UK primary school
A 15-staff primary gets 5 hours a week back
In a small UK primary the duty rota is often owned by the head or the SENCO, though a deputy or office manager may hold it. Break and lunch cover, sick cover, reprinting the sheet and sending it round take at least 5 hours a week. SchoolRota cuts that to about half an hour a week, then emails the PDF and syncs Outlook.
- 240 hoursback every year, about 37 school days
- £13,646net saving after the Starter plan
- 18.3xreturn, paid back in about 2.8 weeks
5 hours a week of rota time, for £790 a year
The roster sits with the headteacher, whose time costs about £60 an hour once pension and National Insurance are added. Doing it by hand costs £15,879 a year.
Cost per hour saved
£3
15 staff on the Starter plan
Time back each month
20 hours
Straight back to pupils and leadership
Who can run it
The office
Rules and the assistant hold the expertise, not one person
The school
Who this is modelled on
One-form-entry village primary in England (outside London). About 210 pupils. Fifteen support staff on the duty rota: TAs, midday supervisors and a small office team. The weekly sheet often still sits with the head, because they know who can cover phonics, who is first-aid trained, and who is already on a duty that day. A SENCO, deputy or office manager can own it instead. The hours stay the same.
Role costed
Headteacher
Leadership L13, Group 1 mid-range
Published salary
£69,596
2025/26, England excluding London
Loaded hourly rate
£60
With pension and National Insurance
These figures are modelled on published pay and typical duty-roster practice, not taken from one named school. Pay is School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2025 (England excluding London, 2025/26). The full workings are set out at the bottom of this page.
The morning
Same absences, two very different mornings
This is where the hours actually go. Not planning, but reacting before the gate opens.
- 07:40Two calls: a TA is sick and a midday supervisor is at hospital.Log both absences on the Today board, or say it in chat.
- 07:45Open last week's spreadsheet and check who is free, first-aid trained and not on 1:1.Cover is already proposed and explained, following your rules.
- 08:05Reprint the sheet, email it, then correct it again when a third change lands.Publish once. The PDF goes out and duties land in Outlook.
- 08:30Staff arrive holding three different versions.Everyone has the same rota, including anyone who never logs in.
The numbers
Time and money, side by side
Specialist time spent building the rota, covering absence, rebuilding sheets and sending them.
Loaded pay for the person who owns the rota, next to the annual SchoolRota plan.
The work that disappears when the rota runs from rules and a published board.
These are real gains we have deliberately left out of the cash figure, so the saving stays defensible.
- Automatic PDF rota emails to staff on the board
- Outlook, Google and Apple calendar updates
- Fairer duty load across the week
- Less key-person risk when the rota owner is away
- Any reduction in agency or supply spend
Today, by hand
Why only a couple of people can do this
- Break and lunch cover is rebuilt by hand whenever someone is off, on a course, or working 1:1.
- The weekly sheet takes most of a day to set, then another half day each month as absences land.
- Updates go out as email attachments or photocopies. Staff miss the latest version.
- It is often the head or SENCO who can do it safely: they hold the knowledge of availability, job level and who is already teaching.
- When that person is out, the school falls back to a stale rota or an all-hands scramble.
With SchoolRota
What changes after setup
- Publish from a weekly template. Same-day sick cover is a confirmation, not a rewrite.
- SchoolRota emails the PDF rota and can sync duties to Outlook, so nobody waits on a reprint.
- Rules already know first aid, cover preference, teaching clashes and who is absent.
- After setup, the office or a deputy can run the day with the AI assistant. Changes stay in draft until someone approves them.
- Whoever owns the rota gets those 5 hours a week back for pupils, safeguarding and the rest of the job.
If the SENCO owns it instead
A lower hourly rate, still a large saving
Plenty of primaries give the rota to the SENCO on leadership L5 (£57,137 plus on-costs), or to a deputy or office manager. The hours saved are the same 5-hour weekly floor, so only the cash figure moves.
Time cost saved a year
£11,832
Net of the Starter plan
£11,042
Return on plan
15x
Feedback
What leaders say about this change
The rota used to live in my head. If I was in a meeting, nobody else dared touch the spreadsheet. Now the office can publish a day and I only approve the odd exception.
Five hours a week does not sound much until you remember it is always the same two people, always before 8am. Getting that back changed how the week starts.
Feedback is composed from reviews of this workflow with school leaders. It is representative rather than a quotation from one named school.
Questions this study answers
- Who usually owns the rota in a small primary?
- Most often the headteacher or the SENCO, sometimes a deputy or the office manager. We cost it at leadership pay because that is the common pattern, not because nobody else ever touches the sheet. An hour of that time is expensive, and that person is hard to replace on a Monday morning.
- Is 5 hours a week realistic?
- Yes, and it is a floor. The standing break and lunch rota, same-day sick cover, rebuilding the sheet and sending it out add up to at least an hour a day in a small primary. We count 5 hours a week, or 22 hours a month, before calendar sync. Larger schools sit above that.
- Which SchoolRota plan fits 15 staff?
- Starter covers up to 25 staff on the rota at £79 a month, or £790 a year (2 months free). Admin and viewer logins are unlimited.
How the numbers are worked out
Pay is England excluding London for 2025/26, using the spine points named above. Teaching roles add the 28.68% Teachers' Pension employer contribution and 15% employer National Insurance above £5,000. Operations roles use a 35% on-cost. Loaded pay is divided by 1,650 hours, a full leadership year rather than 1,265 directed hours, which keeps the hourly rate on the low side.
Manual hours cover the standing roster, same-day absence cover, rebuilding sheets and sending them. A small primary starts at 5 hours a week. Larger schools sit above that. SchoolRota hours cover publishing, reviewing and the odd exception. The subscription is the Starter annual card plan (£790, two months free) for 15 staff on the roster, and net saving is time cost saved minus that plan. Calendar sync and automatic PDF delivery add no cash value here, so the real return is higher.
Sources and next steps: School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2025 on GOV.UK, current plan prices, what the Today board does, and the other studies. Assumptions last reviewed 17 August 2026.
Other schools, same maths
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