Welcome to Illumine, the innovative app designed to help preschools and childcare centers run their center operations smoothly. Illumine can help teachers manage students’ information, attendance, daily activities, lesson planning, parent communication, and more with ease. This user guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started and make the most of this powerful tool. Let's light up your classroom with Illumine!

Go to Play Store and search Illumine or open this URL on mobile: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.illumine.app

https://apps.apple.com/in/app/illumine-school/id1488933419?platform=iphone

Go to this URL and bookmark it for future reference.

https://school.illumine.app

Teachers can login on Illumine on their mobile device/tablet using their email id or registered phone number.

Step1: Select Login to Illumine

Step2: Select Login with Email

Step3: Enter the registered email address

Step4: Enter the password received in the invitation email. If you are not able to find the invitation email, you can also use the reset password option to receive a new password to login.

Step 1: Select Login to Illumine

Step 2: Select Login with Phone number

Step 3: Select the correct country and enter the phone number registered with the school without ‘0’ or country code prefix. You would receive a One Time Password (OTP) on the provided number.

Step 4: Enter the OTP you have received and it will log you in.

NOTE:

As a teacher, you need to add students to respective classrooms, update other information about a student like parents' details, upload supporting documents, add authorized pick-up contact, and more. The “More” menu on the navigation tray at the bottom of the app screen will allow you to do all of these.

Tap on the “Student List” panel. You see the list of all active students across all of the classrooms assigned to you. Tap on “Add Student”. Enter the student information on the form displayed - Name , Gender, Classroom to which the student belongs and tap on “Add Student” button. Your new student is added to your classroom and you land on the student details screen where you can enter further details about the student.

(for the sake of this guide, let us assume the name of the new student to be John)

You can start updating the new student’s details right away or go back to the active students list to see that John is now listed as an Active student.

Click on John to update his information.

Click on “Personal Profile” to navigate to the “Child Details” screen. Click on the edit icon to update other personal details like Birth date, Blood Group, Address, etc. Click on Save after filling in the details under each section.

To update the classrooms John is registered for, click on the edit icon in the “Admission Details” section and tap on the text field “Class”. The classroom selection screen opens up. Select all the relevant classrooms for John (selected classrooms are denoted by a green checkmark) and click on “Save” at the bottom of the Classroom selection screen. You will see all the classrooms displayed for John in the “Admission Details” section. Click on “Save” in the “Admission Details” section to save the changes.

Navigate to John’s main profile page and click on the “Parents & Pickup Details” panel to navigate to the “Parent Details” screen. In the “Father Details” section, click on the edit icon to enter the father’s name, phone, and email, and click on Save. Similarly, edit the “Mother Details” section.

To add an authorized pickup click on “Add new” and enter name, phone/email, upload a picture of the authorized pickup person, and save. Clicking on “Invite Parents” at the top of this screen will send an invitation email to John’s parents to register on Illumine Parent app.

You can add personal notes about a child which other staff members in the school might find useful. These notes are not visible to the parents.

Navigate to John’s main profile page and click on the Child Notes panel at the bottom of the screen. Here you can enter multiple notes about John.

As a teacher, you can also upload personal files of the student, for example, birth certificates, immunization records, identification proof, etc.

Navigate to John’s main profile page and click on the “Child’s Documents” panel to navigate to the Document screen. Directly start uploading files here by clicking on the ‘+Upload’ button at the top right corner of the screen. Alternatively, you can create a folder structure by clicking on the yellow folder icon and start uploading files within the folder.

Teachers can download Allergy reports for students from the web app. Teachers can do this in two ways depending on the feature access they have.

From Students’ dashboard

From the left panel, select Management → Students. You can filter on classrooms by selecting from the dropdown at the top left corner. Click on the three dots at the top right corner and select “Download student Allergy Report”

From Reports

From the left panel, select Reports → Excel Reports. Scroll through to the “Students” section. Select Student “Allergy Report”.

Select a classroom from the dropdown or leave it blank if you wish to generate reports for all students. Click on “Generate Report”. You will see the newly generated report in the “Recently Generated Reports” panel on the right. Download the report from here.

You will see two panels - Classrooms and Groups, on the Teachers’ app menu. If your role has edit access to manage classrooms and groups, you will be able to configure new Classrooms and Groups. Any existing student or a new student being added can then be allocated to these rooms and groups.

To create a new classroom, click on the “More” menu in the navigation tray at the bottom of the app screen. Then tap on the “Classrooms” panel to land on the “Classrooms” screen where you can see all the classrooms you have access to. Click on the “New Classroom” button at the top right corner of the screen. Fill in the name of the classroom and the class capacity, i.e the number of students it can take, and save the details. You will see a prompt asking you to either assign the class to all the teachers or only to yourself. Select your preference. You will see the new classroom added.

To create a group of children, click on the “More” menu in the navigation tray at the bottom of the app screen. Then tap on the “Groups” panel. Click on the + New Group button at the top right corner of the screen, enter the group name, and save.

The group is created. You can now assign students to the group. Click on the “Assign Students” label displayed under the group name. You will see the student list for all the classrooms assigned to you. Select all the relevant students for the group from this list. Alternatively, you can also search for specific students by entering their names in the search field. Once you have selected the students, click on Save.

With Illumine, it is easy to check-in and check-out students on a daily basis and mark their attendance or absence. On the Home screen of the app, under the “Student Attendance” section, notice the header “Pending”. Currently it shows the number of students yet to be checked-in for the current date.

Click on “Pending” to navigate to the “Attendance” screen. Here, you can apply filter on the classroom for which you want to mark attendance. To mark a student absent, select the student and click on the “Mark Absent” button at the bottom right corner of the screen.

Select the students you want to check-in (a green checkmark is displayed on the selected students). You can also check the “Select All” checkbox if applicable. Now, click on “Check-In” icon at the bottom of the Attendance screen.

You will see a pop-up screen with details like check-in time (you can modify this), classroom, body temperature etc. You can enter the body temperature as measured for the student and notify relevant teachers if you wish. Select the Late Check-in checkbox if the student has arrived late on the current day and then click on Done. Go back to Home screen. You will see the “Student Attendance” section reflecting the number of checked-in students.

Similarly, to check-out students at the end of the day, go to Home screen and click on the “checked-in” label in the “Student Attendance” section. Select the students you want to check out and click on the “check-out” icon. On the pop-up screen displayed, modify check-out time if required, enter the body temperature as measured at the check-out time (optional), notify relevant teachers (optional), select “Late Checkout” if applicable, and hit Done.

Moving children between rooms is easy. In Illumine’s teachers’ app home screen, click on the “Checked-In” label to see all the children who have checked in to a particular classroom. Select the students who are to be moved to a different room (denoted by a green tick on their picture) and click on “Move Room” icon at the bottom of the screen. Update the classroom from the drop-down and click on “Done”. Note that the classroom information for the selected checked-in children has changed.

Teachers can record attendance using kiosk code as well. To use Kiosk code for marking attendance, ask your admin for your center’s kiosk code which has been set in Illumine app settings.

Each student is also assigned a unique kiosk code.

To records attendance using kiosk code, click on “More” in the navigation tray at the bottom of the app screen and select “Kiosk” panel. Enter the 4-digit kiosk code for your center. The screen will then prompt you to enter the 4-digit kiosk code for the student you want to check-in. The student’s check-in screen is displayed. You can select the classroom you wish to check the student in and enter the chld’s body temperature as recorded, click a picture of the student and click on “Done”. On the home screen, you can now see the student status as “checked-in”.

If your admin has provided you the access to generate student attendance reports, you will be able to do so using Illumine app’s web version. Login to Illumine app on your desktop and click on “Reports” from the left side navigation panel. The resulting screen shows you a range of reports which you can generate.

In the “Student SIGN IN/OUT” section select the report you want to generate - for example “Daily Attendance”. Enter the date range. Select “Classroom” if you want classroom based report or select “Student” if you want student wise report. Click on “Generate Report” button. You can download the generated excel report displayed in the right side of your screen under the header “Recently Generated Reports”.

Daily reports include the various activities children engage in on a daily basis, like meals, naps, diaper changes, activities, etc. Teachers can record these activities along with photos or videos and add additional details if required.

To record food/meals for a student scroll through to the “Post Activity” section on the Home screen of Illumine teacher’s app. Click on the three vertical dots to display all the activities that can be posted.

Click on “Food” icon and select the student/s for whom you want to record food details. Click on “Save” to proceed to the food details entry screen. Select Meal Type (Breakfast, Lunch, Snacks etc), select or manually enter food menu, input the quantity consumed by the student. You can also attach a photo of the food consumed. Toggle “Staff only” to green if you wish only the staff members to see this update. Toggle “enable comments” to green if you want others to comment on the posted activity. Once the necessary fields have been updated, click on “Post”. The activity will be posted.

To view the posted activity, navigate to the Home screen and scroll through to the “Today’s Activities” section. Click on the “Total Post” label and you will see the Food activity you recently posted. Below the post, you can see who all have viewed, liked, and commented on your post.

Similarly, recording a “Nap” is very easy. Navigate to the “Post Activity” section of the home screen and click on the three dots to view all activity types. Select “Nap”. You will see a screen with the checked-in students, “Start Nap” and “End Nap” tabs at the top of the screen. Select the students for whom you want to record nap time. You can click on the clock icon at the top right corner to set the nap-start time. By default, the clock shows the current time. Click on the “Start Nap” button at the bottom of the screen. The selected students are removed from the current screen.

Select the tab “End Nap” to see a list of students who have taken a nap. From this screen, you can record the nap end time for the students. Just select the student, set the nap end time on the clock (no need to set the time if you are recording this in real-time), and click on the “End Nap” button.

To see the posted nap activity, go to the home screen and scroll through to the “Today’s Activity” activity section. Click on the “Total Posts” label. You can see all the details regarding the nap activity - start time, end time, student name, etc. Use the three dots within each activity section to edit or delete the activity.

A Student’s toilet events can also be recorded easily. From the list of activities, select “Potty”. Select the student/s for whom you wish to record the potty activity and click on “Save”. On the screen displayed, select “Diaper” as the “Type” of the toilet event. Select the sub-type that is applicable. You can attach a document, a photo, or a video related to the toilet event and post the activity. To view the posted activity, navigate to the home screen, scroll through to “Today’s Activities” and click on the “Total Posts” label.

Learning Activity:

As a teacher, you can record different learning activities that children engage in. Illumine allows you to record different types of learning activities - blocks, science, art, fine motor, language, etc. Let us see how we can record a learning activity, say, blocks.

Navigate to the activity list screen on your teacher’s app and select “Block Hour”. Select the students who participated in the activity and click on “Save”. You are taken to a screen where you can enter details about the activity.

In the “Note” field, enter your observations and any comments you want to share about the activity. You can switch the “Staff Only” toggle if you wish to share this activity with only the staff members. You can attach a document, a photo, or a video related to the activity. In the “advanced options”, you can choose to notify specific teachers. Once done, click on “Post”. You can view the post in the “Today’s Activity” section of the Home screen.

Announcements:

Posting announcements is an easy way to send a common message across several classrooms or multiple children in one go. Here’s how you can do it.

Select “Announcement” from the activity list. On the screen displayed, enter the message in the “Announcement” text field. You will see a number of options you can use –

Check the “Email” checkbox if you want to send a copy of the announcement to the recipient’s email address as saved in the portfolio. You can select if you want to send the announcement to specific classrooms or all the classrooms by checking the respective checkboxes. Here too, you have the option of attaching a document, photo, or video to go along with the announcement.

The “Student Mode” option at the top right corner of the screen lets you send the announcement for specific students instead of the entire classroom. Once you post the activity, parents of the tagged student’s will be notified about the announcement.

Posting Incidents:

It is important to notify parents and other staff members of unexpected incidents that take place on the school premises, like injuries, fights, etc. Such incidents can also be posted as an activity.

Select “Incident” from the activities list. Select the student/s involved in the incident and click on “Save”. On the screen displayed, enter the incident description, action taken by the school staff, and any additional notes, and attach documents, photos, or videos. With the advanced option, teachers can choose to link a Youtube video and notify other teachers about the incident. Once done, click on “Post”. You will be able to see the posted activity by clicking on “Total Posts” in the “Today’s Activity” section on the Home screen.

Recording Medications

School staff often have to administer some medications to children as instructed by the parents. Teachers can record this activity to keep parents informed.

Select “Medicine” from the activity list and select the student for whom the administered medicine has to be recorded. Click on “Save”. On the screen displayed, enter the name of the medicine given, the quantity, any relevant document (prescription etc), photo, or video. With the advanced options, teachers can notify other staff members. Click on “Post”.

To share files and documents with staff members and/or parents, go to the activity list and select “File Upload”. Select the students related to the file you want to share and click on Save. Enter a description about what the document is about and any additional details. You can attach a document, photo, or video here and click on “Post”.

To schedule a virtual class, first configure zoom account. After this schedule a virtual class like posting any activity:

Select the Virtual Class activity from the activity list. Add the meeting details like Topic, meeting Time and select the students whom you want to invite for the meeting. Add a Banner Image for Meeting(optional). Click submit and it will create a meeting and send the invite to the parents.

On Illumine web application, from the left panel select “Parent Communication → Newsletter”. Click on “Create Newsletter” at the top right corner of the screen. You get two options:

With the first option, you can use an existing template and just edit it to create a newsletter. Select the template you wish to use and click on “Continue”.

You will see a blank template. Start adding text, images, etc to create your newsletter.

To add text, click on the element and start typing. You can use the text formatting tools displayed. To add an image, click on the image section and upload an image by clicking on the “Upload image” from the content panel on the right side of the screen. Once you have populated all the elements of the template you can either click on “Save as Draft” to save the newsletter or click on “Send Newsletter”. Select the classrooms or group to which you would like to send the newsletter and click on “Submit”.

The Newsletter will be sent to the parents of all children for the selected classrooms/groups. You can view the details of all the newsletters which have been shared with parents in the “Sent” tab.

With the second option, you can create a Newsletter layout from scratch. Drag different elements like columns, heading, image, button, menu from the panel on the right and drop them on the blank space in a layout you prefer.

On Illumine web application, from the left panel select “Parent Communication → Newsletter”. Select “Templates” tab. On this screen, you can see all the templates created for your school. To create a new template for newsletter, click on “Create Template” from the top right corner of the screen. From this screen, just drag and drop the elements – columns, heading, text, image, button, menus, etc – in the order you like. Once done, click on “Save Template”. You will be asked to enter a name for the template. Enter the name and click on save. Your new template is created.

Parents can send notes for their children to notify teachers about certain things about the child, like if the child is on medication, has specific food needs, late pickup or drop, etc.

Teachers are notified about any child note created by a parent. Select “Connect” from the navigation tray at the bottom of your teacher’s app screen. All notes pending teacher’s action will appear at the top of the “Connect” screen. You can also find all the pending notes in the “Parents Notes” header under the “Pending” tab.

Teacher can click on “Mark Done” once the necessary action is done. The Note will be moved to “Completed” tab.

Like Notes, parent can also raise concerns through their parent app. Teachers will be notified as soon as a concern is raised. Select “Connect” from the navigation tray at the bottom of your teacher’s app screen. All concerns pending teacher’s action will appear at the top of the “Connect” screen. You can also find all the pending concerns in the “Concerns” header under the “Pending” tab.

Teachers can add comments and close the concern by clicking on “Mark Resolved”. The concern then moves to “Closed” tab.

When a parent applies leave for their children from their parent app, teachers are notified of the same on their teachers’ app. Select “Connect” from the navigation tray at the bottom of your teacher’s app screen. All leaves pending teacher’s approval will appear at the top of the “Connect” screen. You can also find all the pending leaves in the “Leaves” header under the “Pending” tab.

Once the teacher approves the leave request, it moves to “Reviewed” tab.

Creating an event schedule and holiday list on the teacher’s app is easy. Select “Calendar” from the navigation tray at the bottom of the home screen. You will see two tabs – “Events” and “Holidays”. Click on the “New Event” button at the top right corner of the screen to schedule a new event. Enter details like the name of the event, description, date and time of the event. You can select which classrooms this event applies to. Check “Send notification to parent” checkbox to inform them. Upload the event banner (optional) and click on Save. The new event gets listed on the Events tab. Parents are notified about the same.

To view upcoming holidays and to add a new holiday schedule, select the “Holiday tab. Here you can see all the upcoming holidays. Click on “New Holiday” button at the top right corner. Enter the details like holiday name, date range and click on “Create Holiday”. The new holiday will be listed in the upcoming holidays. Teachers and parents will receive a notification when the event date arrives.

Teachers can create activity schedule for an entire week using Illumine “Schedule Planner”. Teachers can plan different types of activities (Food, Circle Time, Numeracy, Gross Motor, etc) hour-wise, day-wise, and week-wise. Click on “More” from the navigation tray at the bottom of the teachers’ app screen and select “Schedule Planner”. You can see a planner for the entire week.

Click on “Add Schedule” to add activities for each day of the week. Enter the following details on the form displayed:

-Type of activity - Food, Nap, Sensorial, Circle Time, etc.

-Title and description for the activity

-Start and end time

-Teachers assigned

Advanced options allows you to make the activity repeatable.

Once all the information is entered, click on Save. Click on “View Schedule” to see the schedule for that day.

To bulk upload schedule for a day or a week you need to use teacher’s web app. From the left panel select “Calendar”. Click on “Add schedule using excel”. Refer to the instruction for uploading data as shown on the screen.

Download the template for data upload by clicking on “Download Format” button at the top right corner.

Uploading schedule for a single day: Let’s say, you are entering the schedule for a single day. Open the format file and enter the schedule for the given day. Save the file.

Go back to Illumine’s Calendar widget and click on “Drop or browse file here to upload” to upload the file you edited. You will be able to see the data preview.

Click on “Save” at the top right corner. Enter further details on the form displayed: Frequency → ‘Single Day’, date or date range, classroom, etc and submit.

Go back to the main Schedule page, select the date/date rage which you entered in the excel. You can see your schedule uploaded in the calendar.

Uploading schedule for specific date range: To upload schedule for a specific date range, make sure that all the fields are filled, including date in (YYYY[-]MM[-]DD) format.

Go back to Illumine’s Calendar widget and click on “Drop or browse file here to upload” to upload the file you edited. You will be able to see the data preview.

Click on “Save” at the top right corner. Enter further details on the form displayed: Frequency → ‘Specific Date Range’, Classroom. Click on Submit.

Uploading schedule for Multiple days: To upload schedule for a multiple day, make sure that all the fields are filled, excluding date.

Go back to Illumine’s Calendar widget and click on “Drop or browse file here to upload” to upload the file you edited. You will be able to see the data preview. Click on “Save” at the top right corner. Enter further details on the form displayed: Frequency → ‘Multiple Days’, Date Range, Classroom. Click on Submit.

You will be able to see the schedule for the selected days (Monday and Friday in this example) for the entire date range (The month of May in this example).

To create a new lesson, from the home screen of Illumine teachers’ mobile app select “Lessons” from the navigation tray. You will see the screen named “Learning” which lets you create lessons, weekly lesson plan, assignments, and track submissions. At the top of the screen you will see how many lessons are created, number of assignments, and submissions due.

To add lessons, click on “Lessons” header. Click on the button “New Lesson” at the top right corner. Enter the details for the lesson - lesson name, category, milestones etc. You can also add a reference video from Youtube and upload a photo or a video lesson of your own. Click on “Save Lesson”. You will see you lesson added. Add multiple lessons across different categories to create a repository to be used in weekly lesson planning.

From here you can search for a specific lesson, edit a lesson, and view the details of a lesson by clicking on “Expand”.

Go back to the main “Learning” screen and select “Weekly Lesson Plan” header. You will see a lesson planner screen for the entire week. Click on “Add Lesson” for each day of the week to add lessons from your repository. Your entire week’s lesson plan is ready.

To create and share assignments with students, follow these steps:

The assignment will be shared with students’ parents on their Parent App.

Go back to “Learning” screen and select the “Assignments” header. You will see the details about all your assignments here. Click on “View Submission” to see which students have submitted a response to this particular assignment.

The teacher can comment and award a star for the submissions.

To view submissions across all the assignments, go back to the “Learning” screen and select the “Submissions” header. Teachers can see a list of students . Click on the arrow button next to a student and view the submission status for all the assignments assigned to the student. For any submissions, click on “View” next to the assignment to see the student’s response.

To add curriculum document from the web app, from the left panel, select Learning → Curriculum Document. Click on “Add Document” at the top right corner of the screen. Upload the file and click on Submit.

To add curriculum document from Teacher’s mobile app, click on “More” from the navigation tray. Select “Document” panel. Click on “Upload File” at the top right corner of the screen to upload the curriculum document.

Assessment is done to track a student’s learning and development against certain age-appropriate milestones. In this section we will see how to create milestones and how to track student’s progress across these milestones in Illumine web app.

Milestones are created against developmental areas. From the left panel select Learning →Milestones. Click on “Add Development Area” and fill in the details in the form displayed.

Select the newly added development area and click on “+Milestones”. Enter the milestone description and submit. You can keep on adding multiple milestones.

To create a student’s assessment report, from the left panel, select Learning → Student Assessment. Click on the arrow against the student for whom the assessment report is to be made.

Click on “Create Assessment” at the top right corner of the screen. Enter the assessment title and save.

You will see the list of development areas and milestones. For each milestone under each development area, the teacher can input the progress by selecting from the dropdown - Developing, Advanced, Limited, etc.

The teacher can add specific notes for the development area by clicking on the notes icon. The teacher can also attach photos by clicking on the image icon and attaching supporting files from their personal folders.

Once you have finished entering your observations across all the development areas, click on “Save Assessment” button at the top right corner of the screen. Click on “Download Portfolio” to download the report. Click on “Share Portfolio” to share a PDF report with the student’s parents.

Once the assessment is saved, you can view the student’s assessment report on Illumine’s web app.

Mail us at info@myillumine.com or Whatsapp us here - https://wa.me/918088523219

Or, raise a support ticket from the app (from app home screen, click on 'Profile' from the navigation tray at the bottom, and scroll down the 'Support' option).

Illumine is an all-in-one childcare & preschool management software that partners with educators to streamline their centres’ operations. It is a highly flexible and scalable platform to cater to the diverse languages, curricula, and policies that govern childcare institutes globally.

The Illumine app helps schools digitize their student admission-to-onboarding process, take care of everyday operations like attendance & fee collection, track the learning & development of each student, enhance teachers’ productivity, and improve overall parent satisfaction.

It also helps teachers and parents collaborate better, and extend learning beyond the classroom.

Sounds like something you would like to recommend to someone in your network? Ask them to visit illumine.app