Choose who counts as teaching staff (teaching and non-teaching staff groups)

5 steps 3 min Updated 4 November 2026

Every member of staff who comes from your MIS is either teaching staff or non-teaching staff. That one setting decides:

which of the two staff groups they're in — teaching-staff or non-teaching-staff (with your school's group prefix in front, if it has one). Like your other groups, these sync to Google or Microsoft if your school syncs groups there.
which Google organisational unit they go in, if your mentors' OU path uses {TEACHING_LABEL} — see Google OU settings.
which Active Directory OU they go in if your staff OU path uses %TS, and which of the Teaching staff groups or Non-teaching staff groups they're added to in AD — see Active Directory settings.

By default, your MIS decides who is teaching staff. If its answer isn't right for your school, you can decide it yourself by job title instead.

Before you start

You must be an admin with the Change school settings permission (full admins have it), with the school picked in the switcher. School settings isn't available in the MAT overview, so switch to a school first.
This only changes staff who come from your MIS. Accounts you created by hand, and staff with Smartsync turned off (Protected), aren't updated by it.

Steps

Step 1: Open School settings → Teaching staff

In the sidebar, open School settings → Teaching staff.

Step 2: Turn on the override

Tick Override which job titles count as teaching staff. While this is ticked, your choices below decide who is teaching staff, not the MIS.

Step 3: Tick the teaching job titles

The list shows every job title on your school's accounts, spelt as your MIS spells it. Tick each job title that should count as teaching staff. Anyone whose job title is not ticked counts as non-teaching staff. If the list says No job titles found for this school., no account has a job title yet: it fills up as your MIS sync brings job titles in.

Step 4: Save

Select Save teaching staff. The page says School settings saved.

Step 5: Check after the next MIS sync

Nothing moves straight away. At the next MIS sync, every member of staff from the MIS is marked teaching or non-teaching from your list, and moves into the right group (and OU, if yours depend on it). The MIS sync runs on weekdays — see How syncing works.

To check one person, open them on the Users page. In the From your MIS panel, Staff type shows Teaching staff or Non-teaching staff, and says whether it was set by your rules or by your MIS. If your rules have changed since their last sync, a warning says the change is still to come. See Edit a user.

Good to know

New job titles start unticked. When your MIS gives someone a job title that wasn't on the list before, those staff count as non-teaching until you tick it. Come back to this tab when new roles appear.
Staff with no job title count as non-teaching while the override is on.
Spelling matters. Two spellings of the same title appear as two entries. Tick both, or correct the title in your MIS.
Learners are never affected.
Turning the override off hands the decision back to your MIS at the next MIS sync.
Saving only changes the setting. Nobody moves until the next MIS sync, so a teacher you've just ticked can stay in non-teaching-staff until then. If someone is still in the wrong group after a sync, check their job title on their user page (it must match a ticked entry exactly) and that they come from your MIS.

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