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Guides

First-time setup

Updated October 5, 2026

This guide walks you from a brand-new school to your first enrolled student. Work through it in order: each step builds on the last. Your Dashboard's Get your school ready checklist tracks the same work — it ticks off each step as you finish it and leaves the Dashboard once every step is done or marked as done. See Your Dashboard for how the checklist works.

Step 1: Get your school set up

  1. Request a free trial or book a demo. The TeachHero team sets up your school and emails you an invitation.
  2. Click Join the team in the invitation email, then create your login (or sign in if you already have one).

You land in your school's admin area. Your subdomain (yourschool.teachhero.com) is your public website and family portal address, and grade levels, a default student application, and a starter theme are already set up for you.

Deep dive: Getting your school set up

Step 2: Publish your school website

Families can find you before you even open.

  1. Go to Website & Portal → Pages.
  2. Click New page and build it with blocks (Hero, Section, Events, and more) — you can start from a template, and changes save automatically.
  3. Click Preview to see it as visitors will.
  4. Click Publish and confirm.

The page is now live on yourschool.teachhero.com. While you're in Website & Portal, open Design to add your logo and colors.

Deep dive: School Website Pages and Design Your Website and Portal

Step 3: Set your academic calendar

Terms are the backbone of scheduling — classes, programs, and enrollment all hang off a term. A term can be a quarter, a semester, or the whole school year.

  1. Go to Enrollment → Terms.
  2. Click New term.
  3. Enter a Term name (for example "2026–2027 School Year") and its start and end dates.
  4. Set the number of seats — registration closes when the term is at capacity.
  5. Choose the Eligible student levels (and Eligible age groups, if you've set any up) and create the term — or leave them empty to let anyone register.

Once your first term exists, Classes and Programs appear in the Enrollment navigation.

Deep dive: Managing Terms

Step 4: Add your first class or program

  1. Go to Enrollment → Classes.
  2. Click Schedule a class (on the empty list) or New class.
  3. Enter the class details — Class name, Term, Meeting days, and Seats — and save.
  4. Prefer bundles? Create a program under Enrollment → Programs to group several classes students enroll in together.

Deep dive: Managing Classes and Managing Programs

Step 5: Connect with your community

Send your first email — a welcome message or an announcement that enrollment is opening. Email has no monthly limit on any plan.

  1. Go to Communication → Emails.
  2. Click New email, enter a Subject, and click Start writing.
  3. Add your recipients in the To field and write your message in the draft editor — it saves automatically as you type.
  4. Use Send test to check it in your own inbox.
  5. When it's ready, choose Send now, then confirm with Send email.

Warning: Send now delivers the email to every recipient immediately and can't be undone.

Deep dive: Creating Email Broadcasts

Step 6: Enroll your first student

This is the moment your school opens.

  1. Go to Enrollment → Students.
  2. Click Enroll student.
  3. In the slide-over, pick the Term and the Student (add them under Enrollment → Families first if they're not there yet).
  4. Choose the level under Academic Level enrolling into.
  5. Tick their classes or programs on the Classes and Programs tabs.
  6. Click Enroll.

The student is registered for the term and now counts as an active student. Any enrollment fees go onto the student's bill for the term at once and show in the family's portal. To check them first, open Billing → Invoices and click the student's bill, click Hold, then click Publish when you are ready.

Deep dive: Enrolling a Student

What's next