🎹 Teacher

The Teacher Guide

Welcome! Your admin created your account — this guide gets you teaching. One thing before anything else: set your availability. Until you do, the school cannot schedule a single student with you.

1 · Your first login

Your admin gives you a username and password. Go to spoteca.com/login (or your school's portal link), sign in, and you'll land on your teacher dashboard. Change your password anytime in Account Settings.

Teacher overview — Your dashboard — today's lessons, your students, quick links.

Your sidebar: Overview · My Schedule · My Calendar · Students · My Curriculum · Lesson Notes · Reports · My Payments · Messages · Account Settings. Stuck on anything? Tap Ask AI (bottom-right) for instant answers.

2 · Set your availability — do this first ⚠️

Sidebar → My Schedule → “My Availability” tab

⚠️ Why this is step oneThe admin books students only into slots you've marked as available. An empty grid = you're invisible to the scheduler = no students, no lessons, no pay.

Open the grid

My Schedule has two tabs: Weekly Lessons and My Availability. Open the second. You'll see a weekly grid, Monday to Saturday, from 8:00 to 22:00 in 15-minute rows.

Paint your free hours

Click a slot to toggle it, or click-and-drag to paint whole blocks green in one stroke. Mark every window you're genuinely willing to teach.

Save

Hit Save availability. Done — the admin can now book students with you.

⚡ Shortcut: Import school hoursIf your school runs fixed hours, press Import school hours instead of painting a whole week by hand — it fills the grid with the school's opening hours, and you then remove the times you don't work and add any extra. It merges, so anything you already painted stays. Review, then save. Nothing is saved until you do.

ℹ️ Your hours always winThe school's hours are only a starting point — nothing is scheduled against them. Once you save, your grid is the only thing the scheduler reads. If the school changes its hours later, your availability is left exactly as you set it; re-import only if you want to pick up the change.

👥 Your admin may set this for youOffice staff can paint your availability from their side, and you'll get a notification when they do. Open this tab any time to review or change it — you always have the final say over your own grid. Lessons already booked show red and are locked for both of you; ask the office to reschedule if one needs to move.

Available — you marked it free Booked — a lesson exists here (locked) Unavailable

Availability empty — A new teacher's empty availability grid.

Availability painted — Drag to paint blocks — here Mon–Fri, 4pm–8pm.

Booked slots are protected — once a student occupies a slot it turns red and you can't accidentally un-mark it. To free it, the admin must move the lesson first.
Update anytime — new semester, new life schedule? Repaint and save. Existing lessons are never touched by availability edits.
Going away? Don't unpaint your grid for holidays — that's what absences are for. Tell your admin; they'll log the absence and handle rescheduling of affected lessons properly (see the Admin guide).

If your school sets your hours for you

ℹ️ Fixed-schedule schoolsSome schools assign teachers fixed working hours (e.g. every weekday 15:00–20:00). In that case your grid may already be filled when you first log in — the school imported it centrally. Verify it matches your reality; you can still adjust and save if your admin agrees.

3 · Your schedule & calendar

Back on the Weekly Lessons tab, your recurring week appears as the admin enrolls students: student name, subject, exact time range, and room. It repeats weekly — no rebooking needed.

My Calendar shows the same lessons on real dates — including one-off changes: reschedules, cancellations, group sessions and school events. When in doubt about a specific date, trust the calendar.

💡 Lesson remindersSpoteca sends automatic reminders before lessons (and can notify you when your schedule changes). Enable push notifications when your browser asks.

4 · Your students

Sidebar → Students — everyone assigned to you, with subject, level and plan. Open a student to see their profile, lesson history, attendance, notes trail and curriculum progress. This is your prep page before each lesson.

🔒 Private notesOn each student card, Add note opens your private staff notes — confidential observations only you and the school's admins can see (never the student or their parents). Use them for things like scheduling issues or how a student is coping — separate from the lesson notes that parents read. This is different from the Lesson Notes section below, which is shared with the family.

5 · Attendance

Mark each occurrence Present / Absent / Late / Excused right after the lesson (from the lesson, your calendar, or the attendance page). Accurate attendance matters: it feeds the student's record, the school's early-warning flags, and — on pay-per-attendance plans — your pay.

6 · Lesson notes & homework

Sidebar → Lesson Notes

After each lesson, write a short note — it's the feedback loop parents love and the reason they keep paying:

Content — what you covered.
Topics — tag the areas touched (technique, theory…).
Homework — what to practice for next time.
Rating — a quick performance score for the session.
Attachments — sheet music PDFs, reference recordings.
Attendance note (optional) — a one-line note about the session itself, e.g. "arrived 15 minutes late". It appears beside that lesson on the student's calendar.

Students and their parents see notes in their own portals immediately.

The page lists every lesson you marked Present in the last 90 days, and opens on Needs notes — the lessons still waiting on you, with a running count. Switch to All lessons to revisit notes you've already written. Nothing is created until you save, so a lesson simply stays on the list until it has a real note.

Lesson notes — Writing a lesson note with homework and rating.

💡 Two minutes, big impactA two-line note after every lesson is the single strongest retention tool your school has. Make it a habit.

7 · Curriculum & progress tracking

Sidebar → My Curriculum

Your school defined a curriculum — levels, skill domains, skills, repertoire and badges. You drive each student along it:

Skills — mark a student's skills as In progress → Mastered as they develop.
Repertoire — assign pieces from the school library (or ad-hoc); track Assigned → Learning → Polishing → Performed with a progress bar.
Levels — move students up when they're ready; record exam results as assessments.
Badges — many award themselves (practice streaks, pieces performed); others you or the admin award manually.

Everything you mark appears live on the student's Journey page — their progress map — and in printable progress reports for parents.

Teacher curriculum — Tracking skills and pieces per student.

8 · Your pay

Sidebar → My Payments

Your monthly earnings are calculated automatically from each plan's rate basis — a monthly rate, a fixed amount per billing period or term, per scheduled lesson, or per attended lesson (your school may set custom rates per teacher). See the month's breakdown per student/class, deductions if any, payment status, and history. On pay-per-attendance plans, only sessions marked Present count — one more reason to keep attendance accurate.

9 · Messages & account settings

Messages — chat directly with your students, their parents, or the admin. Everything in one thread per person, with read receipts.

Account Settings — update your password, photo, bio and contact details. Your bio is visible to students on their "My Teacher" page — make it warm.

FAQ

I set availability but have no students yet.

That's the admin's move now — they enroll students into your green slots. Your part is done; maybe give them a nudge. 🙂

Can I block a single date (doctor's appointment)?

Availability is your recurring weekly pattern. For one-off dates, ask the admin to log an absence — affected lessons get rescheduled properly and parents are informed.

A student wants to move their weekly slot permanently.

Permanent slot changes go through the admin (they check your availability grid and the room). One-time moves are reschedules, also handled by the admin within the plan's allowance.

Why is a slot red when I never marked it available?

Red means booked. Group classes and events can be scheduled onto your calendar by the admin directly — they don't require individual availability.

My pay looks off.

Check attendance first (especially on pay-per-attendance plans), then ask the admin — they see the same per-lesson breakdown and any deductions with notes.

Next → The Student & Parent Guide