Getting Started: Administrator Set-up Guide

Getting Started: Administrator Set-up Guide

Administrator Set-up Guide


Welcome to the Learning Ladders family! 

Learning Ladders is a unique online and in-class teaching, assessment and parental engagement system that brings together students, teachers and parents to improve children’s learning.


Let's get started with some steps to setup your Learning Ladders system ahead of training.



Step 1- Log-in

Go to your school’s unique URL which was shared during your Setup Meeting.  Remember, schools cannot log into their Learning Ladders sites via our website www.learningladders.info.

As part of the Setup Meeting we will have added the Learning Ladders Lead to the URL.  The Learning Ladders Lead receives an email, asking them to login to Learning Ladders.  If you are not the Learning Ladders Lead, you will need to ask this user to add you as an Admin User in the site.

Please note: when you log in for the first time you may need to type your password rather than copying and pasting as this can add extra spaces and result in an incorrect password. 

Step 2 - Add Learning Ladders as a Bookmark 

Add Learning Ladders to your bookmarks bar so that you can access your site quickly and easily. Click here to find out how.  

We recommend using Google Chrome as your web browser. You can download Chrome here. 

Step 3 - Decide on your Curriculum/Ladders 

Decide on and customise your curriculum learning outcomes in 'Ladders'. 

Schools have three options:

  1. Move the National Curriculum Subjects from the Ladder Bank into your Creation Zone
  2. Move the Learning Ladders Curriculum Subjects from the Ladder Bank into your Creation Zone
  3. Import your own Curriculum Framework Subjects, Ladders and Objectives.

To minimise the workload, set up your subject leaders as administrators during this process to review your ladder content together and then change their user permission back to a teacher user.  We recommend minimising the number of Admin users to protect settings.
We recommend that you make any curriculum changes before you launch to teachers, ahead of your teacher training session as this helps with implementation.  Once reviewed & published, teachers view the curriculum framework in Learning Ladders with familiarity.


 Put a date in the diary to review the effectiveness of your curriculum towards the end of the academic year.

Step 4 - Import your Students 

However you choose to upload students to Learning Ladders, classes will automatically be created.  Admin users have two options:

  1. Import Students using an import file
  2. Synchronise Student and Parent data from your MIS using an MIS integration

Once you have imported your students, your classes will appear in Classes & Groups and in Students.

If you wish to create Groups, you can do this as part of the import file but not via an MIS integration.  After the MIS integration has pulled in your students, use an import file to create Groups.  Read more about Groups.
It is also a good time to think about student attributes and whether you would like to setup the attributes for senior leaders to filter reporting.

Step 5 - Customise your Assessment Policies

There are three Assessment Policies to customise in Learning Ladders.

Formative Assessment Policies:




Summative Assessment Policy:

We recommend that your assessment policies are edited ahead of teacher training sessions to support with effective implementation.  Teachers will see the familiar language referred to in school when discussing assessment and this makes assessment more meaningful.

Step 6 -  Add your Users

You can now add staff as either administrators or teachers.


We recommend adding users just before your training session so teachers are all able to log in during the session. 

Please note: we recommend at least 2 or 3 administrators as only administrators can change passwords for other users but advise against a large number of administrators in order to avoid unauthorised changes to settings.

Step 7 - Decide whether you'd like to import Historical Judgements

This step is not necessary in order to use the Learning Ladders system, but some schools decide that the historic Attainment and Progress judgements are useful to have in the system.


Step 8 - Prepare settings for communicating with parents through Ladders at Home 

This step may come slightly later once you have fully reviewed your curriculum framework outcomes and teachers have begun to record assessments.  


You’re all set!

As you become familiar with the Admin functions within Learning Ladders, you'll learn that there are many tools and features that provide extra value to teachers and senior leaders.  You can read guides to support Admin Users in the Help Centre at any times, or contact the team at support@learningladders.info / 020 3637 0500

We recommend you keep up to date with our latest updates via the newsletter which is sent by email or by attending our regular FREE workshops.

All the best, The Learning Ladders Team 


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