I visited a school last week that had a manual electric bell system which was operated by a Bell Monitor student. The bell button was located in the hall way so that the students had access. They described a few problems to me. Even though the Bell Monitor was usually on time and operated the bell OK, the office staff didn’t know if the Bell Monitor was at school that day. This meant the office staff then had to take over the bell ringing role whenever the student didn’t turn up. The Office staff needed to check the time regularly for the next Bell Ring this started to be a chore. This continued to happen and the staff were operating the bell themselves, which they now say was not a great use on their time. There is a happy ending, an automatic bell system was installed and has made life for the office staff a breeze.