Tutor: lessons, homework and materials

Who this is for. A tutor who schedules lessons, runs them, records the outcome and sets homework.

Where lessons are created

"Home" has a "Schedule" block. Its header holds a "New lesson" button, which opens the form right underneath.

There is a shorter way to the same form: press a student in the "Students" block, the file opens, and inside it there is quick lesson planning for that student.

At the top of the form there are two switches: "Single" and "Recurring".

If there are no subjects in your profile, instead of a subject picker you get a button to fill in subjects in your profile and a note that a lesson is created from a subject with a rate. Until the profile has at least one subject with a rate, a lesson cannot be created: the price would have nowhere to come from.

A single lesson

The fields, in order:

Subject. The list from your profile, only subjects with a rate.
Student. Your students. Archived students are not shown.
Date.
Time. A list in quarter-hour steps from 06:00 to 23:45. If you need something unusual, say 16:10, press "Other time" and a normal time field opens.
Duration. Four options: 45, 60, 90 and 120 minutes.

Below there is a line with the lesson price and the "Schedule" button.

If the student, the date or the time is missing, the workspace asks you to fill them in.

A lesson will also fail to be created in two other cases:

the link with that student is paused. The workspace then asks you to resume the link first and only then schedule lessons;
the chosen time overlaps another lesson of yours (see below).

The price of a lesson

The price is calculated for you: the 60-minute rate from your profile, adjusted for the duration you picked. A 90-minute lesson at a rate of 4000 costs 6000.

If a particular lesson has a different price, press "change price" next to the amount. A price override field appears. Type your own amount and the lesson is created with it. To go back to the calculated price, press "cancel" and the field closes.

The price can only be overridden for a single lesson. In a series every lesson is created at the calculated price.

The price of an existing lesson can be changed while rescheduling, but not always (see below).

A recurring lesson: a series

Switch to "Recurring". Instead of a date you get:

Weekdays. Press the days you need; the chosen ones are highlighted. Several can be picked.
Time and Duration, the same as for a single lesson.
Start date and End date. Under the end date a note says the maximum is 12 weeks from the start. The field will not let you go further.

At the bottom you see in advance what you will get: roughly N lessons for roughly N KZT. The word "roughly" is there for a reason: some lessons may not be created if the time is taken.

The button is called "Create series". If something is missing, the workspace asks you to fill in the student, the weekdays and the start and end dates.

After creation you see the result: how many lessons were created, and, if some had to be skipped, a "Skipped (N)" line with the dates. Lessons are skipped when their time is already taken by another lesson. One conflict does not cancel the whole series: everything that fits is created.

The limits of a series: no more than 12 weeks from the start date and no more than 100 lessons at once.

Overlapping times

The workspace does not let you put two of your own lessons on overlapping time. All your scheduled and running lessons are checked, across all students at once.

Overlaps are calculated properly, with duration in mind: a lesson at 15:00 lasting 90 minutes occupies time until 16:30, so 16:00 is no longer free.

If the time is taken, the workspace says so and asks for another one. Cancelled and finished lessons do not hold time: you can schedule something in their place.

Rescheduling a lesson

The lesson card has a "Reschedule" button. It is only visible for a scheduled lesson: one that has started, finished or been cancelled cannot be moved.

The dialog has two fields: date and time, and the lesson price. You can change either or both.

The rules:

moving into the past is not allowed;
the new time is checked for overlaps as well;
the price cannot be changed if the lesson is paid from a package, if a payment has already gone through, or if you marked it as paid by hand. In that case the price field is locked.

The student and the parent get a notification about the move. If you changed the price, a separate notification goes out about that.

Deleting a lesson

The "Delete" button in the lesson card. Only a scheduled or cancelled lesson can be deleted. A finished one cannot: that is history and money already.

The workspace also refuses when:

the lesson is paid from a package;
there is a payment or a payment mark on the lesson;
materials are attached to it. Remove the materials first, then delete.

If the lesson was in your Google Calendar, the event is removed from there. If Google happens to be unavailable at that moment, the lesson is not deleted and the workspace asks you to try again: better to leave everything as it is than to leave an event in the calendar without a lesson.

The difference between "Delete" and "Cancel lesson" is simple. Cancelling leaves a record: the student sees that the lesson was cancelled. Deleting erases the lesson entirely, as if it never existed.

How a lesson goes

On the day of the lesson its row gets a "Start lesson" button. It is not shown on future days: you cannot press "start" a week in advance.

After you press it the lesson moves to "In progress", and "Finish" appears in place of the button.

While the lesson runs, a note saying the student is not marked yet may sit next to it. It means the student has not confirmed they are in the lesson. That mark is made by the student in their own workspace. The window for it is wider than the lesson itself: it opens 15 minutes before the start and closes at midnight, but never sooner than six hours after the lesson ends. So a late evening lesson leaves the student time too: a lesson that ended at midnight can be marked until six in the morning. The student can mark attendance even after you have finished.

If you press "Finish" while the student has not marked attendance, the workspace asks again, noting that the student still has a few hours. You can finish safely: attendance does not affect money, it only records presence.

You can mark it for the student. While the "waiting for the student" note is there, a "Mark attendance" button sits next to it. Press it if the student was in the lesson but forgot to press their own button.

What matters about that button:

your window is the same as the student's: from 15 minutes before the start until midnight, but never sooner than six hours after the end. Yesterday's lesson cannot be marked;
it is visible who marked it. You see "You marked attendance", the student sees "The tutor marked attendance", and the parent's log says attendance was marked by the tutor. The student's own mark looks as before, with no note;
the monthly report has an "Attendance" column with one of three values: marked by the student, marked by the tutor, or not marked;
money is still not affected in any way. The calculation comes from finishing the lesson, not from the mark.

After "Finish" the lesson counts as held and enters the money for the month.

The "Lesson screen" button opens a working panel right under the card: a timer for the running lesson and the materials. It closes with "Collapse lesson".

Video lesson link

The "Join Google Meet" button appears in the lesson card by itself, on two conditions:

you have Google Calendar connected ("Profile", the "Google Calendar" card);
the lesson has already travelled to the calendar and received a link.

The link is visible on any day, not just the day of the lesson: it is convenient to send it to the student in advance. It only disappears once the lesson is finished or cancelled.

If there is no link yet. Lessons travel to the calendar in batches, roughly every quarter of an hour, and only the coming week is picked up. So a lesson you just created has no button for a while, and a lesson a month away has none until it comes closer. You do not have to wait: such a lesson card has a "Create Meet link" button. It does the same thing at once, for one lesson. If the meeting is still being set up on Google's side, the workspace says the link will appear in a couple of minutes and fetches it by itself.

You cannot type your own video link: there is no field for it. Without Google Calendar connected there is neither a join button nor a create button, and you will have to call in whatever other way you agree with the student. At the bottom of the "Schedule" card, while the calendar is not connected, there is a link line: "Video links for lessons: connect Google Calendar →". It leads to the profile.

If the lesson is cancelled, the event is removed from the calendar together with the link.

Showing the student your screen or a document

Google Meet does this itself; we have no separate button for it.

On a computer. At the bottom of the meeting window there is a "Present now" button. You can share the whole screen, a single window, or one browser tab. A tab is the most convenient for a problem set or a presentation: the student sees only that, not everything you have open.
On a phone. In the Google Meet app, the three-dot menu, "Share screen".

Presenting works on a free Google account too; no separate subscription is needed for it.

How long a meeting lasts on a free account

What matters here are Google's terms, not ours: the limit sits on Google's side and depends on the account of the tutor who created the meeting.

Under Google's rules as of September 2026, on a free personal account a meeting with two participants runs for a long time, up to 24 hours, while a meeting with three or more is cut off after 60 minutes.

What that means in practice:

an ordinary "tutor and student" lesson runs without surprises;
if a parent joins the lesson, or it is a group lesson, the meeting breaks off after an hour. You can rejoin through the same link, but the lesson is interrupted;
if such lessons are regular for you, a paid Google Workspace account makes sense: the limit is lifted on Google's side, and it does not depend on us.

Google's terms may change and we are not responsible for them: the current limits can always be checked in Google Meet help.

Lesson statuses in plain words

Scheduled. The lesson is on the calendar and nothing has happened. It can be moved, cancelled and deleted.
In progress. You pressed "Start lesson". Such a lesson is marked as running on the schedule.
Finished. You pressed "Finish". The lesson counts as held and enters the money for the month.
Cancelled. The lesson did not happen and costs nothing.
Late cancellation. The student or the parent cancelled too close to the start. The lesson counts as held and is paid for like a normal one.
No-show. You marked that the student did not come. Money is counted the same way as for a lesson held.

The last three differ only in who pressed a button and when. For settlements "Finished", "Late cancellation" and "No-show" are equal, while "Cancelled" costs nothing.

Lessons waiting to be closed

If a lesson's time has passed and you neither finished nor cancelled it, it hangs there. A bar appears above the schedule saying something like "2 lessons are waiting to be closed", explaining that their time has passed and what happened was not recorded. Press it and the list opens, oldest first.

Each one has three buttons:

"Held". The lesson becomes finished and counts as held.
"No-show". The lesson is charged as held. The workspace asks for confirmation first.
"Cancel lesson". Nothing is charged.

The system does not decide for you: it does not know whether the lesson happened, and an error in that direction would mean money for a lesson that never took place. So a scheduled lesson waits for your decision for as long as it takes.

One exception: a lesson you started but did not finish. Such a lesson closes itself as held roughly a day after it was due to end. The logic is simple: you pressed "Start lesson", so the lesson happened.

Cancellation and late cancellation

When you cancel. The lesson card has a "Cancel lesson" button, available for a scheduled and a running lesson. The workspace asks for confirmation. Your cancellation is never counted as late and never charges anything, whenever you do it.

When the student or the parent cancels. This is where the late cancellation rule works. You set the window yourself in "Finance", the "Lesson cancellation" card: from 2 to 48 hours, 24 by default.

How it looks for the student: if there is more time than your window, they are told the lesson will not be charged. If there is less, they see a warning and a heading asking whether to cancel and be charged. They can still cancel, but the lesson gets the "Late cancellation" state and is paid for as held.

A grace period for freshly created lessons. It happens like this: you schedule a lesson for 10 in the morning tomorrow while your window is 24 hours. Formally the lesson lands inside the "late" zone immediately, and the student cannot cancel it without a charge even though they learned about it a minute ago. So for the first two hours after such a lesson is created, a student's cancellation counts as ordinary. After two hours the rule works as usual.

The grace period applies only to lessons created inside the window. For a lesson created in advance everything follows the normal rule.

Returning a charge

If a lesson was charged and you think it should not have been, the lesson card has a "Return the charge" button. The note next to it explains that the lesson goes back into the package and the charge is cancelled.

Worth knowing:

only the tutor of that lesson sees the button; the student and the parent do not have it. That is why the student's cancellation dialog says outright that the tutor can return the charge and that it is worth writing to them;
there is no deadline, you can return it a month later;
it cannot be pressed twice: a "Charge returned" note takes its place;
the state of the lesson does not change. A late cancellation stays a late cancellation, there is simply no money for it;
if there is nothing to return, that is, nothing was charged for the lesson, the workspace says so.

The payment mark

Until payments go live on the site, students pay you directly. So that this is visible in the money, the lesson card has a "Mark as paid" button with a note that the money for the lesson was received directly, bypassing the platform.

The button is only shown for lessons that money is due for: finished ones, late cancellations and no-shows. A cancelled lesson does not have it. Neither does a lesson where you returned the charge: there is nothing to pay for.

After you press it, a "Paid directly" note appears along with a button to remove the mark if you set it by mistake.

The mark affects two things: the received-in-30-days line in the "Balance" card, and the fact that the lesson can no longer be deleted and its price can no longer be changed.

Cancelling several lessons of a series

A lesson from a series has a "series" mark in its card. To cancel a whole series you do not have to press every lesson: a dialog opens with the list of the future scheduled lessons of that series and checkboxes.

The dialog has "all following" and "clear all" links, and the button at the bottom shows how many are selected. Past and already cancelled lessons are not shown, and if no future lessons are left, the dialog says so.

The lesson topic and notes

The topic is what you worked on: "Quadratic equations", "Present Perfect". You fill it in, and only you.

Where it is entered. At the bottom of the lesson card there is an "Add details" button, which becomes "Edit details" once a topic or a note exists. Pressing it opens two fields:

Lesson topic, with a hint like "For example: Quadratic equations";
Notes, with the hint that these are private notes about the lesson.

Both are saved with one "Save" button.

Nothing is required. A lesson lives perfectly well without a topic: you can skip it, fill it in before the lesson, after it, or a week later. An empty topic shows as a dash in the card.

Who sees what. That is exactly the difference between the two fields:

the topic is visible to the student and the parent. For the student it is collected in "Progress": a list of covered topics per subject. The parent sees it there and in the log of completed lessons, as a "Topic: (text)" line. In the student file, topics of finished lessons are collected in "Topics covered";
the notes are visible to nobody but you. Not the student, not the parent.

So the rule is simple: put into the topic what is useful for the student to read, and into the notes what you need to remember.

If the topic is left empty, the student's "Progress" says the lesson topics are not filled in yet, and the parent's log says the lesson details are not filled in.

Notes about a student in general, rather than about one lesson, live separately in the student file: see the chapter on students.

Homework

Homework lives inside the lesson card, one assignment per lesson.

How to set it

The lesson card has a "Homework" block with an "Assign" button. It opens a field hinting at what has to be done by the next lesson, and a due date field.

The rules:

the text is required, up to 2000 characters;
the due date fills itself in by default: the time of your next scheduled lesson with that student. If there is no next lesson on the calendar, the deadline is set a week ahead;
the deadline has to be in the future;
homework cannot be attached to a cancelled lesson; the workspace refuses.

The student and the parent get a notification about the new assignment.

What happens next

An assignment has three states: assigned, done and reviewed. Next to the deadline it says when it is due, and once the deadline has passed an "overdue" mark appears.

Completion can be marked by the student, by the parent, and by you: that is needed for students without a sign-in of their own, since nobody else can mark it for them. The button is called "Mark as done", and the opposite one removes the mark.

The student's files

Files can be attached to an assignment: a photo of a notebook, a document. They are uploaded by the student or the parent; you do not attach files here. The "Student files" block has an "Attach file" button, a counter like "2 of 5", and a note when there are no files yet.

no more than five files per assignment;
one file up to 25 megabytes;
documents and images are accepted: PDF, JPG, PNG, WEBP, GIF, plain text, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and ZIP archives;
uploading a file does not mark the assignment as done by itself. That is a separate button, and it is meant that way: you can attach a draft and mark it later;
after your review the files are locked, and nothing can be added or removed.

Reviewing

The "Review" button is available both when the assignment is marked as done and when it is merely assigned: you do not have to wait for the mark. It opens an optional comment field of up to 1000 characters and a confirmation.

After the review the assignment becomes "Reviewed", and the comment is visible to the student under a "Tutor's comment" heading. Reviewed assignments are hidden and can be revealed with a "Show reviewed" link.

A review cannot be undone with a button: the completion mark of a reviewed assignment can no longer be removed.

Editing after a review

If you change the text of an assignment that was reviewed or submitted, it goes back to "assigned": the completion mark and your comment are cleared, and the student and the parent are notified that the assignment is in progress again. That is not a bug, it is the point of the edit: the text is different, so the work has to be redone.

Editing an assignment that is merely "assigned" does not repeat the notification: nothing changed there except the text, which the student will see anyway.

The deadline is not recalculated when you edit the text. If you want another one, change the due date field explicitly. Once the deadline changes, old reminders about it are cancelled.

Deleting

The "Delete" button in the assignment block, with a confirmation.

Lesson materials

Materials open with the "Lesson screen" button in the lesson card; the block is called "Materials".

There are three ways to add something:

"Upload file" from a computer or a phone;
"Add link". The field expects an address starting with https. A YouTube link unfolds into a player right in the card;
"Attach from media". This is your library from "Media": the same handout is attached to any number of lessons and takes storage space once.

Materials are not added by the tutor only. The student has the same "Upload file" button on their lesson screen, and a file they attach appears in the same block for you. It is a handy way to send over a photo of a notebook or a problem you discussed.

But the two sides can do different things, and that is deliberate:

you can do everything: a file, a link and a material from your library;
the student can only attach a file. There are no "Add link" and "Attach from media" buttons for them: the library belongs to tutors;
the parent is not stripped of rights to lesson materials, but there is no materials screen in their workspace at all. They attach files to their child's homework, not to the lesson.