Build your usual week and lay down the rota

Written for: Alternative provision staff who manage the rota.

The Weekly Rota shows who is delivering each session, where, and with which pupils. Most provisions run a similar timetable every week. Set that up once as your usual week, then lay it down onto real dates each week and adjust any sessions that differ. Student Radar flags gaps in staffing, staff working alone and double bookings as you go.

Open the Weekly Rota

In the sidebar, open Today and choose Weekly Rota.

The page opens on the current week, showing today in Day view. Use the arrows either side of the week’s date to move between weeks.

Only staff who manage the rota see Lay down this week and Usual week. On a phone or in a narrow window, they’re under Manage rota. If you don’t see them, ask your Provision Lead.

Build your usual week

The usual week is a set of templates, one for each regular session from Monday to Friday.

1. Click Usual week. The usual week opens, listing each day’s templates.
2. Click Add to the usual week.
3. Enter a Title, such as Maths or Forest school, and choose the Day and Kind: Education, Therapy, Vocational, Outreach / off site, Lunch duty, Meeting or Other.
4. Set the Start and End times, and the Location if it helps.
5. Under Staff · current weekly hours, tick the staff who usually run the session. Each name shows whether the session fits their working hours.
6. Under Pupils, tick the pupils who usually attend.
7. Read any staffing messages. Current staffing requirements compares the adults on the session with the staffing ratios recorded for its pupils. These warnings help you review the plan; they don’t stop you saving.
8. Leave Active (laid down when a week is generated) ticked.
9. Click Save template.

Repeat for each regular session. To change a template, click Edit beside it. To stop using one without deleting it, edit it and untick Active (laid down when a week is generated). To delete it, click Remove.

Changing a template changes future weeks only. Sessions already on the rota stay as they were.

Start from a week you’ve already planned

If you’ve already planned a typical week on the rota, you can turn it into templates.

1. Go to that week on the rota, then click Usual week.
2. Click Add this week to the usual week.
3. Choose whether to Carry staff across and whether to carry pupils across.
4. Click Add templates.

Sessions already in the usual week are skipped. Cancelled sessions, notes, attendance and check-ins aren’t copied. The week can have up to 200 sessions.

Lay down a week

1. Go to the week you want to plan.
2. Click Lay down this week.

Student Radar creates that week’s sessions from your active templates and shows how many it created. If the week already has every session, you’ll see Week already laid down and nothing more is added.

After that, adjust the week as needed. Click Edit session to change a session, or click the plus button beside a day’s name to add a one-off session. See Assign staff to a session or cancel a session.

If a week goes over agreed hours

Each placement has agreed weekly hours. If laying down the week would give a pupil more hours than agreed, Student Radar stops and asks for a reason. Only managers who can override the rota can do this:

1. In Override agreed hours for this week, enter a Reason for exceeding agreed hours this week. Use at least 5 characters.
2. Click Override agreed hours and generate.

The reason is recorded. Staff availability and other staffing checks still apply. If you can’t override, change the templates or ask a manager who can.

Read the rota

The tiles at the top show the week’s Sessions, Pupil hours (booked pupil time, not counting meetings), Staff rostered (with their total hours) and Rota warnings.

• Week overview shows the whole week at a glance. Click a day to open it in Day view.
• Day view shows one day’s sessions in full, with their staff, number of pupils and register status. Click a day’s button to switch days.
• Cancelled sessions are hidden. When the week has some, a button above the rota shows or hides them, with how many there are.
• Staff hours this week, at the bottom, lists each member of staff’s rostered hours.

When there are warnings, a box above the rota says how many there are. Open it to read them. Sessions with a warning show a warning icon. Warnings cover:

• a session that has pupils but no staff
• one member of staff alone with pupils
• staff booked into two sessions at the same time
• sessions short of the adults their pupils’ staffing ratios need
• staff working outside their working hours

Warnings are prompts to check the plan. Use your provision’s lone-working and staffing policies to decide what to change.

Click Download PDF to download the week’s rota as a PDF, if your role allows exports.

Notes

• Staffing ratios: the ratio warnings use the Adults : learners ratio on each pupil’s record. See Add or import your pupils.
• Planned sessions from placements: sessions from a pupil’s agreed placement plan appear with Staff not assigned · agreed placement plan until someone assigns staff.
• Your provision’s words: labels such as Pupils use your provision’s Setting profile. The defaults are pupil, group and commissioning school, so your labels may differ.
• The AP menu: the sidebar described here appears when your setting profile is alternative provision and AP operations are active. It only shows the pages you can open.

If something doesn’t work

What you see	What to do
Could not generate the week	Read the reason under the heading. Fix the template or staff it mentions, then try again.
Could not save the template	Read the reason under the heading, change the template and save again.
“This usual-week plan exceeds agreed hours. An authorised manager must record a reason.”	Change the template so pupils stay within their agreed hours, or ask a manager who can override the rota.
“Choose a week with no more than 200 sessions.”	Copy a smaller week, or add the rest as templates one at a time.
“Too many recent copies. Wait before trying again.”	Wait a few minutes, then copy the week again.
“Usual-week templates are unavailable.”	Click Retry rota details.
“You do not have permission to manage this rota.”	Ask your Provision Lead to update the rota, or to give you access.
“AP access could not be confirmed.”	Reload the page. If it keeps happening, contact Student Radar support.