A state board school teaches in the regional language or English medium, with large classes and modest fees. Teachers hold several duties beyond the classroom, and the school keeps most of its staff records on paper.
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Share your requirementsA state board school follows the syllabus and calendar set by the state, with the textbooks, exams and holidays fixed in advance. Some are private unaided schools, others are aided, and most serve a local community with modest fees. Classes are large, the medium of teaching may be the regional language, English or both, and teachers take on extra duty such as exam invigilation, survey work for the department, school events and fee follow-up. Staff include subject teachers, primary class teachers, physical education teachers, clerks and peons. Pay is modest and staff live close by. The wider education hub covers what every school shares.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in state board schools. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
A single teacher may hold sixty students in a room, with few resources and little help, and tiredness shows by the second term.
Teachers compare pay with nearby schools and with tuition income, and good ones leave when a slightly better offer arrives.
Joining dates, qualifications, leave taken and service history sit in different files, so questions about any teacher take hours to answer.
Survey work, events, exam duty and fee follow-up fall to a few willing people, who are rarely thanked or relieved.
Cover for sick or on-leave teachers is arranged ad hoc, with no clear rule on who does what or how they are paid.
Good teachers are scarce in smaller towns, and a vacancy in the middle of a term can mean weeks without a teacher for that class.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Onboarding and Probation. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for education, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
How many people, in which roles, by when, and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes, one for complaints, one for conduct, kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why, and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a state board schools business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Appointment letter, qualification copies, joining date, leave history and duties in one folder.
Appointment letter, qualification copies, joining date, leave history and duties in one folder. See HR documentation.
Grades by qualification and experience with a clear way to move up, so teachers can see their future.
Grades by qualification and experience with a clear way to move up, so teachers can see their future. Pay benchmarking can compare with nearby schools.
A rota for survey work, events and exam duty that shows who did what, so willing teachers are not asked every time.
A rota for survey work, events and exam duty that shows who did what, so willing teachers are not asked every time.
Hours, rate, duties and notice in one page that the teacher and the head both keep.
Hours, rate, duties and notice in one page that the teacher and the head both keep.
Mark term starts, exams and holidays on a single sheet, and plan leave, cover and hiring against it.
Mark term starts, exams and holidays on a single sheet, and plan leave, cover and hiring against it. The attendance and leave process uses it.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. Work through the checks using a recent operating period. The time needed depends on the records you hold; note missing evidence and use the findings to choose a priority.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Leave rules, cover planning and attendance records that suit a large school.
Staff files, appointment letters and service records kept in one tidy place.
A pay scale checked against nearby schools so you keep good teachers.
A first-month plan so new teachers settle into large classes with support.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in education, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Faculty, administrative and support staff leave for different reasons. How to ask what shaped their decision and act on it within the academic calendar.
7 min readRead article
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead article
Simple variable pay structures for product and engineering teams: four options, why individual metrics backfire, a build plan and a one page outline to adapt.
6 min readRead article
A first-week plan for bringing in an outside specialist: what access to give, how to protect client data, and the confidentiality steps to settle on day one.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Start with one file per person holding the appointment letter, qualifications and leave history. Use the same checklist for every file and review them once a year before term begins.
Be open about the pay scale and how to move up. Non-cash recognition, light duties and fair cover rules also count, and teachers stay for respect and a steady year.
Not when it happens without a plan. Keep a duty list, rotate it, and relieve a teacher of other work in busy weeks. Say thank you in front of colleagues.
Write a one-page agreement with hours, subjects, rate and notice. Brief them on school routine and class behaviour, and check their teaching once before you rely on them.
A named senior colleague, a timetable and syllabus copy, a class visit by the head, and a check-in each week. Large classes are hard on newcomers, so early support matters.
First we would look at your staff files, extra duty pattern and pay by grade, and see how cover is arranged. A staff file checklist and a simple pay scale are usual first jobs, agreed with you in writing.
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