Classes in Next Level
A teacher can create a class, see how each child is doing, and set a chapter for the group. What makes this unusual is what does not go online: student names are never sent anywhere. They exist only on the teacher's own phone or tablet.
This page describes how the system works today, honestly. Anything still in progress is called out at the bottom.
What a class is
A class is a six-character code and a list of seats. Nothing else. The code uses only characters that cannot be confused for one another, so zero and O, one and I never appear. Each class holds at most 40 seats.
A seat is not a student. A seat is a label like 07 or 3A-07, and it must always contain a digit. That is deliberate: it makes it impossible to use a name as a seat label, including by accident.
Creating a class
-
Open the admin section in the app
Overview, then Admin, then Teacher. This area sits behind the parent or teacher PIN when a PIN has been set.
-
Name the class
Something like "Year 6A". This name is your own working label for the class and is not child data.
-
You get a six-character code
The code is all a student needs. Write it on the board.
As soon as the class exists, your device holds a key proving you are the teacher. Only a device with that key can read the roster, set a chapter, or delete the class. The code alone is enough to join, but it grants no access to anything the teacher sees.
How a student joins
-
A parent or teacher opens Class on the child's device
This step is behind the PIN when one is set, so a child does not join a class on their own.
-
The code is entered
Six characters from the board.
-
A seat is picked from a list
The child chooses a seat number. There is no text field here, and therefore nowhere a child could type their own name.
After that the child's device sends a short summary of numbers to the class as the child works, rate-limited. The teacher sees the seat appear in the roster on refresh.
What the teacher sees
For each seat, the roster shows:
- How many problems were solved today and this week
- Which chapter the child is working on now
- The child's level and year group
- Skills the child is stuck on, at most ten at a time
- Progress within chapters and whether the chapter test is done
That is enough to see who is behind, who needs help with what, and who has finished and could take more. It is not enough to reconstruct anything the child wrote.
Names: the teacher can type a name against each seat on their own device so the roster is readable. Those names are stored only on the teacher's device and are never sent to the server. If the teacher changes device, the names do not travel with them. That is a deliberate decision, not a rough edge.
Setting a chapter
The teacher can set one chapter for the whole class, or a different chapter for an individual seat. The per-seat setting takes precedence over the class-wide one. The child then sees the chosen chapter on their Today screen, with a button straight into the material.
Today this is one chapter at a time. Selecting multiple chapters, week planning, and time estimates do not exist yet. See below.
Removing a student or deleting a class
The teacher can remove a seat from the class, which drops both its summary numbers and its chapter setting. The teacher can also delete the whole class, which removes it from the server. Neither affects the child's progress on their own device: the child keeps everything, and the class is only the shared view on top.
Exactly what goes online
The server accepts only a predefined list of numbers. Anything else a device might send is simply discarded. The list is: year group, level, current chapter, problems solved today, this week and in total, lessons completed, progress within chapters, up to ten skills the child is stuck on, and a date at day granularity that the server stamps itself.
There are no names, no text the child wrote, no images of handwriting, no hours or minutes, and no device identifiers. A seat label must contain a digit precisely so that it cannot be a name.
The child's handwriting never reaches the class. It is graded separately and the image is never stored, not by us and not by the teacher.
What is not there yet
This is the first version of the teacher side and it is deliberately small. These things do not exist today, and it is only fair to say so plainly:
- Selecting several chapters, and a week plan for the class
- Time estimates for how long material takes
- A teacher choosing or authoring individual problems for the class
- A QR code to join, instead of typing the code
- A notification to the teacher the moment a student joins
If you are a teacher and want to shape what comes next, the most useful thing you can do is tell me how you actually use this.