MAT rota software. One board per school, one seat pool.

• Site-scoped access so a primary only sees its own board
• Shared Entra, Okta or Google school login across the trust
• Cross-site supply when you choose to allow it
• One invoice and one seat pool instead of five spreadsheets

Built for English trusts

A typical five-school MAT mixes two small primaries, a larger primary and a secondary. Each site still needs a named rota owner. SchoolRota gives them the same product, then lets a central officer see what is published without owning every playground post.

Security trusts already ask for

London hosting, a standard DPA, Cyber Essentials on Syba LLC, SSO and optional SCIM. Staff never share one login to a spreadsheet.

What it does not replace

A central officer does not take over every playground. Each school keeps a named rota owner and only sees its own board, unless you allow cross-site supply. The 35 hours is the five-school example, not a survey of trusts. Pay rates in that example come from the STPCD 2025/26 for England outside London.

What happens when every school keeps its own file

A five-school trust with five spreadsheets has five rota owners, five ideas of what 'current' means, and a centre that finds out about a bad morning after it has happened. The cost is not five copies of the software. It is five people doing the same early job, plus someone at the centre chasing which PDF is live. The five-school example puts a number on that. It is a model, not a named trust.

Trust operations do not need to own every playground post. They need to see that each school published, where cover is thin, and that the invoice is one invoice. School groups and federations use the same multi-site tools when the organisation is not a MAT.

Shared staffing, without one giant rota

Each school keeps its own board, duty areas and staff list. A primary does not see the secondary's lessons. Access is scoped to the site. A trust-wide role sees every school's published day from one login.

Cross-site supply is off unless you allow it. When you do, a TA can be placed at another school on a day you choose. It is not an automatic pool that moves people overnight. Term dates and timetables stay per school, because a primary inset day is not the secondary's. Sign-in can be shared: Entra, Okta or Google, with optional SCIM so starters and leavers are not retyped five times. Integrations lists what is connected today, including what is still coming for MIS.

What the centre can report

Coverage is per school: filled posts, empty posts, and the sessions that were planned and then missed. That is the pack a head takes to governors, and the view a trust lead uses when one school is quietly burning its TAs on cover. The audit trail records each change as it happens, so nobody rebuilds a spreadsheet in July.

You do not have to open every school on the same Monday. Set one site up, run a real week, then add the next. A longer account of the options is MAT cover management. The centre still does not take the playground. A trust lead who tries to name every gate post from an office in another town will get the morning wrong. Local knowledge stays local. What the centre keeps is the rules, the seats, and the published record.

Seats, phases and the invoice

A trust is not five subscriptions. The price is rota staff seats across the organisation. Admin and viewer logins are not seats. A secondary with a large cover team and two small primaries can share one plan, and the primaries do not pay a 'phase' extra. If you outgrow the seat limit you move up a plan. You do not open a second product. Count the people on the rotas, not the number of letterheads.

Different term dates are normal. One school's inset day does not delete another school's board. You publish the schools that are open. The ones that are closed stay closed. That is a calendar fact, not a setting you have to beg a vendor for. The 35 hours in the five-school model includes the centre chasing PDFs. If you already have one published version per school, you will not recognise the whole of that number, and you should not pretend you do.

Common questions

Is this only for MATs?

No. Federations, diocesan groups and international school groups use the same multi-site tools. UK trusts are the usual starting point.

Do we pay per school or per person?

Plans are priced by rota staff seats across the organisation, not by the number of schools. Admin and viewer logins are unlimited.

Can one primary see another school's rota?

Not by default. Access is scoped to the site. A trust lead can see what is published across schools without opening every post.

Where does 35 hours a week come from?

Each of the five schools in the worked example is at least at the 5-hour primary floor, the secondary is higher, and central staff spend more time chasing PDFs. The trust case study shows the split.

Can schools in different phases share a trust subscription?

Yes. Plans are priced by rota staff seats across the organisation, not by the number of schools or by phase. A secondary and several primaries can sit in one organisation, each with its own board.

How does site-scoped access work?

A person scoped to one school sees that school's board. They do not open another school's duties unless you give them a trust-wide role or allow cross-site supply.

Can a TA cover at more than one school?

Only if you allow cross-site supply. By default each school's rota stays inside that school.

See also duty rotas, cover, federations and groups, the five-school example and UK pricing.