Making a classroom seating plan that actually helps

A good seating plan is quietly one of the most powerful behaviour and inclusion tools you have. The Seating Plan lets you lay out your room exactly as it is, then fill it thoughtfully — by hand or automatically.

How it was built

You build the room first: drop in rows, pairs or group tables, drag them to match your actual layout, and rotate them as needed. Then you assign pupils by clicking seats, or let auto-assign do it. The layout and the assignments are saved per class in your browser, so each class keeps its own plan.

How auto-assign decides who sits where

Auto-assign is not a random shuffle. It scores every unseated pupil against the pupils already at a table and places the best fit, according to the options you tick. You can choose mixed-ability or grouped-ability tables, spread Pupil Premium, SEN/EHCP and EAL pupils across the room, balance genders, spread summer-born pupils, and spread the livelier characters so they are not all together.

Those options reflect what schools are actually advised to do: the EEF supports mixed-attainment grouping; Ofsted and the DfE expect disadvantaged and SEN pupils to be supported rather than clustered; and the summer-born option recognises that the youngest pupils in a year can need a little more thought. Options are greyed out when a class has no data for them, so the controls never mislead you.

How to use it well

• Build the layout to match your real room before assigning — auto-assign respects the tables you have made.
• Start with mixed ability plus 'spread PP' and 'spread SEN' on; adjust from there once you see the result.
• Use grouped ability only for short, targeted intervention work, then switch back.
• Re-run auto-assign to get a different valid arrangement, then fine-tune by clicking individual seats.
• Print the finished plan for cover teachers and TAs — it doubles as a name map for anyone new to the class.

Where your data lives

Everything you type stays in your browser. There is no account and no server-side database — class lists and saved work live in your browser's own storage on the device you are using. You can export a backup or clear everything at any time from the Classes page.