How do you cover short/medium term planned absence of an IT support member?

I'm trying to put together a request to take a few months unpaid leave to visit my Dad and his family over in New Zealand in the New Year.

I'm trying to ensure there's as little disruption to the school as possible in the hope that they'll look more favorably on my request if I've at least considered the options.

How would/do you go about covering planned absence?

I'm the IT tech here, I have a NM (@reggiep) above me, so there is "cover" in the form of him, he obviously knows the network inside out, but I do a few AV things that he may be less comfortable with.

To be honest, we've done a lot of "big" projects over the summer, including commissioning a new domain which is working really well, so we're just consolidating and tweaking that at the moment, along with the usual firefighting when it arises, so he would be fine by himself (which he's admitted), but I'm not sure they'll go for that...any thoughts would be most welcome.

Ta,
Ben

Depends when it happens - I did exactly that a few years ago at my old place and luckily they did without me for the 6 weeks term time. As i was in charge of the development stuff and moving things forward initially when I had this time off.

Toby

With a small team its a hard call, here when some takes time off we all take on a few extra jobs. There is 4 of us though its allot more flexible that way.

Are there any vaguely competent ETA's or anything who could help out?
Can another local school help?
Can the LEA help?
Employment agency temp contract?
IT Support provider?

This ones easy Ben.

Give Education Support Profesionals a call, we have IT engineers with education experience and CRB cleared available for interim cover.

Here's our website ESP - Education Support Professionals
Please give us a call.

Thanks
Jordan