Calendar & sessions

Classes

Classes families sign their children up to — 1-to-1 or a group, in person or online — with their times and price, a waiting list that moves on its own, and a record of the hours everyone gives.

What it does

A class is what families sign their children up to: a weekly GCSE group, 1-to-1 tuition, a co-op workshop, an online club. It's different from a tutoring session, which is one learner in one booked slot.

Each class is a group or 1-to-1, meets in person or online, and has its weekly times. It's free, priced per session at one of your tuition prices, or charged as a fee for the whole class. A group has a number of places (or none, if you don't cap it). When the places run out, the next family to sign up joins a waiting list — and when someone leaves, the first person waiting gets the place automatically. Nobody has to remember to offer it.

Volunteer hours live on the same screen. Co-ops run on parents giving their time, and this is somewhere to record it as it happens rather than reconstructing a term from memory.

Where to find it

• Navigation: Classes — the first item under Provision for a provider; Schedule → Classes for an administrator
• URL: /dashboard/classes
• Without an account: Find a class (/classes), the public class directory — Classes in the site's header

Two tabs: Classes and Volunteer hours. What you see under Classes depends on whether you run them or sign up to them.

For co-ops and providers

Create a class

1. Go to Classes and select New class. It takes four steps.
2. What it is — the Name of the class, What happens in it (written like a note, with headings, lists, bold and links; families browsing see the first few lines, and a learner with a place sees it all), Subject (it suggests AltEd's subjects as you type — choosing one helps families searching by subject find it — or write your own), Who it suits (a line underneath says how AltEd reads it for age searches — "Found by age searches as: Ages 7–11" — or that it can't, so write ages such as "7–11" or "KS2"), Follows a course (optional) — one of your courses, whose name and specification families see — and How many at a time: A group or 1-to-1.
3. Where — In person or Online.

• In person: start typing the venue or address and choose it from the list, or select Type the address instead. Families browsing see only the area, such as London, NW1; the full address goes to families with a place.
• Online: paste the Meeting link, and any Joining details (optional) such as a passcode. Only families with a place see them.

1. When — select Add times for each set of days and times: choose the days, then when it starts and finishes. For a group these are When it meets; for 1-to-1 they're When you're available, and each family asks for their child's weekly time inside them (see 1-to-1 times). Choose whether it Repeats every week or every 2 weeks, and the First session and Last session dates. Under Breaks (optional), select Add a break for each week it doesn't meet, such as half term: a From and To date (both days included) and a Reason (optional).
2. Places and cost — for a group, the Places (leave empty for no limit). Then How it's priced: Free, Per session, at one of your tuition prices (choose one, or Add a tuition price without leaving the class — it joins your price list for other classes too), or A fee for the whole class, per child.
3. Select Create class. It appears to families straight away.

A class set up before these steps keeps its times and place as they were written until you edit it. Add its times as rows, or find its address, and they replace the old words.

Read your poster into classes

If you already advertise with a poster, you don't have to type it out again. On Classes, select Read my poster — it sits at the top of the screen while you have no classes, and beside New class once you do.

1. Add the advertisement: Choose a poster, drag it onto the box, or paste it straight from your clipboard. Up to 3 pictures at a time, coming to 4 MB in all — a timetable spread over two posters is read as one.
2. Or type it yourself under Or describe them in your own words: "IGCSE Edexcel English Language every Thursday 3pm to 5pm for £3 an hour, online, ages 14–16". Use both together if you like.
3. Select Read it. It costs about 3 AI credits — see AI credits.
4. Check what comes back. Nothing is created until you press the button: this is what families will read.

For each class you'll see its name, subject, who it suits, price and description, all editable, and a line underneath saying what else was read — the days and times, the course it belongs to, the hourly rate on the poster and any contact details. Untick any class you don't want. Anything the reader wasn't sure about is listed under Worth checking.

Then select Create _n_ classes. Along with the classes you get:

• A course, where several classes share one (three IGCSE sciences under one "IGCSE Edexcel Science"). If you already have a course of that name, it's used rather than duplicated.
• A tuition price. A poster's hourly rate is turned into what one session costs — £4.00 an hour over a two-hour class is £8.00 a session — and classes at the same price share one entry in your price list.
• The poster as each class's picture, unless you untick Use the poster as each class's picture.
• A contact line — a WhatsApp number, say — in each class's joining details, which only families with a place see. Families browsing still use Ask about this class.

What it doesn't do. A poster with more than 10 classes on it is read down to the ten most prominent, and it tells you how many it saw so you can run it again with the rest. It doesn't invent lessons: a poster says the subject and the day, not what's taught in week six — **Draft a course with AI** does that from a specification. And it doesn't set the place, the term dates or the breaks; those come from each class's Edit class afterwards.

Only what the advertisement actually says is used. Nothing about your learners or families is sent.

Pictures

A class can hold up to five pictures — your poster, the room, work from a term gone by. They are the first thing a family sees when they browse, so a class with a poster on it stands out from one without.

Open the class (⋯ → Edit class) and look under What happens in it for Pictures. There are three ways to add one, and they all do the same thing:

• Choose pictures opens your files. Pick several at once if you like.
• Drag them from your desktop onto the dotted box.
• Paste one straight from your clipboard — copy an image, click anywhere on the form that isn't a text box, and press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac). This is the quickest way to get a screenshot of a poster in.

Each picture can be a JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF or GIF, up to 4 MB. A picture saves the moment you add it, so you can close the form without losing it.

Under each one:

• ‹ and › move it earlier or later. The first picture is the cover — the one a family sees on the card.
• ☆ makes that picture the cover in one press.
• 🗑 removes it, and the rest close up.
• The box beneath is what it shows — a short line read aloud to anyone using a screen reader, and shown if the picture can't load. Worth writing.

A class with no pictures of its own shows the pictures of the course it follows, if it has any; with neither, families see your profile photo. Nothing looks broken either way.

A class's pictures are public as soon as the class is: anyone browsing /classes can see them. Close sign-ups, or turn off List me as a provider in Settings, and they stop being public within the hour.

Editing in the list

For a quick rename, click the class's name in the list — press Enter to save, or Escape to put the old name back. Everything else is changed from the row's ⋯ menu → Edit class.

The list shows how each class Runs as (group or 1-to-1, and online or its area), When, when it Starts, its Places, its Price and whether Sign-ups are open.

Click to enlargeTap to enlarge

Adding from the list

At the foot of the list is an add row with Name of the class. A name is all you need — press Enter (or select Add) and the class exists, open for sign-ups, with the cursor back in the box for the next one. Set its times, place and price afterwards from Edit class.

See who's coming

The ⋯ menu on any class → Who's signed up. You'll see everyone with a place, each with their parent's name and email, and anyone waiting, in order.

Open and close sign-ups

⋯ → Close sign-ups takes a class off the list families can browse. Everyone already signed up keeps their place. Open sign-ups puts it back.

In the public directory

If you're listed as a provider (List me as a provider), your open classes appear in AltEd's public class directory at /classes, and you get a public page at /providers/… with your name, headline, bio and classes. Anyone can browse them without an account; asking about a class needs a free account.

The directory shows a class's name, what happens in it, subject, who it suits, group or 1-to-1, online or its area, its times, dates and breaks, how many places are left, its price and the course it follows. It never shows the address, the meeting link or joining details, or who has signed up. Families searching near a town or postcode see roughly how far your class is — worked out from your address, which they still don't see.

Close sign-ups, or turn List me as a provider off, and the class leaves the directory within a minute.

Tips by email: what your classes are missing

Families search the directory by subject, age and how near a class is, then choose from what its listing says. If you're listed as a provider (or claimed a listing AltEd set up for you) and your classes are missing something they look for, AltEd emails you a short list: each class, what it's missing, why it matters, and a Fill in link that opens that class ready to edit. If you claimed a listing but haven't turned on List me as a provider, or none of your classes is open, it says so first, because then families can't see any of them. Classes you run privately, for families you know, without listing yourself, never get these emails.

What counts as missing:

• a subject, and ages AltEd can read ("8–11", "Years 5 and 6", "GCSE"). Without them a class isn't in the results when families filter by subject or age.
• where it meets, for a class in person: choose the address from the suggestions, so it shows in searches near a family.
• days and times, for a group class (1-to-1 lessons are arranged with each family, so they don't need them).
• a price, or a fee of £0 for a free class.
• a description of a sentence or two, and a picture of the class, its room or its work (a picture on the course it follows counts).

When they come. The first arrives three days after you add your newest class, so you have time to finish on your own. The next comes a week later, then two weeks, then a month, and that's the last: four at most. They only go on weekday mornings, never within a day of you changing a class, and they stop as soon as your classes are complete. Each email says which tip of the four it is.

Turning them off. Use the link at the bottom of any of them, or Settings › Notifications › Tips for your classes.

Prices and fees

Setting a price or a fee is free on every plan, and families see it when they browse.

A fee for the whole class is charged to a family when their child gets a place — not while they're waiting — if you're on the Provider plan. It appears in Payments & credits alongside everything else they owe you, so there's one place a family sees what they owe rather than two. Without the Provider plan no charge is raised: the family sees the fee and pays you directly.

If a child leaves and nothing has been paid towards the fee, it's cancelled automatically. If any of it has been paid — including part of it settled from credit — the charge stays on the ledger: the money moved, and quietly deleting the record would make your books wrong. A refund is a conversation between you and the family.

Removing a class cancels its unpaid fees too, so nobody is left owing for a class that no longer exists.

Per session shows families what each session costs, at the tuition price you chose. Each session is charged like any other — once you've marked it Delivered and the family Attended — if you're on the Provider plan.

Once families have signed up, a price per session can't be added to the class or changed — they signed up to what it cost then. You can still remove the price, or start a new class at the new one.

Sessions from a class

Every time a group class meets is a session, one for each child with a place. They appear on Sessions for you and for each family, and on the learner's own schedule, named after the class — so attendance, absences and session packs work for a class just as they do for a one-off session.

• Four weeks ahead. Sessions are made for the next four weeks and carried on each day, rather than a whole term at once.
• No sessions in a break, before the First session or after the Last session.
• Changing the class moves its sessions. New times, dates, breaks or a new price update the sessions nobody has acted on yet. A session someone has already confirmed, cancelled, reported an absence for or paid is left as it is.
• A place given or taken away adds or removes that child's future sessions.
• A class session can't be moved on its own. Change the class's times, or cancel that one session. A session you've recorded a lesson against stays put when the class changes.
• Removing a class removes its future sessions nobody has acted on. Sessions that already happened stay as history.
• A free class, or one with A fee for the whole class, has sessions with No charge — the fee, if there is one, was charged with the place.

A 1-to-1 learner's sessions follow their own agreed weekly time instead, with the class's Repeats, dates and breaks — and until a time is agreed, they have none.

1-to-1 times

In a 1-to-1 class, each family asks for their child's weekly time inside When you're available, and you answer it.

1. A family asks from Your children's classes. Your notification — A time was asked for in the class — opens Who's signed up.
2. Under the learner, Asks for shows the day and time. Select Accept, Decline or Propose another. The family is told whichever you choose.
3. Once a time is agreed, Weekly: shows it, and their sessions are made from it, four weeks ahead.

To offer a different time, select Propose another, choose the Day and when it Starts and Finishes, then select Propose this time. It has to sit inside When you're available, just as the family's own request does — if you'd like to offer an hour that isn't there yet, add it to your available hours first. You proposed shows the time until the family accepts or declines it, and you're told which. The time they already have, if any, stays until they accept.

To stop a learner's weekly time, select Clear time beside Weekly:, then Clear time again. Their coming sessions at that time that nobody has acted on are removed; sessions anyone has confirmed, cancelled, reported an absence for, paid for or recorded a lesson against stay. The family is told, and can ask for a time again.

If you change When you're available and a time you've already agreed falls outside the new hours, nothing moves: the agreed times stay, their sessions stay, and you're told which no longer fit — a notification, A time in … is outside the hours you're available, and a warning under Weekly: on Who's signed up. Settle each one the usual way: change when you're available again, or Propose another time to that family.

• A time can't overlap anything else you're teaching then, and Accept and Propose this time say what it runs into:
• another learner's 1-to-1 time — in this class, or in another of your 1-to-1 classes still running (you're told whose, and in which class);
• a group class you teach then — even one nobody has signed up to yet, because the hour is still yours;
• a session already in your diary — a one-off, or a meeting of another class — within the next four weeks, which is as far ahead as sessions are made. Two classes that meet every other week are treated as overlapping even when they fall on alternate weeks: turning down an hour that was free is a conversation, and agreeing one that double-books you is a family at a locked door.
• A family asking to move keeps their current time, and its sessions, until a new one is agreed. A family asking for another time replaces a time you proposed.
• When a learner leaves, their time goes with the place.

For families

Browse without an account

Find a class (/classes) lists the classes of tutors and co-ops who are listed on AltEd. Search by subject, tutor or area, and narrow by Subject — one subject, or a whole group such as All Languages or All Sciences — Learner's age, Any size, Online or in person, Any day and Free only, then select Search. A subject is found however a class wrote it: "mathematics" finds Maths classes, and typing a group's name, such as "languages", finds the whole group. Learner's age leaves out classes whose Suits doesn't include it; classes that don't say who they suit stay in. See Subjects and their groups. Type a town or postcode under Near a town or postcode to put in-person classes nearest first, each with roughly how far it is; classes without an address come next, and online classes after them.

Describe what you're looking for (signed in, when AI is available): type what you want in your own words — "art group near Leeds on Saturdays, experience with SEN" — and select Fill in the filters. The search box, Near a town or postcode, size, Online or in person, day and Free only are filled in from your words, and a line beneath names anything the filters can't cover (here, SEN experience) so you know to look for it on class pages. Nothing is searched until you select Search, so change any filter first. It costs about 1 AI credit; only your words and the subjects of listed classes are sent — see AI credits.

Classes come 24 to a page, with Previous and Next at the foot and "Page 2 of 5" between them. Moving between pages keeps everything you've searched for, so page two of a search near Leeds is the next nearest, not a fresh list.

The heart on a class saves it to your Shortlist, which is kept in this browser only — AltEd never sees it. Select Shortlist above the results to see just those, wherever they sit in the list, and select it again to go back to everything. The link in your address bar carries a shortlist, so sending it to someone shows them the same saved classes; it doesn't carry anything else about you.

Every class is a card, and they all carry the same things in the same places so you can read down a row rather than hunt: the picture, the name, the tutor, a line or two about it, where and when it runs, the price, and a strip of four facts along the foot — Places, Suits, Subject and Each (how long one session runs). A class that hasn't filled a field shows a dash, so nothing shifts about.

The whole card opens the class — click anywhere on it. Two things on the card do something else: the heart saves it to your shortlist without opening anything, and the picture is a gallery, so you can swipe it on a phone or use the arrows that appear when you point at it; the dots underneath say where you are. A plain click on the picture still opens the class. Classes with no pictures show their tutor's photo, or their initials.

A badge in the corner says Free, or Waiting list where every place has gone.

Click to enlargeTap to enlarge

Can't find what you're looking for?

The last card on the last page of Find a class is Looking for something specific? — and while the directory is still filling up (fewer than 10 classes for your search), a line above the results says more classes in your area are coming soon and asks what you're after.

1. Select Tell us what you need.
2. Choose a Subject if you like — it suggests AltEd's subjects as you type, and keeps anything else you write. Under What are you looking for?, say the level and a day or time that suits. The subject you'd chosen in the filter, and anything you'd typed in the search box, are there already.
3. Add Who is it for? and Where? if they help, and your name and email — filled in for you if you're signed in.
4. Select Send request.

An administrator reads it, goes looking for a tutor or co-op who runs that class — and asks them to list it on AltEd if they don't already — then writes back to the email address you gave. You don't need an account to send one. Your details are used for nothing else, and a request is deleted after a year (see the privacy policy).

Search the wider web

When a search with words in the search box finds fewer than 10 classes, a panel under the results offers Search the wider web. AltEd is new and most tutors aren't on it yet, so this looks further: it searches the web for what you typed and where, and AI sorts the tutors, tuition centres and clubs from everything else — marketplaces, job adverts, articles — and puts them in order of how well they match.

1. Select Search the wider web. A bar fills while it works — Searching the web…, then Sorting the tutors and classes from everything else… — and it takes about 15 seconds; a search someone made in the last week comes back at once.
2. From the wider web lists what it found. Each card says On the web and how well it matches, and shows the page's own title and the search engine's extract from it — in quotation marks, because those are the page's words, not AltEd's — whether it offers lessons online, and whether it mentions the place you searched.
3. Adding … to AltEd — for up to three of the tutors it found, AltEd starts reading their website straight away so its team can check them and add them. The panel above the cards counts them off (2 of 3 read) as it goes, and each card says what's happening: Reading their website for AltEd, then Being added to AltEd — our team checks every listing first; AltEd will read their website soon for the rest, which AltEd reads later. When it's done, the panel says how many were added. You don't have to wait: the results are yours to use straight away. Reading a site doesn't contact the tutor, and nothing about you is kept with it.
4. Visit their site opens the page in a new tab. Ask AltEd to invite them sends us a request with that page on it: we'll get in touch with them about listing on AltEd, where you can see their times and prices and ask them about a place, and write to you if they do. If AltEd has just started a listing for them, your request goes with it, so they hear that a family asked. We never pass on your details.

A tutor AltEd adds this way appears on Find a class only once its team has checked the listing, marked Not yet claimed, and you ask about it through AltEd.

These tutors aren't on AltEd and we haven't checked them. Before you book anyone you found this way, do the checks you would for any tutor — ask about an enhanced DBS check, references and qualifications. Nothing about you is sent with the search: only the words and the place you searched for. A tutor who finds their page here can select Is one of these you? to put their classes on AltEd, or email us to have it taken off.

A class's own page

Open a class and everything about it is on one page, with a bar along the top — About, When and where, The course, Who runs it, Ask about it — that marks the part you're reading and jumps you to any of them.

• The pictures come first: on a wide screen as a collage of up to five, on a phone as a gallery you swipe. All 5 pictures opens them larger.
• What happens in it, as the tutor wrote it.
• When and where — the weekly times and how long a session runs, whether it's online or the area it's in, the first and last sessions, any weeks it doesn't meet, how many places, and who it suits. The address and the meeting link go to families with a place, never to anyone browsing.
• The course it follows, where there is one, with its specification and awarding body.
• Who runs it — the tutor or co-op, their headline and what they say about themselves, and a link to everything else they run.
• Ask about it — see Ask about a class below.

Down the side, the price, how many places are left and the button to get in touch stay with you as you read.

At the foot are More from [the tutor] — their other classes — and Similar classes from other tutors and co-ops. Similar means the same subject or the same specification; a class that only happens to run the same way isn't listed, so an empty space there means there genuinely isn't one.

Listings marked "Not yet claimed"

Some tutors and co-ops on Find a class haven't joined AltEd yet. We found them on the web, set their listing up from their own website, and checked it before showing it — but nobody from the provider has confirmed it. Their cards say Not yet claimed, and their class page and their own page explain it: where we found them, and that times and prices may have changed since.

• You can't sign a child up or connect with them yet, because there's nobody on AltEd to accept you. Their classes aren't in What's on.
• Ask AltEd about this class (or Ask AltEd about [them] on their own page) sends the question to us instead, signed in or not: say what you'd like to know, add your name and email, and select Send question. We get in touch with them and write back to you. We never pass on your details.
• Is this you? A tutor or co-op who finds their own listing can select Contact us to claim it.

Ask about a class

Sign in to ask takes you to sign in and straight back to the class. Signed in, Ask about this class sends the tutor your message with a request to connect; once they accept, you can message each other. To sign a child up, select Sign a child up from your Classes. A class marked Not yet claimed is asked about through AltEd — see above.

Sign a child up

1. Go to Classes. What's on lists everything open for sign-ups, each with its price, when it runs, whether it's online or where it is, and any course it follows.
2. Select Sign up on a class. If you have more than one child, you'll be asked which.
3. If the class is full the button says Join the waiting list instead, and you'll be told your position.

A 1-to-1 class lists the times its tutor is available. Once your child has a place, ask for their weekly time.

Where your children stand

Your children's classes sits at the top of the screen, because it's what most people come back to check. Each entry shows the class, which child, when it runs, and — if they're waiting — their position in the queue.

Once a child has a place, the entry also shows how to get there: the address, or Join the class and any joining details for an online class. In a 1-to-1 class, that comes once the tutor has agreed your child's time.

Ask for a 1-to-1 time

1. In Your children's classes, a 1-to-1 place shows the tutor's Available times, No time agreed yet and Ask for a time.
2. Choose the Day, and when it Starts and Finishes, inside those times. Select Ask for this time.
3. The tutor accepts it, declines it or proposes another time, and you're told which. Once a time is agreed, Their time shows it, and your child's sessions appear on Sessions and the calendar.

If the tutor proposes another time, the entry shows it — "… proposed … instead" — with Accept and Decline. Accept, and it becomes your child's time. Decline, or select Ask for a different time, and the tutor is told.

To move, select Ask for a different time. Your child keeps their current time, and its sessions, until a new one is agreed. If the tutor clears your child's time, you're told, their coming sessions at it go, and you can ask for a time again.

Leave a class

Select Leave the class (or Leave the list) on the entry. Their place goes to the next family waiting, immediately. If you're leaving the queue rather than the class, you can join again later, but at the back.

Log volunteer hours

1. Open the Volunteer hours tab.
2. Choose the co-op if you're involved with more than one.
3. Select Log hours, put in the date, how long (in quarter-hours), and optionally what you did.

Only you and the co-op can see your hours. You can't see anyone else's, and they can't see yours — a rota where everyone can measure themselves against their neighbours stops being a rota.

Tips and good to know

• Only a child's own parent or carer can sign them up. A co-op can't add a child to its own class, by design: signing up is your decision to share, not theirs to make.
• Signing up shares a name, not a record. The co-op sees who's in the room and how to contact you. For them to see marks, attendance or evidence, you'd need to accept a connection as well.
• The address and the meeting link stay private. Families browsing see the area, or that a class is online. The address, the link and the joining details only reach a family once their child has a place — not while they're waiting — and, in a 1-to-1 class, once the tutor has agreed their time.
• The waiting list moves on its own. Nobody has to spot a gap and offer it — the moment a place frees up, the first person in the queue has it.
• Positions stay contiguous: if the person ahead of you drops out of the queue, you become 1st rather than staying 2nd forever.
• A group with no cap is fine and common. Leave Places empty.

Troubleshooting

Related guides

• Sessions — one-to-one tutoring, which works differently
• The provider's guide — tuition prices, and getting found by families
• Connections — how a co-op comes to see a child's records
• Payments & credits — where class fees appear
• Calendar