UK secondary school
An 88-staff secondary stops rebuilding cover by hand
A typical 11-16 secondary has a much larger support-staff pool and lesson cover on top of break, lunch and gate duty. Cover supervisors print lists. The person who can decide who may cover a lesson is usually an assistant head. SchoolRota turns about 8 hours a week of that work into a short daily review.
- 384 hoursback every year, about 59 school days
- £23,131net saving after the Large plan
- 13.9xreturn, paid back in about 3.7 weeks
8 hours a week of cover time, for £1,790 a year
The roster sits with the assistant head, whose time costs about £65 an hour once pension and National Insurance are added. Doing it by hand costs £27,257 a year.
Cost per hour saved
£5
88 staff on the Large plan
Time back each month
32 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
11-16 secondary in England (outside London). About 1,100 pupils. Eighty-eight people on the duty and cover rota: TAs, cover supervisors, technicians, lunch staff and pastoral support. An assistant head often owns cover because it has to respect teaching periods, PPA, exam invigilation and who is qualified for which lesson. A cover supervisor or office lead may run the board day to day. The hours still sit well above a small primary.
Role costed
Assistant head (operations / cover)
Leadership L16
Published salary
£75,049
2025/26, England excluding London
Loaded hourly rate
£65
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.
- 07:20Three absences in the inbox, two of them teaching staff.Absences recorded, uncovered lessons listed automatically.
- 07:35Cross-check the teaching timetable by hand for every proposed name.Clash-aware suggestions rule out anyone teaching or on PPA.
- 07:55Rebuild the duty sheet, then redo it when period 3 changes.Adjust the draft, publish, and the board is the single version.
- 08:15Chase staff who never saw the email.PDF and calendar updates have already landed.
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
- Duty rotas and lesson cover are two spreadsheets that drift apart by Wednesday.
- A single absence can force a rebuild of the morning, plus emails to staff who have already planned their day.
- Checking teaching clashes, weekly commitments and job level is specialist work. A cover supervisor cannot safely do it alone.
- Staff do not see a live calendar, so I did not know I was on duty is a weekly conversation.
- When the assistant head is on a course, cover quality drops and agency spend creeps up.
With SchoolRota
What changes after setup
- One Today board for duties and uncovered lessons, with clash-aware suggestions.
- Import the teaching timetable so cover steers around lessons, PPA and meetings.
- Publish once. Staff get the PDF and an Outlook or calendar update without a second admin pass.
- The AI assistant can record an absence and prepare cover. A non-specialist can run the morning once the rules are set.
- Leadership time goes back to behaviour, teaching and the rare cases that still need a judgement call.
Feedback
What leaders say about this change
Cover used to be a 07:20 job that only I could do. The office now drafts the board and I approve it on my phone. That is the first term cover has not owned my mornings.
The PDF going out on its own matters more than people admit. We were losing 20 minutes a day to which version is this, and to staff who never opened the shared drive.
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
- Why model an assistant head rather than a cover supervisor?
- A cover supervisor can print a list and often runs the board once the rules are set. Deciding who is allowed to cover a lesson, who is already on duty, and who must stay with a pupil is still leadership work in most schools. We cost L16 because that is the common owner, not because a cover supervisor never touches it.
- Does SchoolRota replace the teaching timetable?
- No. You import teaching slots so duty and lesson cover work around them. The product is for support-staff rotas and same-day cover, not for building the curriculum timetable.
- Which plan fits around 88 staff?
- Large covers up to 100 staff on the rota at £179 a month, or £1,790 a year. If you grow past 100, move to XL. Seats count people on the rota, not logins.
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 Large annual card plan (£1,790, two months free) for 88 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
Run the same maths on your own staff list
30 days on your own rota, no card required, and no charge per login.