasted while you are on the couch.