Help & Frequently Asked Questions

Informative Academy is a learning platform for young people roughly ages 11-18. It combines lessons, practical tools, projects, and simulations to build confidence with business, money, ideas, and decision-making at school or at home.

The signed-in platform supports four main roles with role-aware dashboards and tools:

• Child / Student for lessons, activities, and learner progress
• Parent for linked children, progress, reports, and billing
• Tutor for student monitoring, feedback, live lessons, and programme delivery
• Admin for content, configuration, approvals, and platform operations

Schools, delivery partners, sponsors, and funders can also use the relevant public or organisation services without being a separate learner-platform role.

Any modern browser on desktop, laptop, Chromebook, tablet, or recent mobile phone should work. For older school devices, keep the browser up to date and allow cookies where required.

Usually yes, as long as the device allows a modern browser, JavaScript, and standard site storage such as cookies. If a school-managed device blocks sign-in, embedded content, or verification links, try another browser first and then ask the school IT team whether the site has been restricted.

Choose Start free when registration is open. If registrations are paused, choose Join waitlist and we will let you know when access opens. During onboarding you choose your role, such as Child, Parent, or Tutor; Admin access is invited. Your role affects what you can see and where you land after sign-in.

No. Every lesson remains free, together with Build, the learning simulator, and the core toolkit. Premium adds family insight and feedback features such as the Thinking Snapshot, Parent Report, and AI feedback on business work. See /pricing for the current plan details.

Yes. After sign-up we send a verification email. Open the link in that message to unlock full access. If it does not arrive, check spam or use Resend verification on the login flow.

Use the /forgot-password page. We will send a reset link to your registered email address.

Role changes are not currently self-service. If the wrong role was chosen, contact support before continuing too far into setup.

Open /preferences or the profile/settings area available for your role. Some account options may also appear under profile or account pages in the signed-in app.

First refresh the page or sign out and sign in again so your session picks up the verified state. If access still looks wrong, check that you used the intended email account and the correct role. After that, contact support with the email address and page involved.

ThinkType is a personalized learning assessment that helps learners understand their thinking style and offers tailored strategies for lessons and activities.

INF50 is a learning simulator where you use virtual money in fictional scenarios to practice analysis and decision-making. It is built for learning and does not involve real financial risk.

Most learners should start from their dashboard, then choose the area that matches what they want to do next. Use Learn for lessons, Practice for challenges, Build for projects, Money for finance simulations, Quests when they are available, and Me for your own summary.

Use Learn for guided learning, Practice for challenges, Build for projects and venture building, Money for finance simulations, Quests for available personal, family, or cohort goals, and Me for your profile, rewards, and progress summary.

Learners can use /me for a summary, then open /badges or /xp for more detail. Parents and tutors usually use progress tools instead of the learner rewards view.

XP reflects earned points or activity, badges represent milestones or achievements, progress shows what lessons or learning steps have been started or completed, and reports are parent-facing summaries built from that wider learning activity. They are connected, but they are not the same thing.

Check for things like completed lessons, earned XP, new badges, and progress growing over time. If you are not sure what to do next, open /lessons to continue learning or /me to review what you have already finished.

The Money area brings together finance learning and simulations. Depending on the learner's selected economy and access, it can include a wallet, savings, INF50, the Marketplace, and Assets that the learner owns. These experiences use the platform's learning economy; they are not real-money investing.

When Marketplace is available for the learner's selected economy, Marketplace is where they can explore and acquire approved collectible learning assets using platform funds. Assets shows what they own. Availability, catalogue choices, prices, and Premium-only items can vary by programme and account. No real money is used.

Quests are goals that can run for an individual learner, a family, or a tutor-led cohort. The quest board shows available and active quests, progress, and time remaining. Quests only appear when they are enabled and relevant to your account, so it is normal for different people to see different options.

Parents and tutors can open Messages to read conversations, announcements, and learner progress updates. They can also compose a direct message to their linked tutor or parent. Tutors may send wider announcements from the same workspace.

Open Profile and choose the avatar option. Anyone with access can choose a free avatar from the library. When Premium avatar creation is available, you can create up to three avatars from safe, approved choices; the screen shows how many creations remain. Creating one does not change your profile automatically—select Use this avatar when you are ready.

Parents can open /children to manage the family roster. From there you can link a learner with their child reference code or create a child registration invite.

Tutors can use Learners as the main roster workspace. It is the place to search linked learners, link with a learner code, and jump into progress, alerts, or live lesson follow-up.

The main place is /progress. Parents can switch between linked children there to see what has started, what is complete, and where follow-up may be needed next. Use /reports for parent-facing summaries and exports.

Yes. The /children workspace is designed as a family roster, so parents can manage more than one linked learner from one account.

Tutors typically use /progress for class-level completion checks and Review for submitted work and follow-up. For teaching delivery, open Programmes or Live for programme and live-session workflows.

Parents can manage billing from /account/billing. For plan comparisons or first-time purchase decisions, visit /pricing or the subscription flow.

Every lesson remains free, together with Build, the learning simulator, and the core toolkit. Premium adds family insight and feedback features such as the Thinking Snapshot, Parent Report, and AI feedback on business work. The exact current offer is listed on /pricing and in the subscription flow.

Some features are limited by role, account state, or plan access. If a page looks locked, first confirm that you are signed in with the correct role and that your account has the expected access. Parents can review plan details in /account/billing and compare options on /pricing.

The platform changes by role. Learners, parents, tutors, and admins each get different navigation, tools, and shortcuts. Some features may also appear only when a plan, rollout, or learning pathway is available for that account.

Parents and learners have different jobs in the platform. Parents get account, billing, roster, and reporting tools that are not meant for children, while learners get the direct learning experience. That separation is normal and is based on role rather than a bug by default.

Public-facing learner profile information can include items like username, avatar, XP, badges, project summary, INF50 progress, and challenge highlights. Private account details, billing information, and internal role-specific tools stay inside signed-in areas and are not part of a learner's public profile.

Visibility depends on the learner's current relationships and the purpose of the surface. A linked parent can use the approved parent views. For a guided Programme, a named tutor gets the reviewed delivery scope only after accepting that assignment's disclosure and only while the assignment remains current. The learner is notified and can check Who can see my work in /settings. Tutor Today guidance never includes an absence reason, journal text, personal reflection, private note text, or a prediction about the learner. Ending the assignment ends that tutor access.

Tutors can monitor students, review work, and guide progress through teaching workflows, but they should not expect the same account-management controls that parents or admins have. If a change looks like account ownership, billing, or platform configuration, it usually belongs to a parent or admin workflow instead.

A programme is the planned learning wrapper: the purpose, audience, lessons, session sequence, and delivery approach. A live delivery of that plan is a programme run, and the learners in that run are usually called the cohort.

Use this order: approve the request; select or publish the Template and Economy Blueprint revisions; create a planned Run; add the delivery organisation, eligible facilitators, dates, included access, assessments, and any funding link; check readiness; activate; enrol learners; schedule and deliver; generate the canonical report; then close out the Run. Keep funding, access, delivery authority, evidence, and economy configuration separate: linking one does not silently grant another.

A Template is the reusable learning and session plan. A Run is one delivery of a published Template for a particular cohort, with its own dates, delivery organisation, facilitators, access, assessments, and optional funding link. An Economy Blueprint is the reusable commercial and Money Lab configuration pinned to a Run. Published revisions are immutable so an active cohort cannot change underneath learners.

Activation needs a delivery organisation and every assigned facilitator must have an active facilitator membership for that exact organisation. The Run also needs valid pinned revisions and its required dates and configuration. Check the readiness messages on the Run form; fix the named item and try again. Funding does not bypass delivery readiness.

No. A funding arrangement records who supports a Run commercially. It does not enrol a learner, grant included access, assign a facilitator, change the learning sequence, or grant access to learner evidence. Those decisions stay in their own authorised workflows. Removing or changing a funding link must not remove learner progress or ordinary Premium access.

Start from /tutor/programmes. Accept the named assignment, confirm the Run and delivery organisation, check the schedule and roster, and prepare from the assigned session. During delivery, use the Run's live and roll-call actions. Afterwards, complete the debrief and follow-up. Ask an admin to change access, funding, delivery authority, or pinned revisions; those are not tutor controls.

Open the Programme page and check the Next confirmed session and Next up areas. Use Continue or the first unfinished session card, then follow Learn, Practice, and Reflect in the order shown. A scheduled meeting and a learning action are separate: joining or attending does not automatically complete the learning step. If the next action still looks wrong after a refresh, ask your tutor to check the Run sequence.

Use /children/programmes to choose the linked child, see the active Run, and understand the next learner-facing step. Help with time, devices, travel, encouragement, or a tutor-requested adult activity, but let the learner complete their own work from the learner account. Use /reports for the wider parent-safe picture and contact the tutor when the next step is unclear.

First agree the learner group, intended outcomes, setting, accessibility needs, and evidence questions. Then agree the delivery organisation, named facilitators, safeguarding responsibilities, schedule, learner onboarding, and reporting boundary. Informative configures the reusable plan and a specific Run; the delivery team checks readiness before learners start. After delivery, review cohort evidence and decide whether to repeat, adapt, expand, or stop.

Sponsors and funders receive only the aggregate cohort reporting agreed for the arrangement. A funding link does not grant access to the Programme workspace, learner accounts, individual progress, learner-authored work, tutor notes, or evidence records. Schools, guardians, and authorised delivery staff retain their existing responsibilities and access boundaries, and the curriculum remains education-led.

Publishing creates a new immutable revision; it does not rewrite an existing revision. A planned Run can explicitly move to the latest published revision. Once the Run is active, its Blueprint pin stays fixed, and later publications do not change that cohort or any learner economy already created for it.

An assigned facilitator or admin can update a cohort session from the Run. Learners see the current scheduled, rescheduled, or cancelled state and the learner-safe notice; internal staff notes stay private. The learning action remains separate, so changing a meeting time does not change or complete Learn, Practice, Reflect, or an assessment.

The authorised team generates the canonical Programme report from the Run's server-derived context. Learners and parents keep their role-appropriate report views; partners or funders receive only the agreed cohort-level summary. Closing a Run ends that delivery lifecycle but does not rewrite saved learner work, pinned revisions, or historical audit evidence.

Tutors should start at /tutor/programmes. That workspace shows assigned programme runs, learner counts, upcoming sessions, and links into delivery actions such as live teaching and roll-call.

Inside a programme run, a tutor can review the session sequence, open the next delivery point, launch live teaching, check linked learners, and use attendance or follow-up tools where they are enabled. Tutors should treat the run as their main delivery cockpit for that cohort.

Programme runs are assigned to tutors by admins. If a run is missing, the most common reasons are that it has not been assigned to your tutor account yet, you are signed in with the wrong account, or the run is still being prepared. Start by checking that you are signed in as the intended tutor, then ask the admin team to confirm assignment.

Learners usually enter a programme from the direct programme link shared with them or from the next-step route inside the programme page itself. Once inside a run, the session cards guide them through Learn, Practice, and Reflect in order.

Learn opens the lesson or teaching input, Practice helps the learner apply it through a challenge, task, or activity, and Reflect captures what became clearer or what should happen next. Some sessions use all three lanes, while others may use only the parts needed for that session.

Parents can use /children/programmes to see which linked learners are currently in a programme, what the next learner step is, and how much of the session sequence has been completed. /progress and /reports remain useful for the wider learning picture.

Parents can review programme context and linked learner progress, but the learner-facing session work should still be completed from the learner account unless the tutor has explicitly asked for a parent-supported activity. If you are unsure, ask the tutor which parts are for the learner and which parts are for adult support.

Where attendance is enabled, tutors use the programme run's roll-call entry point to mark learners for a session. If a learner has been withdrawn, moved, or is no longer assigned to that session, refresh the roster first and then check with the admin team before marking attendance manually elsewhere.

Open the assigned programme run first, confirm the correct session, check the learner roster, and make sure you are using the intended tutor account. If the session depends on a linked lesson or challenge, open it from the programme workspace rather than pasting a separate URL so the programme context stays intact.

Return to the programme page and use the next available session card rather than relying on the browser back button alone. Programme sessions can include more than one lane, so one part may be complete while another still needs attention. If the programme page still looks wrong, ask the tutor to check the session sequence with you.

The Tutor Workspace is the tutor-facing area for preparing, teaching, and following up on learner delivery. It brings together Today, Programmes, Live, Learners, Review, Messages, and Operations so tutors can move through the delivery process without relying on scattered links.

Today is the tutor coordination page for the next teaching focus. Read Operations readiness first, then use any Follow-up or Support suggestions that appear to prepare for the next session. Guidance may be empty or unavailable without affecting the rest of Today.

Where Tutor Today guidance is enabled, Follow-up and Support are short-lived preparation suggestions for learners in your current accepted Programme assignment. Read the observation and its limitation before deciding what to do. A repeated-absence prompt says only that the attendance record met the approved threshold; it does not provide a reason or predict future attendance. An in-progress lesson prompt says only that required work is still underway; it does not judge ability, readiness, understanding, or effort. The suggestion is optional and never changes access, progress, assessment, completion, or rewards. You can use Remind me tomorrow, Done with suggestion, Hide, or Show again; a feedback error does not block the underlying action.

A programme run is a live instance of a programme with dates, learners, facilitators, sessions, and delivery status. The programme is the plan; the run is the scheduled delivery of that plan for a specific group.

A cohort is the group of learners attached to a programme run. Tutors use the cohort context to understand who is expected, what has been completed, and who may need follow-up.

A session is one scheduled teaching point inside a programme run. A session may link to a lesson, a live teaching room, roll-call, learner activities, and review follow-up.

A lesson is the learning content or activity a learner works through. In a programme run, a lesson is usually opened from the session so learner progress stays connected to the right programme context.

A playbook is the tutor-facing guide for delivering a session or lesson. It can include the teaching flow, prompts, timing notes, discussion points, checks for understanding, and follow-up reminders.

Live is the tutor delivery surface for running an active session. Use it when you are teaching in real time and need the session controls, host entry point, or live classroom context.

Roll-call is the attendance check for a session or programme run. Tutors use it to record who is present, absent, or not yet confirmed before or during delivery.

Review is the tutor follow-up area for learner evidence, submitted work, notes, and post-session actions. Use it after teaching to close the loop rather than mixing follow-up into the live delivery flow.

Operations is the tutor-facing setup area for school details, in-person events, rooms, timings, and activation needs that support programme delivery. Tutors see this as Operations because it is about practical delivery setup.

A programme request is a tutor proposal for a programme that has not become a live run yet. It can include the audience, lesson plan, delivery context, and operations setup needs for Informative to review.

Request statuses show where a proposal is in the review process. Draft means the tutor is still editing, Submitted means it has been sent for review, Changes requested means more detail is needed, Approved means it can move toward delivery setup, and Withdrawn or Rejected means it is no longer moving forward.

Activation needs are practical requirements that must be solved before or around delivery, such as seats, launch windows, mentor coverage, judge support, sponsor context, or other setup dependencies.

A facilitator is a tutor or delivery lead assigned to teach or support a programme run. Facilitator assignment controls which tutor can see and open the run from the tutor workspace.

Tutors normally see Operations because they are managing the practical setup needed for delivery. Internal/admin teams may use Partnerships for the same external relationship because they are managing the organisation-level relationship, review, and coordination behind the scenes.

A cockpit is a focused run-level workspace for taking action on a programme run. If the wording appears, treat it as the place to open the next teaching point, roster, playbook, lesson, or live delivery controls for that run.

After sign-up, verify your email, sign in again if needed, and start from your learner dashboard. From there, the usual order is: open your next lesson, continue any in-progress work, then check Me if you want to review your progress and rewards.

Start simple. Open one lesson, finish one clear activity, and learn where your main areas live: Learn for guided learning, Practice for challenges, Build for projects, Money for finance simulations, Quests for available goals, and Me for your own summary. You do not need to master every area on day one.

Usually the safest next step is the unfinished lesson or the next programme session that still needs attention. If you are in a guided programme, use the programme page first. If you are exploring on your own, return to /lessons and continue the most relevant unfinished lesson.

Progress is broader than points. It includes lessons started or completed, practice tasks attempted, reflections saved, badges earned, and visible improvement over time. XP is useful, but it is only one part of the learning picture.

If you feel stuck, first try one small move: re-read the prompt, return to the previous step, or switch from trying to finish everything to finishing one part. If you are in a tutor-led setting, ask the tutor which part matters most right now. If the page itself looks broken, report it as a support issue instead of guessing.

After finishing a lesson, look for the next useful action rather than stopping at the completion message. That may mean continuing the next lesson, opening a linked practice experience, or returning to a programme session to complete the next lane.

Use /me when you want a personal snapshot: rewards, progress, badges, XP, and your own overall account summary. It is less about what to study next and more about how your learning journey is building over time.

After creating a parent account, verify your email, sign in again if needed, then open Family. That is the main place to link a learner, create a child invite if needed, and confirm that your family roster is correct before looking at progress or reports.

A typical parent flow is: open Family to link or select a learner, check current progress in /progress, open /children/programmes if the learner is in a guided run, and use /reports when you want a fuller parent-facing summary.

Use Family to manage linked learners. From there, Progress shows day-to-day completion and follow-up, Child Programmes shows guided run context and next learner steps, and Reports provides fuller parent-facing summaries. These views support each other, but they answer different questions.

Use Resources for guidance and community links, Messages for conversations and learner updates, and Quests for family goals when they are available. Use Billing to review the current plan, invoices, or subscription options.

The best support is usually helping the learner stay organized, understand the goal, and return to the next step, rather than completing the work for them. Ask what they are trying to finish, what confused them, and whether the tutor or lesson instructions already point to a next move.

Support this week is a small, current Parent Home summary for a linked learner. Where guidance is available, it can help you return the learner to an eligible unfinished lesson or another approved next step without taking over their work. It does not use ThinkType to rank the learner and cannot unlock, block, assess, complete, or reward anything. Progress and reports remain separate. If the summary is unavailable, the learner's normal activities still work.

Start by checking whether the learner is actually blocked, simply pacing themselves, or working through a guided programme that is not meant to move quickly. Look at /progress, then ask the learner what step they are on. If the issue seems structural rather than normal pacing, contact the tutor or support team with the exact learner account and page involved.

Keep the family roster accurate in /children, then switch between learners deliberately when checking progress, programmes, or reports. If something looks wrong, make sure you are looking at the intended learner before assuming the data is missing.

Before contacting support, check which learner account is affected, what page you were on, whether the learner is linked in /children, and whether the issue is about access, progress, or billing. That small amount of context makes it much easier to fix the problem quickly.

After creating a tutor account, verify your email, sign in again if needed, then check the main tutor surfaces you expect to use: Learners for the linked roster, Programmes for assigned runs, Live for session controls, and Review for submitted work and follow-up.

A typical tutor workflow is: confirm the correct tutor account, check the learner roster, open the assigned programme run if delivery is structured, launch the session from the intended tutor workspace, then review learner follow-up and progress afterward. The exact order changes, but those are the main operating surfaces.

Use Learners for linked roster work, Programmes for assigned run context and session flow, Live for session hosting and active delivery controls, and Review for submitted work or follow-up. Each surface answers a different question.

Use Lesson maker to create and manage tutor lessons, Resources for guides, teaching insights, and community links, and Messages for parent conversations, announcements, and learner updates. Use Quests for cohort goals when they are available.

Before teaching, confirm you are in the correct tutor account, open the intended programme or lesson path, check that the learner roster matches expectations, and avoid using old copied links when a fresh entry point exists in the tutor workspace. That prevents many access and delivery problems before the session even begins.

If something goes wrong during delivery, first decide whether it is a learner issue, an access issue, or a page issue. For learner confusion, guide them to the next clear step. For access problems, confirm account and role before improvising. For page failures, preserve the session flow if you can, then record the issue with the exact learner, route, and action that triggered it.

After a session, check whether the learner work actually landed where expected, review any attendance or follow-up notes, and identify who needs the next prompt. This is also the right moment to note whether the issue was about the learner, the session design, or the platform itself.

Pause before going deeper. Many downstream problems come from the wrong learner account, the wrong linked adult account, or the wrong role choice during setup. Confirm the exact email and role first, then decide whether the learner should continue or whether a fresh invite or corrected setup is safer.

Support can move much faster when a tutor includes the role in use, the exact route or workspace, the affected learner if relevant, what action was attempted, and whether the issue is reproducible. 'It is broken' is much harder to act on than 'tutor account X opened run Y and learner Z could not enter session 2'.

Make sure you are logged in with the correct role and have completed any required setup or prerequisite steps. If something still looks wrong, contact support with the page and account details involved.

Try clearing your cache and cookies, refreshing the page, or switching to another modern browser. If the issue continues, report it with details about your device, browser, and the page that failed.

Double-check that you are signed in with the correct role first. Parents should use /children and tutors should use /students. If the code is expired, incomplete, or tied to the wrong account, create a fresh invite or contact support.

Usually this means the link has not finished correctly yet, the wrong role or account was used, or the invite/reference code does not match the account that completed registration. Parents should confirm the link in /children, tutors should confirm the link in /students, and both should verify the learner finished the intended registration flow.

Unlinking removes that learner from your linked roster view, so you may lose quick access to their progress from your account. If you are unsure, review the record carefully before unlinking.

Sign out and restart the process with the correct email if possible. If the invitation or registration was created against the wrong account, it is usually best to stop and ask for a fresh invite before continuing.

That message usually means the learner account is not currently enrolled in the selected programme run, the wrong learner account is signed in, or the enrolment has been withdrawn or not yet activated. First confirm the learner is using the intended account, then ask the tutor or admin team to check the programme enrolment.

Parents only see programme information for learners who are both linked to that parent account and actually enrolled in a programme run. If the learner is linked but the programme is missing, the run may not be active yet or the learner may not have been added to it. Start by checking /children and then /children/programmes.

Live controls usually fail because the tutor is not the assigned facilitator for that run, the wrong account is signed in, or the session link was opened outside the intended programme path. Re-open the session from /tutor/programmes or the tutor live workspace and confirm that the run is assigned to your tutor account.

An empty guidance area can simply mean there is no current approved preparation suggestion. An unavailable message means Today could not safely verify one or more required sources. Confirm that you are using the intended tutor account, that you accepted the current Programme assignment, and that the learner is actively enrolled in the upcoming assigned session. Do not work around the message by copying private learner data elsewhere. Retry the guidance area or ask an admin to check the assignment; Operations readiness and the rest of Tutor Today should continue to work.

Check four things first: the user is signed in, the role is correct, the intended account is being used, and the link was opened from the programme workspace if one exists. If those are all correct and the page still fails, report which account, role, and link were used so support can trace the exact path.

No. INF50 uses virtual money and fictional learning scenarios. It is not a real-money investing product.

A learner's public view can include items like username, avatar, XP, badges, project summary, INF50 progress, and challenge highlights. Exact visibility can vary by account state and settings.

Use /support/report-bug to submit a bug and /support/my-bugs to track existing reports. For account or access help that is not a bug report, use the contact option from the help page.