Cover
How to plan school cover. Before the first bell, not after.
Planning cover is a morning job. Someone is off, a post or a lesson is empty, and the sheet from yesterday is already wrong. The useful version is done before staff are in front of children, with one list, not three printouts.
- Log the absence before you start ringing round
- Check clashes: lesson, intervention, duty, 1:1
- You approve the name. A suggestion is not a published rota
- One PDF after the last change, not a reply-all thread
A normal bad morning
About 07:40, two messages: a TA is sick and a midday supervisor is at hospital. On paper you open yesterday's file, look for someone who is free, first-aid trained and not already on a pupil, then print. At 08:05 a third change arrives and the printout in the staffroom is the old one. That loop is the whole problem.
What you are actually deciding
You need someone who is allowed to take that lesson, not just a name with a gap. They might already be on the gate, or they might have to stay with a child. In a secondary, a cover supervisor can run the list once those rules exist, but the decision often still sits with an assistant head. In our 88-staff secondary example, duty plus lesson cover comes to about 8 hours a week.
Where software fits, and where it does not
SchoolRota keeps the weekly pattern, shows the empty posts, and proposes a name from rules you set. Nothing goes to staff until you confirm. It does not write the teaching timetable, and it does not call a supply agency. If you still want the sheet in a spreadsheet, the next page is about when that holds up.
Common questions
- Should cover be planned the day before?
- Known absences, yes. The list still changes on the morning, so you need a daily copy you can amend, not a fresh file named cover-final-v7.
- Who should own the cover list?
- Whoever is allowed to decide. In many secondaries that is an assistant head, with a cover supervisor running the board once the rules are set. In a primary it is often the head, deputy or SENCO.
- Can staff see cover before it is agreed?
- They should not. Publish after you confirm, then send the PDF. A half-finished list in a shared drive is how people turn up in the wrong room.
See also cover software, using a spreadsheet, duty rotas and the 88-staff secondary example.
Try it with your own school this term.
30 days free, no card, full product on your own data. Set the portal up when it suits you, publish your first day, and see what 07:40 feels like when cover is already proposed.