Help - The Basics


What School of Everything is, how to get started, and help with some common problems.

Can I use School of Everything from outside the UK?

Yes, School of Everything is free to join and use from anywhere in the world.

It's currently only available in English though, and we mainly promote it in the UK. We're keen to change this though and make the site multi-lingual, but we need help with translation and marketing in other countries.

If you're interested in becoming a School of Everything International Partner, get in touch.

How do I confirm my e-mail address?

You need to confirm your e-mail address to get full access to School of Everything. This confirms to us that you're a genuine user and lets you post content and receive e-mails about new activity on the site (if you want them).

When you sign up with us, we send you an e-mail. Just click the link in this e-mail to confirm your account.

If something goes wrong and you can't find your confirmation e-mail, you can log in and have the e-mail resent. You may also need to check your spam/junk mail folders for the mail, as some e-mail providers will decide that, since this is an automated message, it is unwanted.

I can't find my confirmation email!

If something goes wrong and you can't find your confirmation e-mail, you can log in and have the e-mail resent. You may also need to check your spam/junk mail folders for the mail, as some e-mail providers will decide that, since this is an automated message, it is unwanted.

How can I change my name?

You have two names on School of Everything: your account username (e.g. 'jennym'), and your actual first name and last name (e.g. 'Jenny Morecombe').

You can't change your account username, but the name that appears at the top of your teaching and learning profiles is editable from your learning profile:

1) Sign in and go to your learning profile.
2) Click edit and at the top of the page you will see a box for first name and last name. The names you enter here is the one that appears on your profiles.
3) Enter the appropriate names, click the submit button at the bottom of the page and your learning profile name will be updated.

There's a bit of quirk here, though - in order to make the new name show up on your teaching profile, you'll need to visit your teaching profile, then click on 'edit' and 'submit'. Your name will then automatically be updated on your teaching profile to match your learning profile.

Your username also appears on your learning profile until the first time you edit it - then it will switch to first name/last name. (There's no good reason for this, it's just a glitch that we hope to fix one of these days.)

What is School of Everything?

School of Everything is a social learning network that connects people who teach with people who want to learn. It's this website, plus the people behind it.

The site works by putting people in touch who are interested in similar topics and live near each other, and helping you organise your own education. Think of a subject you want to learn or teach, create a profile, search for other people and message them. Then meet up, teach and learn.

It's that simple. No curriculums, no exams, no long course fees - just people teaching and learning what they want, when they want, however they want.

Learn more about us, or take the tour.

How do I sign up to School of Everything?

Whether you want to learn or teach, you'll need to create a School of Everything account. School of Everything is free to join and anyone can sign up to teach or learn.

To create your account:

1) Choose your username, enter your email address and password.
2) Enter your details: First name, last name, location and country. Don't worry about the registration code unless you have been given one.
3) Accept the terms and conditions.

Once you have created your account you can edit and manage your learning profile and/or create and manage your own teaching profile.

Can't find your location?

We use the Geonames database to look up your location and find you on the map. Sometimes places aren't listed in there, but there are a few things you can do to make sure.

Firstly, only enter the name of your actual neighbourhood, and don't use commas. If you put something like "Brooklyn, NY" the database gets a bit confused, whereas it should be clever enough find the place you're in without the extra details. Our system will find all the matching places and (hopefully) assign you to the right one.

Secondly, your place may not be listed, but a nearby place might be. Try a few other options, in the simplest format possible, and one of them should work for you. You don't need to be too exact, it's just to help us match you up with local members.

If you can't find your location, let us know and we'll add you to the database.

Do I have to pay to use School of Everything?

No - the service is completely free for both teachers and learners to sign up.

How come School of Everything is free?

Right now, we're funded by a group of organisations and individuals interested in education - including Channel 4 Learning and the Young Foundation (which carries on the work of Michael Young, founder of the Open University). Our longer term plan is to add optional "paid for" services, like an online payment system for teachers who want their students to set up regular automated payments.

But we'll always keep it free for teachers and learners to list themselves and contact each other - because the more people there are using the site, the better it works for everyone.

Is there an age limit for School of Everything members?

You must be over 18 to join School of Everything. If you are looking for private tuition for your children, you'll need to use the site yourself and act on their behalf.

What languages does School of Everything support?

The primary language at the moment is English, but School of Everything hopes to provide services in other languages at some point in the future. If you're interested in helping us translate and promote School of Everything in your language, please let us know.

What web browsers does School of Everything support?

We aim to support all the major web browsers and computer platforms, but it is tricky to get it right consistently and you might experience occasional problems. It might not be your browser though: other factors like browser plugins or bugs on your computer, can also affect how the site appears for you.

What should I do if I see inappropriate content on School of Everything?

Please click the 'report this' button at the top righthand corner of the page in question. Each user can only report a page once. This will alert School of Everything to that page so appropriate action can be taken. Please see the community guidelines for a clear outline of content that School of Everything doesn't allow.
School of Everything relies on everyone's help to maintain a nice, safe community.

Will School of Everything share my email address and personal details with anyone?

We don't sell your information to spammers or share it with other companies: it's really important that you trust us with your data. We do store your data overseas and share it with companies providing services to us though, but that's just so we can host the website abroad and use services like Googlemail to run our business.

For more information, read our privacy policy outlining how we will and won't use your data.

What should I do if I can't remember my password?

1) Go to http://schoolofeverything.com/user/password
2) Type in your e-mail address or username into the box
3) Click the 'E-mail new password' link and we'll e-mail you a new password.
4) Check your e-mail and open the message from us, and click on the link in the message to reset your password.

Can't find the e-mail? Check your spam folder. If our e-mail ended up in your junk mail, please add hello@schoolofeverything.com to your address book and adjust your e-mail settings so that your computer knows messages from schoolofeverything.com are not spam. This will make sure you don't miss any future notifications from us, such as when other members contact you or people register to teach your subjects.

If you've followed all the above steps and the e-mail still hasn't arrived, please let us know.

How can I delete my School of Everything account?

If you're just not happy with your profile, you can re-edit it at any time. Just click on the little 'Edit' link while logged into the site and edit away. You can add new subjects you want to learn, or remove existing ones, at any time.

If you want to delete your account, a School of Everything admin will need to do this for you. Contact us if you need help with this.

Got a question that isn't listed here?

Check out the Help and Feedback sections of our discussion forums. You may find your question has already been answered there, and if not you can ask it and Team Everything (or maybe another member) will try to answer it for you there.

We like talking about the site in public like this: it keeps us on our toes, because you can see whether we've done a good job of responding to queries; and as more questions get asked, you may start to see the answer to your question has already been given.

If you want to talk to us privately though, you can also contact us directly and we'll do our best to help you out.