UK primary school
A 15-staff primary gets 5 hours a week back
5 hours a week of rota time, for £790 a year. Net saving about £13,646 a year after the Starter plan, 15 seats.
Read the study →Built by teachers · 30-day free trial · No card required
Every post covered, every school day.
SchoolRota is UK school duty rota and cover software for primary, secondary and MATs. Log an absence and the board proposes who can step in, with reasons. Publish, and every midday supervisor, TA and office colleague gets a clear PDF rota they can open without logging in. Duty, lesson cover, lunch sittings and intervention sessions on one board.
- Built by teachers
- Support staff asked first
- Full product on your own data
Cover proposed · Y4 lesson07:46
Mrs Khan can take 09:00–10:00. Free period, TA, no clash with her 10:30 break duty.Published 07:52
OOakfield PrimaryToday · Tuesday 10 SeptemberDraft · 2 posts need coverPublish
The board
Break, lunch sittings, gate, lesson cover and interventions in one place.
08:30Front gateDuty · 15 minJLJ. LewisCovered
09:00Y4 lesson coverMr Patel absent · 09:00–10:00SKS. KhanProposed
10:30KS2 playgroundBreak duty · 2 adultsSKS. Khan +1Covered
12:00Lunch sitting 1Hall · Reception and KS1UnassignedNeeds cover
12:30Lunch sitting 2Hall · KS2DOD. OkaforCovered
13:30ELSA · Y3 groupIntervention · weeklyRBR. BrooksPlanned
Draft first, then publishRevision history kept
Cover for Mr Patel
Absent today · Y4 · 09:00–10:00 and 12:00 lunch
1SKS. KhanTA · free
Knows Y4. No clash with 10:30 duty. Asked twice this term.
2DOD. OkaforTA · sometimes
Free 09:00. Would move lunch sitting 2 to someone else.
3MHM. HillOffice · if needed
Available. Leadership and office are asked after TAs.
Assign S. KhanOr pick anyone
The problem
Why schools switch from the spreadsheet
Schools already run a rota. It lives in a spreadsheet, a printout on the staffroom wall, and one person's head.
At 07:40 the phone rings. Someone is off. The rota person opens the spreadsheet, works out who is free, who has already covered twice this week, and who cannot be moved off the gate. Then they rewrite it, print it, and hope nobody misses the update.
Intervention sessions are what get dropped. A TA is pulled to cover a class, the ELSA group does not run, and six weeks later nobody can say how many sessions actually happened.
Senior leaders ask for coverage and fairness, and get a recollection instead of a record.
The people are not the problem. The spreadsheet is. SchoolRota works out the cover, keeps the record, and gives staff one clear version to open.
What it saves
The rota costs more than the software.
Figures modelled on published UK leadership pay and US BLS administrator wages. The rota is specialist work today, done early and under pressure. After setup, anyone in the office can run the day.
STPCD 2025/26 leadership pay, England excluding London, GBP plans
4,524Hours given back each year across the 6 modelled schools
£123,122Net saving, 3 UK studies, after the matching annual plans
2,262Hours a year across the UK studies alone
296Staff seats across the UK studies, primary to group
UK secondary school
An 88-staff secondary stops rebuilding cover by hand
8 hours a week of cover time, for £1,790 a year. Net saving about £23,131 a year after the Large plan, 88 seats.
Read the study →UK multi-academy trust
Five schools, one seat pool, and three days a week of time back
35 hours a week across five schools, for £3,490 a year. Net saving about £86,346 a year after the XL plan, 193 seats.
Read the study →Hours and money from the SchoolRota case studies, using STPCD 2025/26 (England excluding London) and US BLS May 2024 administrator wages, minus the matching annual plan. Your school will differ.
The product
One board. Every job the rota person does.
The screens below use your school's duty areas, staff, preferences and session names. A small primary, a large secondary and a trust of twelve schools set it up the same way.
OOakfield PrimaryToday · Tuesday 10 SeptemberPublished 07:52 · revision 3Export PDF
The board
Weekly template becomes today's board. Change what is different, publish once.
08:30Front gateDuty · 15 minJLJ. LewisCovered
09:00Y4 lesson coverMr Patel absentSKS. KhanCovered
10:30KS2 playgroundBreak duty · 2 adultsSKS. Khan +1Covered
12:00Lunch sitting 1Hall · Reception and KS1MHM. HillCovered
12:30Lunch sitting 2Hall · KS2DOD. OkaforCovered
13:30ELSA · Y3 groupIntervention · weeklyRBR. BrooksPlanned
14:15Phonics catch-upY1 · small groupJLJ. LewisPlanned
Today at a glance
What SLT and the office see.
Posts today14
All covered
Absences1
Mr Patel · sick · covered internally
Interventions3
Planned · none displaced
Notified31
PDF email + calendar feeds
OOakfield PrimaryAbsences · Tuesday 10 September2 posts affectedResolve clashes
Log an absence
SchoolRota works out what the absence touches, then proposes who can step in.
WhoMr A. PatelTeacher · Y4Sick · all day
HitsY4 lessons 09:00–10:00, 13:30–15:00Imported teaching timetableNeeds cover
HitsLunch sitting 112:00 · HallNeeds cover
How cover is chosen
Support staff before office or leadership. Preferences per person: Often, Sometimes, Only if needed, Never. Never clash with a lesson, duty or intervention already on the board.
Rules engine, not the modelSupply bookings when nobody fits
Proposals · 09:00 Y4
Ranked with reasons. You choose.
1SKS. KhanOften
Free 09:00. Knows Y4. No clash. Covered once this fortnight.
2DOD. OkaforSometimes
Free 09:00. Has covered three times this fortnight.
3MHM. HillIf needed
Office. Asked after all support staff.
-RBR. BrooksClash
Runs ELSA 13:30. Would displace a named session.
OOakfield PrimaryInterventions · Autumn 1Staff time only · no pupil namesExport
Sessions planned96
6 weeks · 16 a week
Ran84
87.5%
Missed12
9 displaced by cover · 3 staff absent
| Session | Who | When | Planned | Ran | Missed | Last missed because |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ELSA · Y3 group | R. Brooks | Tue 13:30 | 6 | 6 | 0 | Never missed |
| Thrive · 1:1 | D. Okafor | Mon, Thu 09:15 | 12 | 9 | 3 | Pulled to lesson cover |
| Nurture group | J. Lewis | Daily 14:15 | 30 | 27 | 3 | Staff absent |
| Phonics catch-up | J. Lewis | Mon to Fri 11:00 | 30 | 25 | 5 | Pulled to lunch sitting |
| PPA · Y6 | S. Khan | Wed 13:00 | 6 | 6 | 0 | Never missed |
| Speech and language | M. Hill | Fri 10:00 | 6 | 5 | 1 | Pulled to gate |
TRiverside Learning TrustAnalytics · Autumn 1 · 4 schoolsOakfieldAll sitesExport for SLT
Unfilled posts3
of 1,240 · down from 11
Median publish time07:51
Before the gate opens
Interventions ran91%
Across 4 schools
Cover asks per week Sep to Oct
Cover fairness asks per TA
S. Khan6
D. Okafor7
J. Lewis11
R. Brooks3
M. Hill2
By school sessions ran
Oakfield94%
Hillview90%
St Mary's82%
Brook Lane96%
TRiverside Learning TrustSites · Tuesday 10 September193 seats · one subscriptionSupply poolTrust analytics
OOakfield PrimaryPrimary · 31 staff0 openPublished 07:52
HHillview JuniorPrimary · 28 staff0 openPublished 07:58
SSt Mary's AcademySecondary · 88 staff2 openDraft · 2 posts open
BBrook Lane InfantsInfant · 19 staff0 openPublished 07:40
Each school keeps its own boardSign-in, billing and reporting stay central
Break, lunch sittings, gate, lesson cover and intervention sessions in one place. Draft first, then publish.
Three kinds of work, one board
Duty is not cover. Cover is not an intervention.
A break duty, a same-day lesson cover and a weekly ELSA group are different jobs with different rules. SchoolRota keeps them distinct, then puts them on the same board so a cover swap does not wipe a named session.
Duty
Gate, corridor, break, staggered lunch sittings. Set the weekly pattern once. Each day starts worked-out, and you only change what is different.
Run by · rota person · office
Cover
Log who is off. See what it touches: lessons from the imported timetable, duties, sittings. Ranked proposals with reasons, TAs before leadership, never a clash.
Run by · rota person · SLT sign-off if you want it
Interventions
ELSA, Thrive, nurture, phonics, PPA. Timetabled as weekly blocks, protected from casual cover, and counted: planned, ran, missed and why.
Run by · SENCO · TAs · ELSA
Absencedrives cover proposals directlyPublishsends the PDF and updates calendarsMissed sessionis logged with a reason
How it works
From a 07:40 phone call to a PDF in every inbox.
Four steps, one record. One person owns the rota and decides. SchoolRota proposes cover, publishes it and keeps the history. Everyone else mainly receives the published rota.
1Someone is absent
Log it once. See everything it touches.
A name, a reason, a time window. SchoolRota checks the imported teaching timetable, today's duties and any named sessions, and lists every post that now needs a person.
Sick · appointment · course · supply already booked
You never start the morning from a blank spreadsheet.
OOakfield PrimaryNew absence
WhoMr A. PatelTeacher · Y4Sick
WhenTuesday 10 SeptemberAll day
Hits3 postsY4 lessons ×2 · lunch sitting 1Needs cover
Propose coverOr book supply
2Review and adjust
A worked-out board, not a blank spreadsheet.
Proposals arrive ranked and explained: who is free, who is a TA, who has already covered this fortnight, who would clash with a duty or an ELSA group. Accept, swap, or pick anyone you like. Optional assistant suggestions stay in draft until you approve.
Rules you set · preferences per person · clash-aware
Cover still follows your rules, not a black box.
OOakfield PrimaryProposals · 09:00 Y4
1SKS. KhanOften
Free 09:00. Knows Y4. No clash with 10:30 duty.
2DOD. OkaforSometimes
Free 09:00. Three covers this fortnight already.
-RBR. BrooksClash
Would displace ELSA at 13:30.
3Publish
Publish once. Keep the revision.
Publishing locks today's board, records who changed what, and notifies the people affected. Publish again later and the previous version is still there.
Audit trail · revision history · notification confirmations
Nobody is notified until you confirm the board.
OOakfield PrimaryPublish · Tuesday
Changes since revision 23
Y4 cover, sitting 1, gate swap
Staff to notify31
PDF email · calendar feeds · portal
Interventions displaced0
Publish revision 3All protected sessions intact
4PDF lands in inboxes
Staff get a rota they can open, print and keep.
No login, no app to install. A clear PDF for the whole staff (Word if preferred), a personal calendar feed for those who want one, and Microsoft 365 write-back for schools that live in Outlook.
PDF · Word · Excel · print · Outlook, Google and Apple calendars
Staff can use the rota without logging in.
OOakfield PrimaryEmail · 07:52
Today's rota · Tuesday 10 September · revision 3
Morning all. Mr Patel is off today. Mrs Khan has Y4 09:00–10:00, Mrs Hill has lunch sitting 1. Everything else as the weekly pattern. The PDF is attached.
Oakfield-rota-2026-09-10.pdf1 page · opens without logging in
37 features · every plan
Every plan has every feature. Open a group to see what is inside.
You define the duty areas and times, whether that is one playground or six corridors. It is not a teaching timetable builder. You can import teaching slots so cover works around lessons.
Duty areas and time windows
Define playground, dining hall, gate, corridor, bus bay or anything else, each with its own times, minimum and ideal headcount, and whether a lead is required.
Children's lunch sittings
Feeding KS1 at 11:45 and KS2 at 12:20? Add both times to the dining hall or playground and staff each one, or split a single sitting so one person covers the first half and someone else the second.
Weekly templates
Set the pattern once per weekday and reuse it all term. Change the template and future days follow.
Cover preference and grades
Mark who is asked Often, Sometimes, Only if needed or Never for duty, and let staff grades carry their own ask order so leadership are not first in the queue.
Capabilities
Tag qualified staff, such as first aiders, and require that capability on the slots that need it.
Weekly blocks
Record recurring weekly blocks so cover suggestions work around them: PPA, phonics, class cover, and named SEND or intervention sessions such as ELSA, Thrive, nurture or speech and language. Type your own name if you need it.
Interventions
The small-group sessions your teaching assistants run each week, from phonics catch-up to ELSA and nurture. See who is running what each day, record any that did not happen, and see planned, missed and ran counts by session name.
Term calendar
Mark inset days, closures and non-term dates so nothing is scheduled when school is shut.
Absence recording
Log sickness, training or appointments in seconds, with partial-day times and an option to recompute the affected day straight away.
Lesson cover
When a teacher is off, see uncovered lessons, allocate cover (including supply), and keep those choices through day rebuilds.
Clash-aware resolve
On a proposed draft, replace staff who clash with teaching or weekly blocks using clearer eligible cover, with reasons you can show a colleague.
Manual overrides
Disagree with a suggestion? Swap anyone in or out of a draft slot before you publish. Changing the live board is designed to be quick when staffing shifts mid-morning.
Only-if-needed visibility
When the only option is someone you would rather not use, the board says so instead of hiding it.
Supply bookings
Book supply staff for a date range and have them appear in the candidate pool for that school and day.
Live updates
The Today board refreshes as revisions are published, so the office and duty leads are not looking at stale information.
Morning pack email
An optional start-of-day summary to the office, duty leads and SLT covering the day ahead.
Missed sessions
Record when a session or duty did not happen, and why. See planned, missed and ran counts by session name (for example ELSA), filter to interventions only, and download a CSV. It tracks staff time, not pupil attendance.
Weekly summary email
A report in your school's colours showing what was missed and why, sent to the people you choose. Friday afternoon by default, with the day and time up to you, and quiet weeks send nothing.
My schedule
Every member of staff gets their own duties by day, week or month, on phone or desktop.
Personal calendar feed
Staff subscribe once and published duties (and optional teaching lessons) appear in Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar automatically.
Notifications
Email and in-app alerts when a day goes live, plus an optional PDF rota emailed to staff on the board so they have a clear document without logging in.
Day timeline
See a person's duties, lessons and weekly blocks together, so it is obvious why they were or were not picked.
Staff import
Bring your staff list in from CSV, including grade, cover preference and first-aid status, with a preview before anything is saved.
Teaching timetable import
Import lessons from CSV so duty cover steers away from teaching time. Supports week A/B cycles and unmatched-staff review. Native MIS connectors and scheduled refresh are coming soon.
AI-assisted setup
Paste last year's duty rota or an untidy spreadsheet and AI drafts the duty areas, times and staff list for you to check. It suggests, you approve, and it can be switched off entirely.
AI assistant chat
Included on new schools with a daily usage allowance. Day-to-day chat can record absences, arrange cover, fix double-bookings, list which interventions run on a day, summarise what was missed, and publish. Every change is previewed and approved; cover still follows your rules engine. Turn it off in Admin if you do not want it.
Exports
Day and week packs as PDF, Word, Excel and print layouts, clear enough to understand at a glance without logging in.
Email rota on publish
Optionally email the PDF (or Word) rota to staff on the board as soon as you publish, with a short message and the attachment.
Audit log
Publishes, assignment changes, imports and admin actions are all recorded with who did what and when.
Demo data
Load a clearly fictional sample school to train the office team without touching your real rota.
Roles that match a school
Owner, admin, duty lead, office, staff and viewer, each seeing only what they need. Admins can be limited to specific schools in a trust.
School login
Sign in with Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace or Okta, so staff use the account they already have.
Automatic staff sync
Create, update and deactivate accounts automatically from your identity provider, including mapping people to the right school.
Cover and calendar config
Set publish rules for teaching clashes and class-cover gaps, choose calendar sync scope (duties, teaching or both), and turn teaching timetable or class cover on or off per school.
School branding
Your logo and colours across the portal, exports and email, so it looks like your school rather than ours.
Guided setup
A step-by-step wizard tuned to your school type, with progress saved so you can finish it over several sittings.
Unlimited admin logins
You pay for staff on the rota, not for the people organising it.
Optional AI
AI for the admin work. Rules for the cover picks.
Optional chat can draft absences, cover and publishes for you to check. Cover still comes from your rules, with reasons you can explain, not from a model choosing who supervises children.
Every AI output is a draft. You see it, change it, and approve it before a single record is written, and each run is recorded in the audit log alongside the model that produced it.
What AI does
- Reads a duty rota document you paste in and drafts duty areas, times and staffing levels
- Maps a staff spreadsheet to the right fields, whatever the columns are called
- Optional assistant chat for absences, cover, double-bookings, interventions and publishing
- Falls back to built-in pattern matching if setup AI is unsure or unavailable
Where we draw the line
- Cover decisions come from a transparent rules engine, never a model alone
- Nothing is published or sent to staff until a person confirms it
- Pupil data and your rota history are never sent to an AI provider
- Your school's data is not used to train models
- AI can be switched off entirely, and everything still works
Integrations
Fits the systems your school already runs on.
Published duties (and optional teaching lessons) can go into the calendars staff already check. Sign-in and staff records can come from your identity provider. Import the teaching timetable so cover does not clash with lessons.
Duties in Outlook, without anyone retyping them. Published duties can flow into staff Microsoft 365 calendars, or any calendar app through a personal subscription link.
Microsoft 365 calendar sync
Published duties (and optional teaching lessons) are written straight into staff Outlook calendars as events, and updated or removed automatically when the rota changes. It runs one way, from SchoolRota into Microsoft 365, so a duty cannot be deleted from someone's phone by accident.
- Set up once by IT with an app registration in Microsoft Entra ID
- Choose sync scope: duties, teaching lessons, or both
- Per-person opt-in, matched on work email address
- Only published days are written, never drafts
- Credentials are encrypted at rest
- Included for new schools; IT completes Entra setup before events sync
Personal calendar subscriptions
Every member of staff gets a private subscription link from their My schedule page. Paste it into Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar and their duties (and optional teaching) appear alongside everything else, refreshing on their own without any IT involvement.
- Works with any calendar app that reads an internet calendar
- Covers the last week and the term ahead
- Published duties only, so plans in progress stay private
- Individual links can be regenerated if a device is lost
Sign-in and staff accounts, without a second password. School login and automatic staff sync are included on every plan rather than held back for an enterprise tier. Set it up once for the school or the whole trust.
Microsoft Entra ID
Staff sign in with their school Microsoft account. No extra password to forget, and leavers lose access the moment their account is disabled.
Google Workspace
The same school login flow for schools and trusts running on Google.
Okta and other OIDC providers
Any standards-compliant OpenID Connect provider can be configured with an issuer URL, client ID and secret.
Automatic staff sync (SCIM 2.0)
Accounts are created, updated and deactivated automatically from your directory, so the staff list keeps itself current.
Group to role mapping
Map directory groups to SchoolRota roles, so your office team and duty leads get the right access without manual admin.
Group to site mapping
Trusts can send people to the right school using group names or directory attributes, which matters when staff work across sites.
Timetables and staff lists, brought in cleanly. Your MIS stays the system of record. SchoolRota reads what it needs to steer cover and never writes pupil or class data back.
Teaching timetable import
Import lessons from a CSV export so duty cover works around teaching and weekly blocks, including week A/B cycles. Unmatched staff go to a review queue instead of being skipped.
SIMS, Arbor and other MIS (coming soon)
Native connectors and scheduled teaching-data refresh are on the way. Today you import a CSV export from your MIS. SchoolRota never writes that data back.
Staff list from CSV
Upload the staff list you already keep, with a preview of every row before anything is written.
Your MIS stays in charge
Lesson times you import are used only to steer cover. SchoolRota never writes pupil or class data back, so your MIS remains the system of record.
Exports for everything else
Excel, Word, PDF and print packs mean the rota can still go on the staffroom wall or into a governor report.
AI provider
Setup import and optional assistant chat call the OpenAI API. Only the text you paste or the operational request context is sent, never pupil data or your full rota history, it is not used to train models, and AI can be switched off for your school.
Email delivery
Notifications and the morning pack are sent from your school's branding, with a reply-to address you choose.
Tell us what you run, whether that is Entra ID, Google, SIMS, Arbor or a pile of spreadsheets, and we will tell you honestly what connects today.
MATs and groups
One organisation, many schools.
For UK multi-academy trusts, federations, diocesan groups and international school groups. Each school keeps its own duty areas, rota and daily board. Sign-in, billing and reporting stay central. A secondary and five primaries can sit in one organisation, each set up its own way.
TRiverside Learning TrustSites · Tuesday 10 September193 seats · one subscriptionSupply poolTrust analytics
OOakfield PrimaryPrimary · 31 staff0 openPublished 07:52
HHillview JuniorPrimary · 28 staff0 openPublished 07:58
SSt Mary's AcademySecondary · 88 staff2 openDraft · 2 posts open
BBrook Lane InfantsInfant · 19 staff0 openPublished 07:40
Each school keeps its own boardSign-in, billing and reporting stay central
Several schools from the start
Sign up as a group with two or more schools, or add sites as you grow. Each keeps its own duty areas, weekly template and daily board.
Per-site setup profiles
Run a primary and a secondary under one organisation. Each school gets its own school-type profile, duty area presets and setup wizard, so nobody is forced into a shared model that does not fit.
Site switcher
Central staff move between schools in one portal without logging out. Links, exports and notifications stay tied to the right school.
Shared sign-in and provisioning
One school login and automatic staff sync setup for the whole group. Map people to schools with directory attributes or group names, and leavers lose access as soon as the directory says so.
Site-scoped access
A school office manager sees only their own school. Group-wide roles see everything. You decide who sits where.
Cross-site supply
Supply staff sit in a shared pool and can be dispatched to a school for a date range, without duplicate records or a second seat.
Group analytics
Roll coverage, unfilled posts and duty load up across every school, or drill into one. Compare schools over the same dates for a leadership or board report. Each school still keeps its own view of missed duty and intervention sessions.
Cover depth across sites
Lesson cover and clash-aware resolve run at each school. Optional AI chat is available per site if you want it. Central roles can still see cover pressure across the group.
Calendars and exports centrally
Microsoft 365 and Google Calendar sync and staff calendar feeds are configured once, with sync scope for duties and teaching, and branded exports carry each school's own logo and colours.
One subscription
A single subscription and seat pool across every school. Someone who works at three of them still counts as one seat.
Getting a group started
Go live school by school.
For larger organisations we can help with onboarding, including school login, staff sync and site setup before you go live.
- 1Step 1
Sign up as a group
Choose a multi-site organisation at signup and name each site. The portal and school login setup cover the whole organisation.
- 2Step 2
Set up each school
Pick a school-type profile per site (primary, secondary, all-through, etc.), then complete duty areas, staff and the weekly template. Site admins only see their own school's data.
- 3Step 3
Connect your identity provider
Set up school login and automatic staff sync once for the group. Map groups to roles and to individual schools, following our runbooks for Microsoft Entra ID, Okta or Google Workspace.
- 4Step 4
Go live school by school
Publish the first week at one school, let the office team settle in, then repeat. Group analytics start filling in as each school goes live.
Safety and data protection
UK hosting, a DPA, and rules you can show a governor.
Staff names and rota data are school data. The points below are how the product actually works, not a slogan on a security page.
Hosted in the UK
Production runs in London on Fly.io, with encrypted volumes and TLS everywhere. Every customer's data sits in the UK region today. We are the processor; your school is the controller.
Support staff first
Cover asks teaching assistants before office or leadership, respects each person's stated preference, and never places anyone on two things at once. The rules are yours and visible.
Full audit trail
Every publish, swap and absence is recorded with who did it and when. Revision history stays with the day, so "what did the rota say at 08:00" always has an answer.
AI is optional and asks first
The SchoolRota assistant is off until you turn it on. Anything that changes the rota shows a preview and needs your approval. Cover still comes from the rules engine, not the model.
No pupil data needed
Intervention tracking counts staff time: which sessions were planned, ran or were displaced. Pupil names never need to enter the system. Nothing is used to train AI models.
Your school, your setup
Duty areas, lunch sittings, session names, preferences and branding are per-school configuration you can change on any day. Sign in with Entra ID, Google Workspace or Okta.
Evidence
Coverage you can take to SLT.
Once you publish, you have a record: unfilled posts, who covered how often, when the day went out, and how many intervention sessions ran. Filter by school or across a trust. Weekly missed-session summaries go to the people you choose, in your school's colours.
- Rota personToday's board, proposals, publish and revision history
- Support staffA PDF and a calendar feed. Nothing to log into.
- Class teacherWho is covering, when, and whether their TA is being pulled
- SENCOWhich named sessions ran, which were displaced and why
- Head · SLTCoverage, fairness and publish time for the term
- Trust operationsCross-school roll-up, shared supply pool, one bill
OAutumn 1 · Oakfield PrimaryExport for SLT · PDF
Posts covered1,237
of 1,240 · 99.8%
Median publish07:51
Earliest 07:20
Sessions ran87%
84 of 96 planned
Absences and internal cover per week Sep to Oct
Why sessions were missed 12 in total
Lesson cover7
Lunch sitting2
Staff absent3
Counts of staff time. Never pupil-level data.
Early feedback
Built around how school mornings actually work.
Changes stay small, the PDF is the version staff keep, and support staff stay first in line for cover.
Changes that used to mean rewriting the whole rota can now be handled in a few clicks.
The published PDF gives staff one clear version they can open, print and keep.
It keeps support staff at the centre of cover decisions while leaving the final choice with us.
Who runs it
One rota person. Everyone else gets the document.
Most schools have one person who owns the rota and thirty who need to read it. Guided setup, cover policy and calendar sync get you live. If the first configuration feels like a lot, we can help.
The rota person
Office manager, deputy or SENCO. Opens a worked-out board at 07:40, adjusts, publishes. In the modelled 15-staff primary, that is 240 hours a year back.
Teaching assistants
Asked first for cover, asked fairly, and never double-booked. A PDF and an optional calendar feed. No login required.
Class teachers
Know who is covering and when their TA is being pulled. Fewer corridor conversations, fewer surprises at 09:00.
SENCO · inclusion lead
ELSA, Thrive and nurture on the same board as duty, protected from casual cover and counted every week. Staff time only: no pupil is named and it is not an attendance register.
For pupil SEMH check-in and inclusion evidence, see Inclusion Loop.
Head · SLT
A term view of coverage, fairness and publish time. A PDF for governors. Sign-off on cover decisions if you want it.
Trust operations
Each school keeps its own board. Sign-in, billing, a shared supply pool and reporting stay central. Seats counted once per person.
Small primaries, large secondaries, special schools, nurseries and all-through schools. Breakfast and after-school sit on the same board as break and lunch, and terminology adapts per phase.
UK pricing
Simple seats. Every feature on every plan.
GBP checkout for UK schools. A seat is a person on the rota, not a login. Admin and viewer logins are unlimited. School login, the AI assistant and reporting are on every plan. Try your own data for 30 days with no card, then choose monthly or annual card payment. One trial per school; school or trust email required.
Starter
Up to 25 staff£79/ month
One school · cancel any time
A small primary or a single site with one rota person and a handful of TAs.
- Up to 25 staff on the rota
- Unlimited admin and viewer logins
- Every feature, including AI assistant, school login and staff sync
- Calendar feeds and branded exports
Standard
Most popular · up to 50 staff£119/ month
One school · cancel any time
The typical primary or small secondary: duties, lunch sittings, lesson cover and a full intervention timetable.
- Up to 50 staff on the rota
- Unlimited admin and viewer logins
- Every feature, including AI assistant, school login and staff sync
- Calendar feeds and branded exports
Large
Up to 100 staff£179/ month
One school · cancel any time
Secondaries and large primaries with a bigger support team and more moving parts each morning.
- Up to 100 staff on the rota
- Unlimited admin and viewer logins
- Every feature, including AI assistant, school login and staff sync
- Calendar feeds and branded exports
XL · up to 250 staff£349 / month · priority onboardingXXL · up to 500 staff£599 / month · priority onboardingEnterprise · groups, 500+ seatsCustom · multi-site analytics, help with school login and staff sync, volume pricing, dedicated onboarding, custom DPA / DPIA
Every plan includes
- 30-day no-card trial
- Weekly templates and daily boards
- Staggered children's lunch sittings as duty times
- Intervention and PPA sessions on the board
- Named SEND sessions such as ELSA, Thrive and nurture
- Missed session reporting and a weekly summary email
- Rules-based duty and lesson cover
- Clash-aware resolve and cover policy controls
- Absence recording and supply bookings
- Staff and teaching timetable imports
- AI-assisted setup and AI assistant chat (daily usage allowance)
- Staff calendar feeds for Outlook, Google and Apple
- Microsoft 365 calendar sync (Admin setup required)
- Email and in-app notifications
- Analytics and coverage reporting
- PDF, Excel, Word and print exports
- School login and automatic staff sync
- Branded school portal and emails
- Full audit trail
- UK hosting
- Email support
Seats count the staff who appear on your rota, so a person who works across three schools in a trust still counts once. Seat limits are hard caps rather than surprise overage charges: if your staff list outgrows the plan, move up a tier whenever it suits you. The trial itself does not ask for a card. Currency follows your school country (GBP for UK and Ireland, USD elsewhere). UK schools can start their trial online. Annual card subscriptions cost the equivalent of ten monthly payments. Our savings examples put these prices next to what the rota currently costs in leadership time.
FAQ
The questions rota people ask first.
Still have a question?
Email us. We usually reply within one working day, UK hours. Or start a trial and set your portal up when it suits you.
hello@schoolrota.comIs SchoolRota for UK schools?
Yes. It is written for English and UK schools: duty rota language, midday supervisors, KS1 and KS2 lunch sittings, MATs, STPCD-priced case studies, GBP checkout, and production hosting in London. US schools can use the same product with roster wording.
What is SchoolRota?
Support staff rota software for schools, built by teachers for teachers. It runs break and lunch duty, staggered children's lunch sittings, same-day duty and lesson cover, and intervention and PPA sessions on one board. Suggestions are clash-aware, and staff get a PDF rota they can use without logging in. You keep a weekly template, turn it into a daily board, and confirm cover before anyone is notified. Optional AI chat can speed up the same jobs when you enable it. It does not build your teaching timetable, but you can import teaching slots so cover works around lessons.
Who is it for?
Schools that run a support staff duty rota, typically one designated rota person (or small office team) who sets up and publishes, while other staff mainly receive the published rota. It works for primary, nursery, secondary, special and school groups. Breakfast and after-school sit on the same board as break and lunch.
How much work is it to set up?
There is a guided wizard with optional AI help to draft duty areas from an existing rota, plus admin controls for cover policy, teaching timetable and calendar sync. Many schools finish in under an hour; if setup feels fiddly, paste what you have and review the draft, or contact us for help getting live.
What can the AI assistant do?
It is optional and off until you turn it on. Chat can record absences, prepare and publish days, assign or replace cover, list uncovered lessons, auto-fill lesson cover, resolve teaching clashes, list which interventions run on a given day, say how many were missed and whether named sessions such as ELSA ran, and explain the board. Anything that changes the rota shows a preview and needs your approval. Cover picks still follow your rules, not a black box. You can switch it off and the board still works.
How do I sign in?
Open Log in on schoolrota.com and enter the school name, the short portal name (for example riverside), or paste the address from your welcome email. That takes you to your school’s own sign-in page. We do not look up accounts by email on the main site.
How does the free trial work?
One 30-day trial per school, with no card required and up to 500 active staff. Verify a school or trust email and create your password to start. Choose a monthly or annual card plan in Admin when you are ready. If you do not subscribe, you can still view and export existing rotas, but editing and publishing stop.
Where is our data held?
In UK and EU regions, with production hosted in London. Each school's data is isolated from every other customer, and a data processing agreement is available before you go live. Syba LLC holds Cyber Essentials certification.
Can we cover staggered children's lunch sittings?
Yes. Add two times to the dining hall or playground (for example KS1 from 11:45 to 12:25, then KS2 from 12:20 to 13:00) and staff each one, or split a single sitting so different people cover each half. Staff lunch breaks are a separate setting that takes someone off duty, so the two never get mixed up. SchoolRota does not record which children ate.
Can we timetable SEND provision such as ELSA, Thrive or nurture sessions?
Yes. Add them as weekly blocks on the staff timetable: ELSA, Thrive, LEGO-based therapy, nurture, SEMH support, EBSA reintegration, or a name you type yourself. That person is then booked for the window, so cover does not put them on the playground at the same time. If a session is dropped, staff record why. Missed work then shows planned, missed and ran counts by session name, for the dates you pick, up to today. SchoolRota records staff time only. It does not name pupils, hold an EHCP or SEND register, or act as a pupil attendance register.
For pupil SEMH check-in and inclusion evidence, see Inclusion Loop.
Do you track intervention sessions?
Yes, as staff time. Interventions here means the small-group catch-up sessions that run to a weekly pattern: phonics, reading recovery, speech and language, maths catch-up. You add them to the timetable, see them on the daily board alongside duty, and record when one did not happen and why. The people you choose get a weekly summary by email, Friday afternoon by default, and you can change the day and time or turn it off. Quiet weeks send nothing. SchoolRota does not record which pupils attended, so it is not an attendance register.
Contact
Get in touch. We usually reply within one working day.
Questions about a group rollout, calendar and school login setup, data protection, or just want a walkthrough? Pick the address that fits.
Generalhello@schoolrota.comDemos, product questions and DPA requestsTrust and enterprisesales@schoolrota.comMulti-site onboarding, volume pricing, school login and staff syncSecuritysecurity@schoolrota.comVulnerability reports and security questions
Read our security practices and data processing agreement, or browse the documentation.
Try it with your own school this term.
30 days free, no card, full product on your own data. Set the portal up when it suits you, publish your first day, and see what 07:40 feels like when cover is already proposed.