Contact
Get in touch. We usually reply within one working day.
Questions about a group rollout, calendar and school login setup, data protection, or just want a walkthrough? Pick the address that fits.
Read our security practices and data processing agreement, or browse the documentation.
FAQ
The questions rota people ask first.
Still have a question?
Email us. We usually reply within one working day, UK hours. Or start a trial and set your portal up when it suits you.
hello@schoolrota.comIs SchoolRota for UK schools?
Yes. It is written for English and UK schools: duty rota language, midday supervisors, KS1 and KS2 lunch sittings, MATs, STPCD-priced case studies, GBP checkout, and production hosting in London. US schools can use the same product with roster wording.
What is SchoolRota?
Support staff rota software for schools, built by teachers for teachers. It runs break and lunch duty, staggered children's lunch sittings, same-day duty and lesson cover, and intervention and PPA sessions on one board. Suggestions are clash-aware, and staff get a PDF rota they can use without logging in. You keep a weekly template, turn it into a daily board, and confirm cover before anyone is notified. Optional AI chat can speed up the same jobs when you enable it. It does not build your teaching timetable, but you can import teaching slots so cover works around lessons.
Who is it for?
Schools that run a support staff duty rota, typically one designated rota person (or small office team) who sets up and publishes, while other staff mainly receive the published rota. It works for primary, nursery, secondary, special and school groups. Breakfast and after-school sit on the same board as break and lunch.
How much work is it to set up?
There is a guided wizard with optional AI help to draft duty areas from an existing rota, plus admin controls for cover policy, teaching timetable and calendar sync. Many schools finish in under an hour; if setup feels fiddly, paste what you have and review the draft, or contact us for help getting live.
What can the AI assistant do?
It is optional and off until you turn it on. Chat can record absences, prepare and publish days, assign or replace cover, list uncovered lessons, auto-fill lesson cover, resolve teaching clashes, list which interventions run on a given day, say how many were missed and whether named sessions such as ELSA ran, and explain the board. Anything that changes the rota shows a preview and needs your approval. Cover picks still follow your rules, not a black box. You can switch it off and the board still works.
How do I sign in?
Open Log in on schoolrota.com and enter the school name, the short portal name (for example riverside), or paste the address from your welcome email. That takes you to your school’s own sign-in page. We do not look up accounts by email on the main site.
How does the free trial work?
One 30-day trial per school, with no card required and up to 500 active staff. Verify a school or trust email and create your password to start. Choose a monthly or annual card plan in Admin when you are ready. If you do not subscribe, you can still view and export existing rotas, but editing and publishing stop.
Where is our data held?
In UK and EU regions, with production hosted in London. Each school's data is isolated from every other customer, and a data processing agreement is available before you go live. Syba LLC holds Cyber Essentials certification.
Can we cover staggered children's lunch sittings?
Yes. Add two times to the dining hall or playground (for example KS1 from 11:45 to 12:25, then KS2 from 12:20 to 13:00) and staff each one, or split a single sitting so different people cover each half. Staff lunch breaks are a separate setting that takes someone off duty, so the two never get mixed up. SchoolRota does not record which children ate.
Can we timetable SEND provision such as ELSA, Thrive or nurture sessions?
Yes. Add them as weekly blocks on the staff timetable: ELSA, Thrive, LEGO-based therapy, nurture, SEMH support, EBSA reintegration, or a name you type yourself. That person is then booked for the window, so cover does not put them on the playground at the same time. If a session is dropped, staff record why. Missed work then shows planned, missed and ran counts by session name, for the dates you pick, up to today. SchoolRota records staff time only. It does not name pupils, hold an EHCP or SEND register, or act as a pupil attendance register.
For pupil SEMH check-in and inclusion evidence, see Inclusion Loop.
Do you track intervention sessions?
Yes, as staff time. Interventions here means the small-group catch-up sessions that run to a weekly pattern: phonics, reading recovery, speech and language, maths catch-up. You add them to the timetable, see them on the daily board alongside duty, and record when one did not happen and why. The people you choose get a weekly summary by email, Friday afternoon by default, and you can change the day and time or turn it off. Quiet weeks send nothing. SchoolRota does not record which pupils attended, so it is not an attendance register.