Courses and skills

Courses

What is a course?

A course represents a subject or discipline your school offers - for example, Piano, English, or Ballet. Think of a course as the 'what you teach'. It defines the curriculum, skill area, or activity, but not the specific schedule or group of students. That's what a class is for: a class takes a course and adds an instructor, a time slot, a room, and a group of enrolled students. Create your courses first, then build classes around them.

Define what you teach once. A course holds the subject, its levels and the skills tracked against it, and every class built from it inherits that structure. Getting the course right is worth the time, because changing it later means touching every class underneath. For the Portal, a course carries a picture and a description families read before they book, and a setting for whether its new classes go on sale online straight away. To restore a course you switched off, set the status filter to Inactive, open it and turn the Active switch in its header back on. A deleted course stays visible under the Deleted filter as a read-only record but cannot be restored from the app, so switch a course to Inactive rather than deleting it if you might teach it again.

Adding a new course

Give the course a name, then choose its format carefully, because you can't change the format after you save. Pick Weekly (Always Available) for lessons that run all year, Weekly (Start/End) for a term with fixed dates, or Specific Dates for one-off workshops. Minutes per Lesson is only a default, and each class can override it later. The Description shows in the family portal, while Notes stay internal to your staff.

Inside a course record

Open a course to rename it, update its identifier, color or age range, or switch it on or off with the Active toggle. The format is locked here, so if you need a different one, create a new course rather than trying to rework this one. Turn a course off instead of deleting it when it still has class history, and click Save Changes before you leave the page.

Levels & Skills

What is a level?

A level represents a skill or knowledge tier within a course - for example, Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. levels help you organize student progression, group students by ability in classes, and track advancement over time. Each level is linked to a course, so 'Beginner' in one course and 'Beginner' in another are separate levels. Assign levels to your courses first, then you can track each student's current level.

Levels are the ladder a student climbs within a course, and skills are what they demonstrate to move up. Define them in order, because the system treats a level change as a dated event rather than a label swap, which is what makes progression reportable.

Adding a new level

Start by choosing the course this level belongs to, then give it a name such as Beginner or Grade 1. The identifier fills itself in from the name and is capped at 3 characters, so change it if two levels in the same course would end up with the same short code. Use Study materials to list the books, method chapters or backing tracks for this level, since every instructor sees that list. The button stays disabled until course and name are filled in, and saving takes you straight to adding the skills for this level.

Study Materials

What are study materials?

Study materials are files and documents your school can share with students and instructors - for example, documents, videos, worksheets, or reference materials. Each material can be associated with specific courses and levels, so students only see what's relevant to what they're learning. Upload files here and they become available through the portal.

Use Study Materials to keep a course's sheet music, worksheets and reference videos in one place, so every teacher on that course hands out the same version. Click Add Material, choose the course, and pick a level only if the material is meant for that level. A row that shows All levels is visible to students at every level of the course. Narrow the list with the course and level dropdowns at the top, or type part of a title into the search box. The Files column counts what is actually attached. A material can be saved with just a title and notes, and it will show 0 until you upload something, so if a student says a worksheet is empty, check that number first. The list opens filtered to Active materials. Switch the status dropdown to see ones that have been retired, and use Fields to show or hide columns.

Adding a new study material

Pick the course first, then narrow it to a level if the material only suits one stage. Leave Level on All Levels to share it across the whole course. The Description is shown to students in the portal, while Notes stay internal for your staff. Leave the switch off to keep the document internal-only, or turn it on to share it with students. You attach files after the record exists, so save first with Save & Upload Files.

Inside a study material record

This is where you add the actual files: drag them into the drop area or use Upload Files. Students only see this material in the portal when the sharing switch is on, so check it before telling them it is there. If you change the course or level, the material moves to that group of students, so remember to click Save Changes. Delete removes the material and its files for everyone.

Evaluations

What is an evaluation?

An evaluation is a scheduled assessment of one or more students by a panel - instructors and/or admin staff - at a specific time and place. Pick a type (Recital / Audition / Mid-term / Final / Tryout / etc), optionally attach a rubric (categories with weighted criteria), and set up the panel + roster. The lifecycle runs Scheduled → InProgress → Completed/Cancelled. At Finish, each panelist's per-criterion scores get averaged and weighted into a final 0-100 score; staff captures feedback per student and can opt in to issuing a certificate for approved students.

A recorded assessment of a student against the skills in their course. Run them on whatever cadence suits you. A passing evaluation can advance the student to the next level automatically and generate a certificate, so the assessment and its consequences stay in one place.

Adding a new evaluation

Choose the type and mode first, then set the date, start time and duration so the evaluation lands on the right slot in the schedule. Room stays locked until you pick a location, and the rubric is optional, but choose it now if you want weighted scores, because you cannot change it after saving. Add at least one panelist and at least one student before Save becomes available. Notes are internal and never shown to students or families.

Inside an evaluation record

While the evaluation is still Scheduled you can move the date, time or location, add panelists and adjust the student list, but type, mode and rubric are locked. Press Start when the panel is ready, and make sure at least one panelist is added first, since the panelists are the people who score each student. The roster at the bottom shows attendance for each student, so check it before scoring. Use Cancel evaluation to call off a session and keep its history. Delete removes the record for good.

Rubric Templates

What is a rubric template?

A reusable structured scoring grid: weighted categories that each contain criteria scored 0-100. Attach a template to an evaluation at scheduling time and the per-panelist scores feed RubricScoreCalculator at Finish to produce a single weighted 0-100 score per student. The template snapshot is frozen at scheduling so later edits don't affect historical grading.

The reusable scoring structure an evaluation uses, so two teachers assessing the same level are marking the same things. Build the rubric once and pick it when you create the evaluation.

Adding a new rubric template

Give the template a name your staff will recognise when they schedule an evaluation, such as "Grade 1 practical", and set the minimum pass score a student needs to reach. Add at least one category, give each a weight, then add the criteria inside it that panelists will score from 0 to 100. Save stays disabled until the category weights add up to exactly 100, so keep an eye on the weight total in the corner as you go.

Inside a rubric template record

Open a template here to adjust its categories, weights, criteria or pass score, and use the toggle at the top to retire it from new evaluations without deleting it. Your changes only apply to evaluations scheduled from now on, because each evaluation keeps a frozen copy of the template it was scheduled with, so past results are never regraded. If the weight total shows 0% like this one, the template has no categories yet and will not produce a score until you add them.

Certificates

What is a certificate?

A workspace-branded PDF awarded to a student from one of three sources: a passed Evaluation, a Course completion, or staff-issued manually. Each certificate carries a unique unguessable code that powers a public validation URL - anyone with the URL (typically via QR code on the printed cert) can verify authenticity without logging in. Certificates are immutable post-issuance: title, body, and signers are pinned. Revoking flips a flag; the public page still resolves but shows REVOKED. Workspace branding (school name, header, footer, default signer) lives on Workspace settings and applies to every PDF.

Issued when a student completes a level or passes an evaluation. Each carries a QR code that validates it, so a family can prove the certificate is real without you having to confirm it by email.

Inside a certificate record

Open a certificate to check who received it, when it was issued and where it came from, then use Download PDF to print or email a copy. Nothing on it can be edited after issuance, so if the title or wording is wrong, revoke it and issue a new one. Share the public validation URL with anyone who needs to confirm it is genuine. They do not need an account. Revoke is usually the better choice than Delete, because a revoked certificate still resolves at its link and shows as REVOKED, so nobody can keep passing off an old printout as valid.