Joining your child's online lesson
How your child joins an online lesson, what you can do in the room, and what is and is not recorded.
Updated 18 October 2026
Why this exists
Online lessons can be stressful when the camera or sound will not work and you are not sure who else is in the room. The classroom runs in the browser with nothing to install, and checks your camera and microphone before you join. You can always see who is in the room, and nobody from your family is ever in it without the tutor.
Some lessons happen in the online classroom: video, sound and a shared whiteboard in the browser. Nothing needs installing.
Join
- From 15 minutes before the start, a Join live button appears on your home page. You can also open the lesson from Lessons and choose Open the classroom.
- Check yourself: you see your camera, a microphone meter and a test sound. If something is not working, the screen shows steps for your device.
- Wait for the tutor. Nobody from your family is ever in the room without the tutor. Depending on your centre, you come straight in when the tutor arrives, or the tutor lets you in.
Your child joins from their own account in the same way.
What you can do in the room
Most centres let parents take part: turn on your camera and microphone, write on the board, share your screen (not on an iPad), react and raise your hand. Everyone sees "Parent in the room", and the tutor can mute you. Some centres choose watch only, where your camera and microphone stay off and you can react and raise your hand. Then everyone sees "Parent watching".
Anyone from the centre who is watching is shown too. There is no hidden viewer.
What is kept
Video and sound are not recorded. The board is saved with the lesson, and the times people join and leave are kept for the roll. Nothing written in a lesson is private between two people. After the lesson, the board can appear under Boards from recent lessons on your home page.
If your centre ever records online lessons, a lesson records only when every child in it has recording allowed by their parent, and everyone sees a Recording sign. You choose this for each child on Recordings and photos.
Captions
Captions show the words spoken while the lesson runs. They are not kept and never summarised by AI.