Yard duty roster
A yard duty roster the whole staffroom can check
Set the duty areas and break times once, and FairTurns shares playground, lunch and bus duty out across the staff for the term. Part-timers are left off their days off, and one link shows everyone where they’re standing tomorrow.
Free, with no limit on people or dates. No card.
The duty roster is right until somebody goes part-time
Every school has one: a grid stuck to the staffroom fridge, built by a deputy principal over the holidays. Oval, top playground, undercover area, library steps, front gate, bus line. It holds up for about two weeks. Then a teacher drops to four days, someone starts long service leave, the Year 6 camp takes three staff away on a Wednesday, and the corrections start going on in biro.
By week five nobody is sure whether the sheet on the fridge or the one in the shared drive is the current one, and the same handful of reliable people are covering the gaps. A missed bus line duty isn’t a small thing, so the deputy ends up walking the yard at lunch checking who turned up.
FairTurns keeps the duty grid as one live roster. You set the areas once, it shares the places out, and every teacher can open the same link on their phone before the bell.
How FairTurns runs yard duty
Each area is a position
Add positions such as “Oval, 2 people”, “Top playground, 1” and “Library steps, 1”. Every lunch date then has those places waiting to be filled.
Breaks set once a term
Click Monday, set 12:50–1:30, choose “Every week on Monday”, and do the same for each day and break. The term is on the calendar in a few minutes.
Part-timers left off
A teacher who works Monday to Thursday marks themselves away “Every week on Friday”, and Fill leaves them off Fridays from then on.
No one in two places
Within the school, Fill never puts a teacher on the bus line and the front gate at overlapping times, even when the two are in different teams.
Who goes where
Limit a teacher to certain areas: early years staff on the junior playground, say. Nobody is put in an area they aren’t set up for.
Turns you can see
The Turns booked chart beside Fill shows how many duties each teacher has, so a conversation about load starts from the same numbers. See how Fill works.
Set it up
- 01
Create the school
Create the organisation and a team for each kind of duty, such as Before school, Lunch and Bus duty.
- 02
Add the areas
On each team, add the duty areas as positions with how many teachers each needs.
- 03
Add the staff
Paste a list of names, or invite teachers by email so they can mark their own away days.
- 04
Set the breaks
Click the first day of term, set the break times and choose “Every week on” that day.
- 05
Fill and share
Press Fill for the next 3 months, check the result, then share the link or print it for the staffroom.
When you want it to run itself
On Pro, each teacher who has accepted an invitation gets a reminder email before their duty, and the week’s roster on the day you choose. A teacher who is off sick can press “I can’t make it” from the email, the deputy is told, and filling by itself puts the next teacher in line on and asks them.
A$1 a month per organisation, paid 1 to 5 years at a time. See Pro and pricing
Good to know
- Most schools find a roster per term works best: Fill over the next 3 months, then cancel the dates that fall in the school holidays. Cancelled dates can be brought back.
- Camps, excursions and long service leave: mark the teacher away for the stretch (up to 92 days at a time), or set it for them if they don’t have an account.
- Teachers don’t pick their own duties: you set the areas and times, and FairTurns hands the places out. It’s a duty roster, not a sign-up sheet.
- Marking someone away doesn’t take them off a duty they’re already on, so after a late change, move that one place by hand, or untick them and run Redistribute over those dates.
Questions
Can we roster bus duty and lunch duty in the same place?
Yes. Make a team for each kind of duty, all in the one school. Teachers see every team they are on, and Fill checks across all of them so nobody is put in two places at overlapping times.
How do we handle part-time teachers?
Each part-time teacher marks the days they don’t work as away, for example “Every week on Friday”. Fill and Redistribute leave them off those days. If a teacher has no account, an administrator can set the away days for them.
A teacher has just joined the staff mid-term. Do we start again?
Add them, then run Redistribute. It shares the remaining duties out again while moving as few people as it can, and shows you every teacher who gains or loses a duty before anything changes.
Can the leadership team do fewer duties?
Yes. You can put people on by hand at any time, leave someone unticked when you run Fill, or on Pro set a person to Less often or Now and then for a particular area.
What does it cost a school?
The roster itself is free, with no limit on staff or dates. Pro, which adds the reminder emails and automatic cover, is A$1 a month for the whole school, paid 1 to 5 years at a time.
Free templates and guides
Yard duty roster template
Playground duty by area and break: oval, courts, undercover area and the bus line.
Yard duty roster tips
Share yard duty fairly across a school: areas, part-time staff, leadership, wet days and changes mid-term.
Duty roster template
A duty roster format with each duty in its own column: open up, lock up, first aid, cash-up.
Similar rosters
Classroom jobs for students
Class jobs rotated through every student, run by the teacher, on a roster the class can see.
School canteen and tuckshop helpers
Parent helpers for the tuckshop shared across the term, with the convenor’s roster on one link.
Duty rosters
Rotating duties like duty officer, lock-up or first aid, handed out by turns and visible to the whole office.