Primary
Playground duty rota. Yard, hall and gate, named.
A playground duty rota is the break and lunch plan for a primary: who is on the yard, who is in the hall, who has the gate. Wet play moves half of those people inside. The person writing it is usually also the person who knows who is first-aid trained and who is already on a 1:1.
- Yard, hall and gate as separate posts, not one 'lunch' blob
- KS1 and KS2 sittings kept apart from staff breaks
- Wet play as a real alternative, written down before it rains
- A PDF for midday supervisors who will not log in to anything
What primaries actually roster
A one-form entry might have two adults on the yard, one in the hall and one on the gate, then a second sitting. Add a TA who cannot leave a pupil, and the 'spare' person disappears. That is why the sheet lives with someone who can see the whole morning, not in a folder of blank templates.
Wet play, first aid and the gate
If the rain plan is a verbal agreement, the first wet morning is a row in the corridor. Write the indoor posts on the same rota. Mark who holds the first-aid kit. The gate at 08:45 and the gate at 15:15 are different jobs, even when the same name does both.
When someone is off before the bell
The weekly pattern is the easy part. The hard part is 07:40, when a midday supervisor is at the hospital and a TA is sick. You need a daily copy, not a new spreadsheet. SchoolRota keeps the week, then lets you fill the empty post before anyone is on the yard. It will not book an agency for you.
The posts a primary writes down
Morning gate, break yard, hall, corridor, first aid and the home-time gate are separate lines. If the sheet says 'lunch team', people still walk to the office to ask who that is today. A second sitting gets its own line, with its own start time and its own names.
Reception, KS1 and KS2 sittings are staggered on purpose. They should not share a column with the staff break. Wet play moves people inside: hall, classrooms, a corridor. Write that list on the rota in September, not at 10:25 when the rain starts. What a duty rota is is the plain definition. Duty rota software is the product version. Example weeks are in playground duty templates.
Staffing the lunch rota
Midday supervisors often carry the sittings. TAs carry the parts that need someone who already knows the class, and they are also the people pulled when a teacher is off. If lunch duty and an intervention share a name and a time, one of them will not happen. The board treats sittings as posts in their own slots, so you can see the clash before you publish.
A small stable team can live on one weekly pattern. The pattern breaks when the midday supervisor is at the hospital and the TA who would have stepped in is already on a 1:1. You fix that on the day's copy and leave the weekly pattern alone. The hours for that kind of primary are in the 15-staff example.
Publish one copy after the last change
Log the absence first, then look at who is free and allowed to take the post. The suggestion is a proposal. You still decide, because you know the child who cannot be left and the adult who did the wet-play gate yesterday. Publish the updated PDF once, after the last change. The printout in the staffroom should match the email.
Parents do not get this rota. It is a staff plan. If a family needs to know who is on the gate, that is a different notice, not a login to the duty board. Clubs after school are the same kind of post if you roster them: a time, a place, a name. If you do not roster them, do not pretend the lunch sheet covers pickup.
What a template cannot know
A downloaded grid does not know your 1:1s, your job-shares, or which midday supervisor will not do the road gate. Fill those in before September week two, or the template is fiction. The worked primary on the case study is 15 support staff and at least 5 hours a week once sickness and sending the sheet are included. If your yard is calmer than that, keep the sheet. If it is not, the template is the thing you are outgrowing. Count the names on a wet Tuesday and write the number in the office book before you decide which of those you are.
Common questions
- Is playground duty only a primary thing?
- Primaries feel it most, because break and lunch are supervised by TAs and midday supervisors rather than a duty team of teachers on a period grid. Secondaries still roster break, lunch and gate. The posts are just different.
- Can lunch sittings stay separate?
- Yes. KS1 and KS2 sittings are posts in their own slots. They do not have to share a column with staff breaks.
- How long does this take in a small primary?
- In the worked example of 15 support staff, break, lunch, sickness, reprinting and sending the sheet come to at least 5 hours a week. See the primary case study for the split. Pay for that time is costed from the STPCD 2025/26, England outside London.
- Can we have different rotas for different terms?
- Yes. The weekly template can change when the school day changes, for example after October half term when clubs and sittings move. You are not locked to the September file.
- What about staff who do duty at more than one time?
- They can be on the gate before school and in the hall at lunch, as two assignments. The board will not also put them on the yard in the same window.
- Can parents see the rota?
- No. The published PDF is for staff. It is not a parent portal, and it does not name pupils.
See also what a duty rota is, duty rota software, covering an absence and the 15-staff primary 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.