E10 - How to: Assign a Duty supervisor – Senior teachers assigned a whole day of supervisor duty

Modified on Thu, 14 Aug at 12:55 AM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble
1. Create a duty area for Master on Duty.
2. Assign senior staff to the Duty area.
3. Autostaff or manually assign the MOD duties.
4. Add remaining periods to the MOD duty area.
Another approach: Assign only one MOD duty period for the whole day
Autostaff assigns MOD staff incorrect

Preamble

It's easy to manage the assignment of duties, sometimes known as “Master/Manager on Duty” or MOD. These are a supervisory duty - for specific senior staff only.

1. Create a duty area for Master on Duty.

Go to Teachers > Duty roster (SHIFT-F4) > Duty areas tab

Create a duty area for the MOD, but only assign it to a single break period, such as R, on every day.

2. Assign senior staff to the Duty area.

Specify the senior staff who can take this supervision duty any TeacherPref field. This restricts other regular teachers from being assigned this duty in error.

Make sure that the MaxDuties for the senior staff reflects the correct number of duties in the Duty loads tab.

3. Autostaff or manually assign the MOD duties.

Duty supervisors will then be assigned to the MOD duty, but only for one single period each day. We initially use recess - R (or L1 or L2) as this is a middle of day duty, as opposed to early morning or late afternoon, which may otherwise be easier to fill. Now, supervisors will only be assigned the R duty if they are free before or after this period. If you use a morning period, all staff are free before a ‘before school duty’, so may get assigned this on an otherwise busy day for them – hence best to start with the recess period.

Continue working on the duty roster for all other areas.

4. Add remaining periods to the MOD duty area.

Change the periods for the MOD duty in the Duty areas tab, to encompass all the relevant periods – e.g. it may be “0,R,L1,L2,AD”. Now manually assign the MOD duties, using the auto-assigned R period teacher as the one who takes all MOD duties that day.

In some rarer cases, the MOD may be teaching before and after some other duty period, in which case you may want to manually adjust the entries, but more often, the auto-assigned R duty can be copied to all other duty periods that day. Often MOD staff have lighter teaching loads anyway, being senior.

Another approach: Assign only one MOD duty period for the whole day

Some schools elect to have the MOD duty area as only EVER one duty slot, such as Recess, as this is known internally to all that the MOD is a whole day assignment. As such, it can be regarded as roster spam to list them against every single duty period, when everyone knows it is 'always the same' teacher. This approach is quite good if these teachers never (or rarely) take regular duties as a cover - as they could be assigned an L1 cover duty, on a day where they are MOD, and thus needed for MOD duties at the same time. Even in this case, it may not actually be regarded as a clash, as the supervisor may elect to cover the L1 duty area themselves, while 'also' doing the rounds to check other areas. It may be reduced coverage, but not pose a major problem if not a regular event. Technically, you can also mark MOD teachers as having preferred unavailability on duty periods other than R, as an alternative to ensuring they are not assigned regular duties unless really needed, and not assigned covers of regular duties unless again, really needed.

Autostaff assigns MOD staff incorrect

There are different options if you find MOD staff are being incorrectly auto-assigned regular duties at any time:

Explicitly list other staff as TeacherPref for other duties, but exclude MOD staff.
Restrict the duty load of MOD staff to be ‘1’ initially, ensuring they all only get an R duty, and then later increase this to allow them to take all duties on the day, but only after the main duty roster has been fully assigned.
Mark MOD staff preferred unavailable at other times. Note it is easier to manage this via B.
Using loads or unavailability (if needed only) – as it is easier to leave regular duties without explicitly defined staff options, especially as this needs adjustment if new staff arrive at the school later on.

Go to the Duty Roster KB document or more information on how to create the Duty Roster.