Spires uses Lessonspace for our online classroom, which offers many features like built in whiteboards, graph drawing software, blurred backgrounds, advanced noise cancellation and much more.

It also allows your classes to be recorded and played back in the browser, which many students find extremely useful for online tutoring.

You do not need to download anything, as long as you have Chrome, Safari or Firefox updated. Classes should take place on your laptop, not your mobile devices.

Watch the video and read the article below for more information (please note since this video was recorded we have moved away from Zoom):

Once you have scheduled a class with a tutor, you will see an 'Open Classroom' button at the top of every page of Spires. This will also tell you the time and date of your next class.

If there is less than 20 minutes before the scheduled start time, you will also see a timer counting down to the start of the class

The circle next to the tutor's name shows you their status. A filled green circle means that they are currently online on Spires, an empty red circle means they are offline.

If you click the 'Open Classroom' button before the tutor is ready, you will see a message saying the tutor has not started the class yet.

You should simply wait for the tutor to start the class and can message them to tell them you are ready.

In the meantime, you can use the 'Test Classroom' button if you have not already done so to make sure everything is working properly. More info on testing the classroom.

Once the tutor starts the class, you will see that the tutor is in the classroom and the green 'Open Classroom' button starts to flash.

Clicking on 'Open Classroom' now connects you to the tutor on Lessonspace.

If you are having problem getting into the classroom then clicking on the blue 'Having problems?' link will open a pop up.

Here you can try again using the green button, read the classroom guide to troubleshoot the problem yourself, or message us if you are unable to resolve the problem yourself.

Once the tutor has ended the class, they will confirm the class length and submit a charge to your payment card.

The recording of the class will be processed and be available for playback from the History tab.

You will also be prompted to leave a rating for the class by clicking on the stars that you want to give the tutor and leaving any feedback below it.

This is optional and you can opt to skip rating, however you will not be able to leave a rating for this class in the future.

If there was a technical issue, please do not leave a rating, instead use the 'Technical Problem' button to report the issue to our team.

You can see the next sections of the guide on how Lessonspace works and how payments work.