How even does a duty roster need to be?

There is no published standard, and departmental guidance generally says rosters should be fair, equitable and transparent without defining a number. As a working rule, a spread inside about fifteen per cent of the average rarely draws comment. Past about a third, people notice, and they are usually right to.

Why does this matter beyond goodwill?

Duty is supervision, and supervision sits inside child safety obligations. Being able to show who was rostered where, and that the roster was allocated on a defensible basis, is the record a school wants to have already if a question is ever asked after an incident.

Can Bell Path keep this record automatically?

Yes. Bell Path builds duty rosters from your current timetable, never rosters anyone while they are teaching, shares duties across the term by the days each person works, avoids two duties for one person on the same day where it can, and keeps a running count you can show a staff member who asks.

Yard duty fairness checker

Duty rosters drift towards the people who never say no, and nobody counts until somebody complains. Paste your term counts to see how evenly duties are shared before anyone raises it at a staff meeting.

Go to the yard duty fairness checker

Free, with no signup. It runs entirely in your browser, so nothing you type is submitted, saved or sent anywhere.

Your duty counts

One person per line: name, then duties this term. For a part-timer, add the days they work: Kate Lawson, 9, 3 is 9 duties on 3 days. Paste straight from a spreadsheet if you have one.

Across 8 staff

Clearly uneven.

Dan Kelso is doing 3.6 duties more than their fair share this term, and Jess Whitcombe 4.4 duties fewer. A gap that size is more than chance.

Full-time share: 12.4
Spread: 8
Highest: 16
Lowest: 8

Dan Kelso16+3.6
Sam O'Doherty15+2.6
Alex Pemberton14+1.6
Kate Lawson · 3 days9+1.6
Tom Hughes13+0.6
Ruth Farrelly10-2.4
Marnie Clark9-3.4
Jess Whitcombe8-4.4

Counting duties equally assumes every duty costs the same. A wet Monday lunch on the far oval is not a Friday morning gate, and a fair roster weighs that too.

How this works.

The spread matters more than the average

The gap between the person doing the most and the person doing the least is what staff notice.

Part-timers have a smaller share

Add the days someone works and they are measured against their own share, not a full-time colleague’s. A three-day teacher doing three fifths of the duties is pulling their weight.

Common questions.

How even does a duty roster need to be?
There is no published standard, and departmental guidance generally says rosters should be fair, equitable and transparent without defining a number. As a working rule, a spread inside about fifteen per cent of the average rarely draws comment. Past about a third, people notice, and they are usually right to.
Why does this matter beyond goodwill?
Duty is supervision, and supervision sits inside child safety obligations. Being able to show who was rostered where, and that the roster was allocated on a defensible basis, is the record a school wants to have already if a question is ever asked after an incident.
Can Bell Path keep this record automatically?
Yes. Bell Path builds duty rosters from your current timetable, never rosters anyone while they are teaching, shares duties across the term by the days each person works, avoids two duties for one person on the same day where it can, and keeps a running count you can show a staff member who asks.

Other free tools

Planning time calculator

Weekly planning-time entitlement for any Australian state, full time or part time, using the same calculation Bell Path uses.

Open tool

Specialist coverage checker

Compare the planning time your school owes against the specialist sessions it can supply, before you build the timetable.

Open tool

Bell Path keeps the duty roster fair for you.

It builds the term’s yard duty roster from your timetable, shares duties by the days each person works, and keeps a running count you can show a staff member who asks.

Send us your timetable See yard duty in the tour