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Your first five minutes in AltEd: signing in with a magic link (no password needed), choosing your role, and finding your way around the dashboard.
What it does
AltEd is one calm portal for alternative education. Families (guardians) use it to plan and record their children's learning — learners, courses, lessons, assignments and a shared calendar. Tutors and education providers use it to run sessions with those families and keep the billing straight. Everyone signs in the same way, and the role you choose shapes what your dashboard shows.
There are no passwords to remember unless you want one — by default you sign in with a one-click "magic link" sent to your email.
Where to find it
Sign-in page: /auth/sign-in
After signing in you land on your Dashboard (/dashboard).
Step by step
Create your account
Open the sign-in page (/auth/sign-in). You'll see a card headed Sign in.
Click Create an account at the bottom of the card. The heading changes to Create your account.
Leave the method on Magic link (the default), type Your name and your Email, then click Email me a magic link.
The card changes to say the link is on its way. Open your inbox and click the link in the email from AltEd — it signs you in and takes you to your dashboard. No password required.
AltEd asks how you'll use it — I'm a home-educating parent or I'm a tutor or provider — and each card lists the setup steps that follow, with the AI credits they pay. takes you to your home page with the panel for your first learner already open; takes you to your provider home. The choice decides which dashboard you see, and you can change it later. (Prefer a password, a passkey, or Google/Microsoft/Apple? See .)
Ready to follow along in the app?
No password, no card — a magic link and you're in.
Typed the wrong email? Click Use a different email to go back to the form.
Sign in again later
You stay signed in on your device, so most days you won't need to do anything.
If you are asked to sign in, enter your email on the Magic link tab and click Email me a magic link, then open the new link from your inbox — or use any other sign-in method you've set up.
Find your way around
Your Dashboard (/dashboard) is home: a summary of what needs attention, shaped by your role.
Guardians get a side menu in two groups, the same shape as a provider's from the other side. Learning is what your family runs itself: Home, Curriculum, Schedule (Timetables, Calendar) and Tracking (Progress, Portfolio, Reports, Assignments, Resources), which open, and Notes. Provision is what other people provide: Providers (see Connections), Messages, Classes, Sessions and Payments, one click each. Settings is at the foot. On a phone the same menu is behind the ☰ button. Home is built around your children — everything about a learner is on their card: their picture (select it to change or remove it), their name (select it for their profile) with a link icon beside it for their private page, today's timetable, their tasks — tick the box to tick one off (a one-off task is done today, whenever it was due; a repeating one is ticked on its own day; a learner's tick waiting for your look is accepted the same way, and each change offers Undo; a tick with a score, notes or links, or one a tutor recorded, isn't taken back from the card — open it in Progress), or select its name to open it and change it — this week's hours and tasks done, and their curriculum plans, with Log today as the main button, four links beneath the cells (Curriculum — their subjects together week by week, once they have plans — Timetable — or Timetables (2), leading to the list filtered to that learner, when they have several — Progress and Tasks) and a … menu in sections: the learner themselves (Edit profile, Change their picture, Share learner link), Their record (Portfolio, Reports & LA record, Assignments), Planning (Calendar, Resources) and Tutors & classes (Providers, Messages, Classes, Sessions & attendance), with Remove learner at the foot. Log today opens the log form beside the page, and the confirmation offers View the log; once something has been written, the Log written today badge becomes a button that shows today's lines — with the number in brackets when there's more than one. Add a learner, the picture, Edit profile, Share learner link, a task's name and Set a task open panels on the right too — nothing on the home page takes you to another screen unless you ask. A learner taught mostly by somebody else gets a different card: the four cells become today's schedule, the work their providers have set, the conversation and how the term is going, the main button becomes Open today's classes, and your own tools sit in one line beneath — starting a progress log alongside a school is a choice, not a default. Above the cards, Today's note files one line into your notebook dated today, and when a timetable you keep isn't for any learner — one built from a plan with no learner chosen, say — a line says so and leads to them (see Timetables); below them, a learner with a tutor or class shows a teal strip with their next session, open assignments and unread messages. Press ⌘K (or the search icon) to jump anywhere by name — on a phone, Search is in your account menu (your initials, top right). Wherever you're filling something in — a form, a box that opens over the page, a message, the sign-in page — ⌘ Enter (Ctrl Enter on Windows and Linux) submits it, so you don't have to reach for the button. Shift Enter still starts a new line, and anything that deletes or removes always needs its own click.
Providers get a side menu in three groups. Provision is the work and the people it's for: Classes, Sessions, Learners (the families you teach, and requests to connect) and Messages, one click each, then Schedule (Calendar, Timetables) and Tracking (Progress, Portfolio, Reports), which open, and Notes. Curriculum holds the Curriculum builder and Teaching (Courses & lessons, Assignments, Resources). Configuration holds Pricing & Billing (/dashboard/credits, the billing ledger between you and each family) and Settings.
Settings (/dashboard/settings) holds your profile and account security — email, password, passkeys and connected accounts.
Help is one click away. The ? in the header opens Help: Guide for this page (the guide that explains the screen you are on, named beneath), Getting started, Get started checklist (while you have setup steps left), All guides, Contact support (the contact page, with AltEd's email address) and What's new (the latest releases, in plain words). Most screens also carry a small book icon at the top right of their heading — quick reference for that screen. Guides open in a new tab, so nothing you were doing is lost.
A parent's home page: Get started, then a card for each learner
Work through Get started
Every new account opens as a family's. If you're here to teach, the home page's first line is Here to teach rather than home-educate? Set AltEd up as a tutor or provider — it opens How will you use AltEd?, where Set up as a provider switches you to the provider view and its own steps. Signing up from the AltEd for tutors or AltEd for co-ops page asks this straight away. You can switch views later from the header, too. If you do both, each view keeps to its own side: in the parent / guardian view, screens that ask which learner — Progress, Portfolio, Reports, Timetables and the rest — offer only your own children, and in the provider view they offer only the children you teach.
A new account's home page leads with Get started — the steps that set AltEd up, each paying AI credits the moment it's done. Credits land in your topped-up credits, so they never expire, and each step pays once. See AI credits.
On your home page, the guide shows the credits you've earned, how many steps are done, and each step as a row with what it pays. The next step carries the main button. Once a parent has a learner, the guide shrinks to a band above the learner cards, with Next up and All steps.
In the header, Get started shows your progress and credits (for example 8/20) on every screen; select it to open the whole guide in a panel on the right.
Steps with parts show on their own screen. Open a step such as Set up your first timetable and its parts sit at the top of that screen — Timetables, Progress, the Curriculum builder, Courses & lessons or Classes — with a progress bar. The Curriculum builder ticks each choice as you make it, and its credits land when you press Build my curriculum — after that the strip shows what you've earned of what the step is worth, since a plan you built without a break earns four of its five credits.
Every step has two icons: the ⓘ opens step-by-step instructions, and the book opens the guide for that feature in a new tab.
Hide for now (or Hide the setup guide in the panel) puts the guide away. Get started checklist under Help brings it back, with everything you did in the meantime already counted.
A family's steps (20 credits):Add your first learner (5); Set up your first timetable (6) — create a timetable, set your study times, add a subject period, block out time, add an activity period; Set up tasks and targets (3) — set a task, set a target, record something in the log; Write your first note (1); Build your first curriculum plan (5) — a learner and level, the subject and board, the specification, the period with at least one break, and laying the week out as a timetable.
A provider's steps (20 credits):Get found by families (5) — a headline, a bio and List me as a provider, with the switch right there; Add a tuition price (2); Create your first course (5) — a course, its specification, a lesson and the units it covers; Offer your first class (5) — a class, its weekly times, a price and the course it follows; Connect with your first family (3).
Do providers need the Provider plan to be listed? No. Being listed, your profile, courses, classes and tuition prices are free on every plan. The Provider plan is for scheduling sessions and charging families through AltEd — session charges, class fees and card payments. See Payments & credits.
Administrators don't have a setup guide.
What happens when you click
AltEd changes the screen first and saves behind you. Ticking a task, renaming something, removing a row, dragging it into a new place, flipping a switch or sending a message all take effect as you do them — you don't wait for a "saved" message before carrying on.
If something can't be saved, it goes back exactly as it was and a message tells you why. Nothing is lost quietly.
The server has the last word. If what was saved differs from what you typed — a price rounded, a title tidied — the screen corrects itself as soon as it hears back.
Buttons show a spinner while they are working, and so does the link you just selected, so you can see which one took. A thin bar across the top of the page means a new screen is on its way.
A grey outline of the page means it is still loading. It is shaped like the screen you asked for, so nothing jumps when the real thing arrives.
Typing in a table cell? Press Enter (or click away) and the cell closes straight away with your new value in it. If it can't be saved, the cell reopens with what you typed, ready to fix.
Tips
Your first month is Family, free. A new account can use everything the Family plan includes — timetables through the year, the education record, 100 AI credits — for a month, with no card. Settings → Billing & plan says when it ends, and you'll be told five days before. After it you're on Free, and nothing you made is deleted.
What's new, after an update. When AltEd has something new or changed since you last looked, a short note says what when you open your dashboard — at most once a week — with See everything in the changelog for the rest. Got it, or closing it any other way, puts it away until there's something new. A brand-new account isn't shown the history: its first note is for the first update after it was made. Learners' own sign-ins don't see it.
AltEd is UK-first throughout: dates and times follow UK conventions (Europe/London) and money is in pounds.
Light and dark mode both work — use the sun/moon toggle in the header, or on a phone Light theme / Dark theme in your account menu. On a phone the Get started button in the header shows just its progress ring; select it for the whole checklist.
Lists remember where you were. On a list with a search box — classes, sessions, learners, courses, assignments, resources — the search, filters, sort and page you chose are kept while your browser is open: open something and come back, or reload, and it's as you left it. A new tab starts afresh. If something you change no longer matches your filters, it leaves the list, and you're never left on an empty page.
A link to another website shows where it goes first. Anywhere in AltEd — a message, a note, a shared resource, a provider's page, a guide — a link that leaves AltEd opens You're leaving AltEd, with the whole address and what to watch for; Continue to … goes there, Stay on AltEd doesn't. Links between AltEd's own pages, and email links, open as normal. See Safe messaging.
The bell in the header tells you when something happens that concerns you; See all notifications at its foot opens the full list. See Messages & notifications.
The trail. When you drill into a learner — their progress, timetable, curriculum plan, assignments, portfolio or reports — or follow a mention in a note, a trail shows where you've been: stacked pills down the left on a wide screen, a bar across the top with Back on a phone. Select any pill to step straight back to it; the trail cuts back to that point. It belongs to the browser tab you're in, it only appears when there is somewhere to go back to, and switching between the parent / guardian and provider views starts a new one. Learners get the same trail in their own portal, from Progress, My work, Lessons or Curriculum into a lesson or a plan.
The public guides grow alongside the product; if a screen has changed slightly since a guide was written, the flow described here still holds.