Staff rota app for schools. The day on a phone, after you publish.

• Today, week and month views of the same schedule the web portal shows
• An alert when the rota is published or a duty is moved
• Request a change, or mark a duty that did not happen, when the school allows it
• No names or posts on the lock screen

What staff see

Open the app and the first screen is today: the duty, the time, the post, and any weekly block such as an intervention or a meeting. Swipe to the week or the month. It is the same My schedule that a person with a login sees in the browser, so the phone and the web never disagree. The last fetched day and week stay on the phone, marked with the time they were updated, for the corner of the yard where the signal drops.

What the rota lead keeps

The app does not publish rotas, edit setup or open Admin. Those stay with the person who runs the board. That is deliberate. A rota that anyone can change from a phone is not a rota, it is a group chat. Staff can ask for a change when the school allows it. The lead approves or rejects, and the person hears back in the app inbox.

Staff who will not install anything

Some midday supervisors will never install an app, and they do not have to. Every published day is also a PDF in their email that opens without an account. The app is for staff who want alerts and their own week in one place. The PDF is for everyone. Nobody has to be chased into a download to know where they are standing.

A staff rota app is the reading end of the rota

Search for a staff rota app and most results are built for shops and care homes: shift swaps, clock-in, hours for payroll. A school is different. Nobody clocks in for the yard. The hard part is the same-day change, when the person who was on the gate at 12:00 is off sick and someone else has to know before the bell. That is the moment the app is for.

So the app is deliberately narrow. It shows a person their own day, tells them when it changes, and lets them ask for a change through the lead rather than around them. Everything that decides who goes where happens on the board, with the rules your school set. The phone is where the answer lands.

Alerts that say something useful

An alert arrives when the day is published, when a live duty is moved, and when a change request is approved or rejected. It does not arrive every time the lead drags a name around a draft. Staff never see a draft. They see the version that was published, which is the version the staffroom copy should match.

Lock-screen alerts carry no names and no posts, so a phone on a table does not tell the room who is covering whom. Staff can refuse alerts and still use the app. They can also lock it with Face ID, Touch ID or the device passcode. That only unlocks the phone. It does not replace the school sign-in.

Signing in without another password

Staff find their school by name. If the school uses Microsoft, Google or Okta sign-in, they use that, in the phone's own browser. If they use an email and password, it is the same one as on the web. There is no separate app account to forget. Admin accounts that sign in with a local password still enter an authenticator code.

When someone leaves, the school disables the account in one place and the app stops working on that phone. You do not chase a personal device to remove a shared spreadsheet link.

What the app records, and what it does not

If a duty or a weekly block did not happen, the person can say so from the app, with a confirm step. That feeds the missed work view, so an intervention that kept getting dropped is visible to the SENCO rather than lost in a corridor conversation. It does not record pupil information, and it is not a timesheet.

A request to erase app data goes to the school, because the school is the data controller. The staff app account page explains how that works for a member of staff.

Rolling it out to staff

Start with the people who move most often: TAs, cover supervisors and the midday team leads. Send them the store link with the day's PDF, so the first thing they see in the app is a day they already recognise. Leave everyone else on the PDF until they ask. After a fortnight, check which staff still ring the office to ask where they are. That is the list to help, one person at a time, rather than another all-staff email.

Common questions

Is there a staff rota app for iPhone and Android?

Yes. Search SchoolRota on the App Store or Google Play. It is one listing for every school. Staff find their school by name, then sign in with the same login they use on the web.

Can staff change the rota from the app?

No. They can request a change on a duty when the school allows it, and mark a duty or weekly block that did not happen. The rota lead decides. Publishing and setup stay on the web.

Do staff need the app to see the rota?

No. The published PDF opens on any phone without an account. The app adds alerts, the week view and change requests for staff who have a login.

Does the app work without a signal?

It shows the last fetched day and week, marked with the time they were updated. Change requests and missed work need a connection.

Is the staff app an extra cost?

No. Every feature is on every plan, and the app has no separate charge. Plans are priced by rota staff seats.

See also duty rota software, same-day cover, every feature and UK pricing.