School staffing ratios in England: what to plan for

People ask for a playground ratio the way they ask for a class-size cap: one number, printed, done. For break and lunch in England, that number does not exist once children are outside the early years framework. This page says what is statutory, what is a risk assessment, and how that lands on a duty rota. It is not legal advice. Read the current documents, because they move. Check the EYFS statutory framework and health and safety duties for schools.

Two different questions

One question is legal: what must be true. The other is operational: how many adults you need on this yard, with this layout, this age mix, and this morning's absences. Schools get into trouble when they treat a rule of thumb as the law, or when they treat 'no statutory ratio' as 'one adult is fine'.

Break and lunch outside the early years

For key stage 1 and key stage 2, the Department for Education does not publish a minimum adults-per-children figure for break or lunch. Supervision still has to happen. Health and safety law expects a risk assessment and proportionate controls. The things that change the number are obvious when you stand on the yard: how many children, how old they are, whether you can see the whole space, water, equipment, a gate onto a road, a pupil who needs an adult beside them.

There is also no rule that the person on duty must be a teacher. Midday supervisors and TAs are the normal answer in primaries. First aid has to be available. That does not mean every post is a first-aider. It means you know which named person is, and you do not move them off the yard without replacing that cover.

Early years are not the same

The EYFS framework sets staff:child ratios, and they apply while those children are in the provision, including at breaks, not only in the room. The familiar figure for children aged three and over in maintained nursery classes is at least one member of staff for every 13 children, with qualification rules around that, including when a teacher has to be present. Reception classes are easy to get wrong: where the majority of the class will turn five during the year, schools are often outside that nursery ratio and back to a risk assessment. Do not take this paragraph as the full framework. Open the current EYFS document before you set a nursery rota.

Lunch sittings

Staggered sittings are a space decision and a supervision decision. The hall ratio is not a national number. It is how many adults you need so children are supervised while they eat, including the ones still on the yard. EYFS is explicit that children must be adequately supervised while eating. Older year groups still need a named person, not a hope that the kitchen staff are watching the room.

Cover supervision is a different limit

How many children one adult can see on a yard is not the same question as whether a teacher should be taken off PPA to cover a class. Teacher cover in maintained schools is the 'rarely, and only if it was not foreseeable' rule in the STPCD. Support staff employed to provide cover are outside that sentence. Both topics get muddled in staffroom conversations. Keep them apart. The cover side is what STPCD means for cover and cover supervisor and teacher.

Turning a risk assessment into a rota

Write the minimum you will not go below for each post, on a normal day: two on the yard, one in the hall, one on the gate, one of those people first-aid trained. Then write what you do when someone is off, because the assessment that assumes a full team is not the assessment for a sick morning. That second list is the cover plan. School duty rota and playground duty are where those posts live day to day.

Mistakes that are not a 'ratio'

• One adult for the whole lunch because the spreadsheet had an empty cell
• No named first-aider once the usual person is covering a class
• KS1 and KS2 combined on a yard that was assessed for one age group
• A wet-play plan that needs more adults indoors than you have
• Nursery children counted on the primary yard rules

If you want those minimums to block a publish, put them on the duty posts as the number of people required. The board can show a gap. It will not invent a legal ratio the DfE has not set.

Write the number you mean, then staff it

Pick the minimum for your yard after you have walked it, not after you have read a blog. Two adults who can see the whole space may be enough. Two adults who cannot see round a building are not. Record that decision with the risk assessment, and put the same number on the rota as 'this post needs this many'. When someone is off, the gap should be obvious. A rota that still looks full because you deleted the empty row is how schools talk themselves into being short.

Review it when the site changes: a new fence, a bigger nursery, a lunch sitting that moved. A September assessment that is still in the drawer in June is not supervising anyone. Playground duty is where those posts are named day to day. The ratio question and the rota question are the same question once you have decided the number.

Common questions

Is there a legal playground ratio for KS1 and KS2?

No. For pupils outside the early years framework, the DfE does not set a minimum number of adults for break or lunch. The school decides from a risk assessment. EYFS ratios are statutory and are a different set of rules.

Do NSPCC ratios apply to the school yard?

NSPCC publishes recommended ratios for people working with children, aimed wider than a maintained-school playground. They are not the DfE duty-rota minimum. Do not print them on the staffroom wall as if they were.

Related

• Playground duty rota: templates for primaries
• How to create a school duty rota
• A school duty rota policy you can edit

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