Free house points trackers: spreadsheets and online options
A house points tracker has to do four things: record each award, total the points by house, show the standings, and keep a history you can check. Here are the free and low-cost options teachers use, what each one does, and where each stops being enough.
Prices and limits below were checked in October 2026. Check each page before you rely on it.
What a good tracker records
- Each award, not only the running total: who gave it, to whom, how many points, and why
- House totals that update when an award is added
- Standings that pupils can see
- A history, so a mistake can be found and corrected
If a tracker cannot show you why a house has the score it has, you will struggle to answer the first complaint. The house points rules guide explains why the record matters.
Spreadsheet templates
- A free macro-enabled Excel workbook. The Dynamic House Point System on TES is a free xlsm file with house totals, class breakdowns and a log of "Golden Silence" moments. The seller says it is free for now and may become a premium product. It uses macros, which your school's computers may block. It was last updated in September 2023.
- A paid Excel tracker. The House and Merit Points Tracker on TES is a paid xlsx file (£5.00 on the day we checked) with a tab for each class, automatic class totals and a running house total. It also has tabs for house sports, house music and sports day. It was last updated in February 2025.
Neither listing says how pupils are identified or makes any data-protection claim, so keep pupil names out of a shared file unless your school's policy allows it. Open any file in a safe, offline copy before you use it with real pupil information.
An online tracker with a free tier
Leaderboarded's house points tracker is a web app with a live board you can show on a screen or projector. The free tier covers up to 25 pupils per board on two boards, with no card needed. Paid plans start at $19 a month. Pupils appear by first name, initials or a code you choose, so the tool does not need a pupil account for each child, and the vendor describes the tool as privacy-friendly. That is the vendor's own description: check it against your school's data rules before you use it.
The free limit of 25 pupils per board suits a single class or a small group, not a whole school.
Build your own
You can build a tracker in Google Sheets with one row for each award and a formula that totals each house. Teachers on a Glide community thread discuss building a house points app on a Google Sheet. One commenter in that thread worried that the numbers could be deleted by accident, and others asked how to make the points total correctly. A home-built sheet works until a formula breaks or a cell is overwritten, so protect the total cells and keep a copy.
When a spreadsheet stops being enough
A spreadsheet is fine for one class or one house group. It starts to struggle when:
- several adults need to award points, and you need to know who gave each one
- you need to correct a mistake without losing the original
- you want live standings on a screen for the whole school
Arena records every points award with the name of the person who gave it, their role, the amount and a reason, in a ledger that cannot be edited or deleted. A mistake is corrected with a visible reversal, and the original stays on record. School admins can review and export the full history, and a school can show live standings on a screen once a competition is live. See Arena for Schools.