Can a secondary teacher be asked to cover during PPA?

In a maintained school in England, no. The STPCD says a teacher must not be required to carry out any other duties during PPA time, and cover is another duty. Academies should check their own contracts, though many follow the same terms.

How much PPA should a secondary teacher get?

At least 10% of their timetabled teaching time, in blocks of not less than half an hour. In a secondary that is usually whole periods. Check the current document on GOV.UK for the exact wording each September.

Is a free period the same as PPA?

No. PPA is the protected planning time. Other non-contact periods, such as gained time or a leadership block, are whatever your school's timetable and policy say they are. Label them separately so the cover list can tell them apart.

21 October 2026

PPA and cover in a secondary school

Secondary PPA cover explained: why a planning period is not a free period, who covers first, and how to build a cover list that leaves PPA alone.

Secondary PPA cover is a phrase people search for because the practice is common and the rule is not. A teacher has a planning period on the timetable. Someone is off. The cover list is short. The planning period looks like the easiest square on the grid. This page says what the rule is, why secondaries drift into breaking it, and how to build a cover list that leaves PPA alone without leaving lessons empty. It is not legal advice. The source is the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document on GOV.UK. A plainer reading of the cover paragraphs is what STPCD means for cover and PPA.

The rule in one paragraph

For teachers in maintained schools in England, PPA must be at least 10% of timetabled teaching time, in blocks of not less than half an hour, and a teacher must not be required to carry out any other duties during it. Separately, teachers should be required to cover only rarely, and only for circumstances that were not foreseeable. Those are two different protections. PPA is time that cannot be taken. Rarely cover is a limit on how often a teacher is used at all. A school can respect the second and still break the first, by only ever using teachers in their PPA.

Why a planning period looks free

On most secondary timetables a PPA period and any other non-contact period look the same: a blank cell. The cover manager at 07:40 sees blanks, not labels. If the timetable export does not carry the word PPA, the cover list cannot either. So the first fix is not a policy. It is the data. Mark PPA as PPA in whatever the cover list is built from, and mark other non-contact time as what it is, so the person choosing a name can see the difference without opening the master timetable.

The second reason is pressure. Cover supervisors are already booked, the absence is in a subject nobody else teaches, and the lesson starts in twenty minutes. Taking PPA feels like the small harm. It is the harm the document names. A school that does it every week is not covering rarely. It is running a planning-time deficit and calling it cover.

Who covers first in a secondary

Cover supervisors and other staff employed mainly to provide cover
Other support staff your policy allows to supervise set work
Supply, booked on purpose, when internal cover is the wrong answer
Teachers in non-contact time that is not PPA, rarely, and not for a foreseeable absence
Leadership, as the last internal option

PPA is not on that list. It is not the last resort. It is outside the list. If the list runs out, the decision is supply, a merged group in a supervised space, or a senior leader, made by a person who is accountable for it. The role difference between a cover supervisor and a teacher is on cover supervisor and teacher.

Foreseeable absences are a planning job

Trips, courses, exam invigilation, a meeting in the diary. These are known weeks ahead. Rarely cover says teachers should not be covering for them, so they belong in the plan before the morning, with cover supervisors or supply. A secondary that leaves known absences to the 07:40 list will run out of legitimate names and reach for PPA. Put known absences on the board as soon as they are booked. The morning list should be the sickness that nobody could have seen coming.

Building a cover timetable that leaves PPA alone

A cover timetable is the day's list of lessons whose teacher is absent, with the person covering each one and the room. In a secondary it sits beside the duty rota, because the same support staff often appear on both. Build it from three things. The teaching timetable, so you know which lessons are uncovered. The weekly blocks, so PPA and other protected time are marked as busy. And the order above, so the first name proposed is a cover supervisor, not the head of science in a planning period.

In SchoolRota, PPA is a weekly block on the teacher. Cover routes around that person in that window, and a clash that remains shows as an amber tag on the board. Under the cover policy you can choose to refuse publishing while a weekly block clash remains, or to warn and allow it. A school that protects PPA strictly can block on weekly blocks without blocking on lessons. Every proposal says why the name was chosen, and the tally shows how often each person has been used, which is how you show that rarely is rare. Cover management is that board. How to plan school cover is the order of the morning.

Academies and contracts

Academies are not automatically bound by every line of the STPCD. Many follow it, and staff who transferred in often keep contractual rights to its terms. Check the contracts your teachers actually hold before you write a policy that assumes either way. If your trust has its own terms for PPA, write them into the cover policy in the same words, so the person building the list is not guessing.

What to measure

Count three things each half term. How many lessons were covered by teachers. How many of those were for foreseeable absences. And how many fell in PPA, which should be none. If the third number is not zero, look at the second. Known absences that reached the morning list are usually where PPA went. The fix is earlier booking, not a stronger email to staff.

Keep the numbers with the cover policy, not in a separate report nobody opens. A governor or a union rep asking how rarely teachers cover deserves a figure, not a reassurance. If you cannot produce it in five minutes, the cover list is not keeping the record you need.

Common questions

Can a secondary teacher be asked to cover during PPA?: In a maintained school in England, no. The STPCD says a teacher must not be required to carry out any other duties during PPA time, and cover is another duty. Academies should check their own contracts, though many follow the same terms.
How much PPA should a secondary teacher get?: At least 10% of their timetabled teaching time, in blocks of not less than half an hour. In a secondary that is usually whole periods. Check the current document on GOV.UK for the exact wording each September.
Is a free period the same as PPA?: No. PPA is the protected planning time. Other non-contact periods, such as gained time or a leadership block, are whatever your school's timetable and policy say they are. Label them separately so the cover list can tell them apart.
What is a cover timetable?: It is the day's list of lessons whose teacher is absent, with the person covering each one and the room. In a secondary it sits beside the duty rota, because the same support staff often appear on both.

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