Same-day school cover. Duty and lessons on one board.

• Absence in, cover proposals out, with reasons you can check
• Lesson cover that respects the teaching timetable you import
• Duty cover for break, lunch and gate on the same day
• Optional AI chat to prepare the day, still with your approval

Cover without rebuilding the sheet

Cover supervisors and assistant heads lose mornings to reprinting lists. SchoolRota keeps the weekly pattern, then treats today as a copy you can amend. Uncovered lessons and empty posts stay visible until you fill them.

Rules you set, not a black box

Cover preference, first aid, job level and who is already teaching all feed the suggestions. Nothing publishes until you confirm. Staff never see a draft.

What it does not replace

It will not build next year's teaching timetable, and it will not ring an agency. Supply can sit on the day so the published sheet is accurate. The 8 hours is the secondary worked example, costed with assistant-head pay from the STPCD 2025/26 for England outside London. Your week may be shorter or longer.

What school cover involves

Cover is not one job. Duty cover is the empty yard, hall or gate. Lesson cover is the class whose teacher is absent. Intervention cover is the TA pulled off an ELSA group or a reading session, and the session that then does not run. Supply is the person you book when internal cover is the wrong answer. Booking the agency is still yours. The morning routine is the part that eats the time: log the absence, find someone who is free and allowed, tell them, publish one list.

In a primary that list is mostly duties and the interventions you are trying not to drop. In a secondary it is duties plus lessons, PPA and the periods someone is already teaching. How to plan the morning walks the sequence. Duty rotas are the weekly pattern this sits on.

How a suggestion is chosen

The board checks the things a careful cover lead already checks, only faster. Is this person free in that window? Are they already teaching, on a duty, or in a protected session? Have they been used heavily this week? Do they have the skill the post needs, such as first aid? The usual order in a lot of schools is support staff first, then office only if you have said so, then leadership last. You set that. The suggestion shows the reason. You can reject it.

Week A and week B are both visible, so a free period on the wrong week is not treated as spare. Staff preferences (often, sometimes, only if needed, never) are rules the suggestions follow. Nothing is emailed until you confirm, so a half-finished list does not become the version in the staffroom. The worked hours for a secondary are in the 88-staff example.

What you can show afterwards

Missed sessions are logged when a planned intervention did not run, and why. That is staff time, not a pupil register. A fairness view shows who has been used for cover, so the answer to 'who has done the most this term?' is not a recollection. A weekly summary can go to the people you choose. The audit trail is who changed the day, and when.

If the spreadsheet still feels like enough, school cover spreadsheets sets out when that is true. The longer comparison is SchoolRota vs the spreadsheet. Practical rules for the morning are in cover management practices. Staff hear about a change from the published PDF, or from a calendar if you have connected Outlook, Google or a personal feed. They do not hear about it from a draft, and they do not need an account to open the PDF.

Where the 8 hours comes from

The secondary worked example is not '8 hours of clicking'. It is same-day duty and lesson cover, the weekly duty rota, reprinting lists, and answering who is where. A school with a cover supervisor and a stable week can sit under that. A school where an assistant head is still the only person allowed to move anyone will sit over it. The split is on the case study, costed with assistant-head pay from the STPCD 2025/26 for England outside London.

Common questions

Can it do lesson cover as well as playground duty?

Yes. Import the teaching timetable, then same-day lesson cover sits next to duty posts. Clash-aware picks will not put someone in two places at once.

Will supply staff appear on the rota?

You can mark supply against a day and keep the published PDF accurate. Booking the agency is still yours.

Does cover go out before someone checks it?

No. Suggestions wait until you confirm. A draft is not what staff see in the PDF or in their inbox.

Where does the 8 hours a week come from?

From the worked example of an 88-staff secondary: same-day duty and lesson cover, the weekly duty rota, reprinting lists and answering who is where. The secondary case study splits those hours out.

Does it produce a cover timetable?

Yes. Uncovered lessons for the day sit on the board with the person covering each one, next to the duty posts. Publishing sends that cover timetable to staff as one PDF.

Does it handle week A and week B timetables?

Yes. The two weeks are separate patterns. Cover uses the week you are in, so a free lesson on the other week is not treated as available.

Can we set cover preferences for individual staff?

Yes. Often, sometimes, only if needed, and never are set on the person. A skill such as first aid can be required on a post, so the suggestion stays inside the people who can do it.

How does it notify staff of changes?

After you confirm, publish sends the PDF. Calendars can update for people connected to Outlook, Google or a personal feed. Staff do not see the draft.

See also how a morning of cover actually runs, PPA and secondary cover, spreadsheet or software, duty rotas, the 88-staff secondary example and UK pricing.