This is for a parent whose child's school uses Clarvyn, and for a parent who has heard of the app and wants to see what is in it before anyone has signed them up.
How you get in
There is no password and no school code. Your identity in the parent app is your phone number.
The school records you as a guardian of your child, with your phone number, in its own records. That is the only link between you and the child, and only the school can make it. There is nothing you can do in the app to claim a child, and nothing another parent can do to see yours.
When you open the app, enter your phone number and press Send code. A six-digit code arrives by text. Enter it and press Sign in. If your school has already recorded your number, your children are on the screen.
If no school has your number yet
You can still create an account. The app says so under the phone field: verifying your number creates one, and your wards appear once their school links this number to them. After the code, you are asked What should we call you? and then Create my account. The name is the one shown beside anything you post in the forum, and it is the only thing you are asked for.
When a school later records your number against a child, the account you already have becomes a parent account on its own. There is nothing to do twice.
Looking around first
You do not need an account to see the schools. On the sign-in screen, Look around first opens the school directory, the same one anyone can read at clarvyn.ai/explore: every school that has chosen to be listed, with its name, crest, town, the years it teaches and what it offers. A bar at the bottom says Looking around, with a Sign in button beside it.
Looking around is reading only. To see your own children, pay fees or join the forum, you sign in.
The home screen
The app opens on the Wards tab. Along the bottom are six tabs: Wards, Explore, Forum, Calendar, Inbox and Profile.
On the Wards tab, under a greeting with your name, the first thing you see is anything that needs a look this week: one card naming one child and one reason, such as a subject falling since last term or attendance slipping. The card only appears when something has earned it. Most weeks there is nothing there, and that is the point. A banner that always finds something to worry about is one you learn to ignore.
Below that, FROM YOUR SCHOOLS lists notices from every school your children attend, newest first, each one saying which school and which class it is from. Tap one to read it.
Then YOUR WARDS: one card per child, with the school and class, the percentage of school days present, whether fees are settled or how much is due, and today's gate record if the school scans children in and out. Tap a card to open that child.
Inside a child's page, a row of tabs runs from Overview and Attendance through Work, Menu, Fees, Health, Photos, Activities and Files to School. Each shows only what the school has actually recorded. A tab with nothing in it says so rather than inventing a number.
On a shared phone
Many families share a handset. Under Profile you can Turn on app lock, which asks for a PIN before the app shows your children. Signing out clears your children from the phone, so the next person to open the app sees the sign-in screen and nothing else.
You will be asked to sign in again from time to time. That is deliberate. A code by text is quick, and a phone that stays signed in forever is a phone that shows your children to whoever picks it up.
If something is missing
If you sign in and a child is not there, the school has not recorded your number against that child yet. The app cannot add one for you. Ask the school office, which is the only place the link can be made.