The SchoolRota blog

These are working notes on the morning the rota is rebuilt: duty posts, cover, a trust with more than one school. They assume you have stood in an office before the bell. If you want the product instead of the method, start with duty rotas, cover or MATs.

If you are new to the job

• What a school duty rota is
• How to plan school cover
• When a cover spreadsheet is enough
• SchoolRota vs the spreadsheet

Guides

• How to create a school duty rota Build a school duty rota from the staff list, the posts, and the times. Then publish one copy people can follow.
• School cover management: 12 practices that hold up Twelve rules for school cover: who goes first, how you count fairness, and a morning routine that ends in one published list.
• Playground duty rota: templates for primaries Example playground duty rotas for a small primary, a split lunch, and wet play. Copy the shape, then use your own names.
• How to manage teacher absences Record the absence, find cover that is actually free, tell people once, and keep a note of what happened to the lesson.
• MAT cover: running it across several schools How a trust handles cover when each school has its own sheet: shared staff, one view for the centre, and a rollout that does not start everywhere on Monday.
• School staffing ratios in England: what to plan for There is no single DfE ratio for primary break and lunch. EYFS is different. Here is what to put on the duty rota instead.
• Cover supervisor and teacher: what is different A cover supervisor supervises work that was set. A teacher teaches. The rota goes wrong when those jobs are treated as the same slot.
• How to cut cover costs in a primary Five ways a primary spends less on cover: an internal order, a fairness count, protected interventions, tighter supply, and a weekly look at the bill.
• A school duty rota policy you can edit A plain duty and cover policy you can edit: who goes first, what you will not move, and what gets written down after the morning.
• What STPCD means for school cover The STPCD is the pay and conditions document for teachers in maintained schools in England. Here is the cover line, and what it does not say.
• How AI fits into school cover Where AI helps on a school cover morning and where it should stop. It drafts names you can reject. It never publishes the rota.
• Five signs the cover spreadsheet is finished Five signs the cover spreadsheet is costing the morning: several versions, missed cover, no fairness count, one owner, and no record when leaders ask.