Teachers and staff
These are the two sections for the people who work in a level: Teachers, who teach, and Staff, who don't teach but need to use the system —office, administration, pastoral care—.
They're added the same way and work almost identically, so they share this page.
How a teacher reaches a level
If a teacher isn't assigned to any group in the level, they don't appear in the list. That's not a bug: it's how it works.
So if you added someone and can't find them, an assignment to a group is almost always what's missing.
The same applies to staff.
Adding someone
Use the New button. The record asks for:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| First name and surname | As it will appear to families. |
| Must be unique: it's what they sign in to the app with. | |
| Password | If you leave it blank, the system generates one and emails it. |
| Groups | Which ones they work in. The dropdown takes several and has a search box. |
| Phone and address | Optional. |
| Photo | Optional. Can be dragged onto the box. |
When adding, it means "generate one and send it". When editing, it means "leave it alone". Only type something if you want to change it.
Messages without approval
There's an important option on a teacher's record: allow their messages to go out without approval.
By default, what a teacher writes to families waits for someone in the panel to approve it. That's a useful safety net, especially early on.
Once you know that person's judgement and the approval step has become a bottleneck. It's a per-person decision, not per-level: you can have most teachers on approval and a few without.
While a message is pending, it hasn't reached anyone. This is covered in Message tracking.
A teacher across several levels
It's common for the same person to teach in Primary and Secondary. In that case they appear in both lists, with the same account and the same password: there's no need to add them twice.
The record tells you when a person is in more than one level.
Teachers vs staff
| Teachers | Staff | |
|---|---|---|
| Assigned to groups | Yes | Yes |
| Teach subjects | Yes | No |
| Can message the families of their groups | Yes | Yes |
| Add activities and marks | Yes | No |
In short: staff are people who need to communicate with the families of certain groups, but don't teach or grade.
Exporting
Export downloads the full list to Excel, including each person's groups. Useful for cross-checking against administrative records.
Seeing who's actually using the system
The teacher coverage report tells you who has been into the platform and who hasn't, with the date they were last in.
It's how you spot the teacher who never installed the app and therefore hears about nothing.
→ Reports
