Before half-term (Monday 26 to Friday 30 October 2026 for Kent community schools), fill in a one-page sheet: dates, your cover person, active work with next action, owner and deadline, open decisions, risks, systems and access, and a first-day checklist. Paste the filled rows into any AI chat with a prompt that drafts the note only from them, or write it by hand.
Steps follow Kent County Council's term dates page and Microsoft Support's Copilot Pages to Word article, checked 12 October 2026. The Wealdmoor example is made up.
For the home side of the same week, see Plan half-term cover and days out with AI.
Which dates should the note cover?
Kent County Council lists half-term for Kent community schools as Monday 26 October to Friday 30 October 2026, with term 1 ending on Friday 23 October and term 2 starting on Monday 2 November 2026. Academies and free schools set their own term dates, and Kent says some schools' dates differ, so check your child's school calendar before you put dates on the note.
If you're off for part of the week, write the exact days you're away and the day you're back. Your cover person needs both.
What goes on the sheet?
Take the rows from where your work already lives: your task tracker or board, your calendar for the week you're away, and your inbox for anything waiting on a reply. A spreadsheet, a table in a document or plain text all work, one line per row.
Leave a cell empty when you don't know the answer yet. An empty cell tells you what to chase before you go, and the prompt below keeps it visible.
- Dates covered: first day away, last day away, day you're back.
- Cover person: their name, and who they go to if they get stuck.
- Active work: one row per item, with the next action, the owner and the deadline.
- Open decisions: what's undecided, who decides, and by when.
- Risks: what could go wrong while you're away and what the cover person should do if it does.
- Systems and access: each system, who owns it, and what the cover person can reach. Names and permissions only, never passwords.
- First-day checklist: what the cover person should check on Monday morning, in order.
Optional: send it to Word through a Copilot Page
If you use Microsoft 365, you can open the drafted note as a Copilot Page and turn it into a Word document. Microsoft's article says to select Create in the upper right corner of the page, choose Document, then select Open Word once Copilot has prepared the draft. The page opens in Word for the web.
Microsoft sets two access requirements. On a work or school (Entra ID) account, Copilot Pages needs SharePoint or OneDrive storage, but no Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. On a personal Microsoft account, it needs a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, Premium or Pro subscription. The same article says the option to convert a page to PowerPoint is currently unavailable, even though the article's web address still mentions PowerPoint. For the full route from a chat answer to a page, see Turn one Copilot Chat answer into Word via a Page.
Read the Word version against your sheet before you share it, because Copilot prepares a new draft during the conversion.
Example: Wealdmoor cover for 26–30 October 2026
Priya Shah runs the Wealdmoor office move and is away for the whole of half-term. Her filled-in rows read like this.
Dates covered: away Monday 26 October 2026 to Friday 30 October 2026, back Monday 2 November 2026.
Cover person: Tom Reed. If stuck: Ana Lowe (programme manager).
Active work: Furniture order | confirm delivery slot with supplier | Tom Reed | Wednesday 28 October 2026.
Active work: Staff seating plan | send final plan to team leads | Tom Reed | Friday 30 October 2026.
Active work: Network cutover booking | chase IT for a date | Dev Patel | (empty).
Open decision: Keep or drop the second-floor kitchen refit | Ana Lowe | Thursday 29 October 2026.
Risk: Supplier misses the delivery slot | Tom calls the supplier's account manager and tells Ana the same day.
Systems and access: Supplier portal | owner Dev Patel (IT) | Tom has read access from Friday 23 October 2026.
First-day checklist: read the supplier portal for overnight messages, then check the shared move inbox.
A draft that keeps to those rows opens like this.
Cover note for Tom Reed, Monday 26 October 2026 to Friday 30 October 2026. Priya Shah is back on Monday 2 November 2026; if you're stuck, go to Ana Lowe.
Network cutover booking: Dev Patel to chase IT for a date. Deadline: [blank: ask me].
The deadline stays blank because Priya left it empty, and it appears again under Gaps after the note. Priya asks Dev for a date before Friday 23 October 2026, updates the row and runs the prompt again.
Check it with your cover person before you go
Read the note against your sheet line by line. Every task, name and deadline in the note should sit in a row, and nothing in the Gaps list should still be blank. Search the note for anything that looks like a password or code and take it out.
Then send the note to your cover person, ask them to log in to each system on the list while you're still around, and fix any access that fails before your last working day.
Sources
- Kent County Council, Term dates, checked 12 October 2026.
- Microsoft Support, Convert your Microsoft 365 Copilot Pages to Word or PowerPoint (now titled Convert your Microsoft Copilot Page to a Word document), last updated February 2026, checked 12 October 2026.
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