Run your relief pool without the phone tree

A booking is broadcast the moment you post it. Everyone in your reliever pool who matches the role, is available that day and holds current compliance is notified at the same time, and the first suitable acceptance confirms the booking automatically. That replaces the phone tree entirely — you are not waiting on one person to pick up before trying the next. Because acceptances come back through the app, you can post a booking at 7am and watch it fill while you deal with everything else the morning is throwing at you. Aroha Connect is the software that runs this for you; the relievers are your own, and how quickly a booking fills depends on the pool you have built.

Because the platform holds it and watches it. Each person in your pool has their practising certificate recorded with its expiry date, or a Limited Authority to Teach where they are not a qualified teacher, and the two are labelled distinctly so you always know which you are booking. Alerts fire before a certificate lapses, and once it has lapsed that person stops appearing as available for roles that require it — so the safe outcome is the default rather than something you have to catch. The 20 half-days allowance that lets a registered teacher with an expired certificate keep relieving is counted automatically, so the limit is not accidentally exceeded. Aroha Connect does not register or certify anyone; the Teaching Council does, and your service remains the employer.

The RS7 Early Childhood Funding Return is a condition of funding for every licensed early childhood service, submitted three times a year through ELI, and it reports the funded child hours your service is funded for and the rate each is funded at. Accurate returns depend on your staffing and attendance records agreeing with what actually happened. Aroha Connect gives you a complete, timestamped record of every booking, who worked it, their qualification status and the hours you approved — so when you prepare a return you are reconciling against real data rather than reconstructing a term from memory. It does not prepare or submit the return for you, and your service remains responsible for it.

Minimum adult-to-child ratios for licensed centre-based services are one adult to three children under two, and one adult to ten children aged two and over. Those ratios must be maintained at all times — including while staff take breaks and while children are on excursions. That is why a single sick call is urgent rather than inconvenient: it can put a centre under its required ratio for the whole day. Aroha Connect is built for that timeframe, and shows each person's qualification status at the point of booking so the cover you arrange keeps you compliant on both headcount and qualification. Meeting the ratio remains your service's responsibility — the software makes the information you need to do it visible at the moment you are deciding.

Yes. The same pool covers day relief, long-term relief and permanent recruitment, which means a reliever who has already worked well in your centre or classroom is a known quantity by the time you consider them for a permanent role. Their documentation is already in the platform and already current, so a permanent appointment does not start with a fresh paperwork chase. The hiring decision is entirely yours — Aroha Connect is not a recruiter and does not place anybody.

Primary and intermediate schools, secondary schools, kura, and licensed early childhood services including education and care centres and kōhanga reo. Aroha Connect's roots are in early childhood education, so the ECE-specific logic — ratios, qualified-staff percentages, RS7 evidence — is the deepest part of the product rather than an afterthought.