Welcome to Compass

A guide for parents & families

Table of Contents

Click on the below tabs to navigate to the corresponding section:

What is Compass?

Compass is a school management solution that allows parents and carers to access up-to-date and meaningful information about your school and your child’s progress. Compass includes many different features, including the ability to:

  • Monitor your child’s attendance, and enter an explanation for absence or lateness
  • Communicate with your child’s teachers, and update your family contact details
  • View your child’s timetable and the school calendar
  • Monitor your child’s homework and assessment tasks
  • Download and view your child’s academic reports
  • Book parent-teacher conferences
  • Pay and provide consent for events and school fees

Our school will advise parents when each of these features becomes available for parent use.

How do I access Compass?

Compass is accessible on any modern web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari) or by using the Compass iOS or Android apps (continue reading to learn more about the app including how to use it).

To access the parent portal, you can go to your school’s website and click the Compass link on their homepage. Alternatively, you can go to schools.compass.education where you can search for our school’s direct URL.

To log in you will require your unique family username and password. These details will be provided to you by our school. Upon first login, you will be required to change your password and confirm your email address and mobile phone number. These details may be used by our school for SMS, password recovery and email communication throughout the year.

Compass Apps

You can download the Compass App on iOS and Android devices, simply search for Compass School Manager in the store.

Using the app you can:

  • View the school news feed
  • Receive messages from the school
  • View your child’s timetable and the school calendar
  • View Learning Tasks
  • Book parent-teacher conferences
  • Add Attendance Notes
  • View academic reports

The Compass home screen

The home screen provides you with relevant alerts and news, as well as quick access to your child’s profile.

Compass homepage for parent
School Calendar

The tools you need to keep track of your students journey through the school gate each day

News

Recent school news items and information relevant to you. This may include newsletters, details of upcoming events.

Your Children

Provides you with a quick summary of available options and highlights a summary of upcoming and overdue tasks.

To access more information click on the relevant quick link or select Profile to access detailed information about your child.

Alerts

Custom notifications for items that require your action or attention. These may include excursion notifications, ordering options for school photos, absence notifications, survey, and student report availability.

Main Menu

Allows you to access other Compass and school resources. The Tools icon allows you to update your contact details and change your password.

Attendance

Entering an Attendance Note

From the Compass home screen (or from your student’s profile), click the Add Attendance Note item.
From the pop-up window
Select the reason
Enter a brief description of the absence
Select the start and finish time
Click the ‘Save’ button

Where possible, attendance notes should be entered prior to the absence/lateness occurring.

SMS Link

If your child is marked as absent without prior approval you will receive a message containing a link. When you follow the link, you will have the opportunity to explain the absence.

The link will expire after you have clicked it, meaning that it cannot be used to explain unapproved absences in the future. Instead, you will receive another message containing a new link, allowing you to repeat the process.

Summary

Using Compass you can view up-to-the-minute attendance information for your child.

Notes

This sub-tab provides a list of attendance explanations for your child. From this tab you can also add absence notes (both past and future).

Daily Snapshot

Recent school news items and information relevant to you. This may include newsletters, details of upcoming events.

Explain Specific Absences

This sub-tab provides a list of all unexplained lates and absences from class. From this tab you can click to approve specific absences.

Attendance Summary

Includes a summary of attendance in each class. For full details about a specific absence, click the appropriate number in the grid. For an explanation of a heading item, hover your mouse over the heading of interest.

When students are marked ‘Not Present’ in class this can sit in one of three different categories. These include:

NP SchlNot present in class and is explained by a school related activity.
NP Parnt Not present in class and is explained by a parent approval.
NP Unap Not present in class with no explanation entered.

Events, Consent and Payments

Parental consent and payment is often necessary for events and excursions. In order to make this process easier, Compass collates and lists anything that requires consent and/or payment in the Action Centre.

When you access the Action Centre you can view events requiring consent/payment and any course confirmations which need to be completed displayed under the ‘Action Centre’ tab. You can view the details of upcoming events by clicking the ‘Events’ tab and selecting the event you wish to view.

Wallet

Using the ‘Wallet’ function in Compass you can securely store your credit card details in order to top-up your student’s account for quick and convenient payment.

To make this process even more seamless, you have the option of setting up an automatic top up for an account.

Viewing Academic Reports

From the home screen, click on the ‘View Academic Reports’ item or navigate to the ‘Student Profile’ and click the ‘Reports’ tab.
A list of ‘Academic Reports’ will be displayed. Click the report title to download the PDF.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Using Compass you can book your parent-teacher conferences online.

On the home screen, beside the student you wish to make bookings for, click ‘Book Parent Student Teacher Conference’.
A list of parent-teacher conference cycles will be displayed along with their booking status. Click on the relevant cycle.
Your booking sheet will be displayed and will show your available booking times. Click on a time in the grid to display teachers available for booking at that time.
Parent-Teacher Conferences - app
From the Compass home screen on your app, select the menu (top left) and click Conferences.
From the list of parent-teacher conference cycles
Select the relevant cycle you wish to book for
Select the student you wish to place a booking for
Select the class or interview group
Click on a time slot to make a booking and confirm

Ordering Photos Online

If your child's school has used Compass or their photography partner MSP Photography for their school photoday you can order photos and other related products from within the Compass portal. The following are instructions on how to access the feature.

In most cases a link to the ordering page will appear above the 'My News' section as shown in the picture on the right.
However, if the link does not appear above the “My News” section, please select to the community section identified by the two people icon as pictured to the right and select 'Photos'.
Once selected, you will navigate to the ordering portal as shown here.

Previous Orders Note: If your school's nominated photographer is MSP Photography, you will be able to order previous years photos at any stage and these will be displayed on this page. If you previously logged in and did not complete your order you will see that your selected pack is still available in your cart and you can take a shortcut to the checkout by selecting “Proceed to Checkout" button.

Once you have navigated to photos the available school photo packs will appear. You will be presented with different pack options. Select your preferred pack. You can also explore additional options, such as family packs, in the left column.
Click the drop-down, then from the list choose your desired quantity.
This selection will then be visible in the shopping cart. You can continue to add items to your order until you are satisfied.
Once you are satisfied with your order you can then complete your purchase by selecting the 'Checkout' button below your shopping cart.

Your order will then appear. Confirm your order is correct, tick the verify button to approve the order and after entering your card details click the 'Place Order' button at the bottom of the screen to complete your purchase.

Ordering with the MSP Online app: If you would like to order your school photos via your hand-held device please download the MSP online app and login using your Compass login details. The App can be downloaded via the Apple App Store or the Google Play store for Android devices. To login use your Compass username and password.

Student Profile

The Student Profile is the destination for all your child’s information.

The Student Profile can be accessed by clicking on your child’s name from the home screen.

The Student Profile dashboard provides you with an overview of today’s classes and activities, the ability to email your child’s teachers, and a summary of teacher observations (Student Chronicle).

For more detailed information, including assessment tasks, attendance, surveys and academic reports, navigate through the tabs along the top of the Profile.

Learning Tasks

Individual student view

To view the Learning Tasks for one child, select the Learning Tasks tab on their profile page.

Consolidated view

If you have multiple children at the school, you can view a consolidated list by clicking ‘Learning Tasks’ from the ‘Teaching and Learning’ menu item.

Privacy and Security

When you use Compass you will notice a padlock appears in your browser’s address bar on the left.

This is because Compass uses a technology called TLS (Transport Layer Security). This means that your Compass session is encrypted and secure. Further, Compass adheres to PCI DSS compliance obligations to ensure any credit card details are managed safely, consistent with industry credit card regulations.

We are committed to the privacy of your information.

Full information on the Compass Privacy Policy can be found here