Somebody invited you to a circle, or you want to study with one other person. This is what a circle is from the inside: what you can see, what arrives in your inbox, and the two quite different reasons posting sometimes stops.
Without a plan: A Buddy Circle — two people, one per account
Being IN a Learning or Institution circle is free; creating one needs a teaching seat or a school.
There are five kinds, and they are not interchangeable
| Kind | Who is in it | What it has |
|---|---|---|
| Learning Circle | A tutor and their learners | Roster, homework, a shared timeline, a class leaderboard |
| Buddy Circle | You and one study partner | A shared board and a timeline. Free, and the only one you can create yourself |
| Family Circle | A parent and their children | The family view, child profiles |
| Institution Circle | A school’s class | Everything a Learning Circle has, run by the institution |
| Community Circle | Anyone, around a topic | An open feed of posts, comments and reactions |
The Buddy Circle — the one you can make yourself
This is the free tier’s one collaborative entitlement and it is easy to miss. Any learner on any plan can create a Buddy Circle: a private space for exactly two people, invite-only, with a shared board you can present to each other and a timeline of what you have done.
One per account, two people in it, and always private — there is no public or unlisted setting for it. It is deliberately small: a study pair, not a class.
Scheduled lessons and the agenda
A circle can hold scheduled sessions, and the agenda is where they live — what is coming, what has been, and what the session is about.
Times are shown in your timezone, not the organiser’s. That matters more than it sounds in a circle spanning several countries, which is the ordinary case for online tutoring, and it is the one place a scheduling feature is most often got wrong.
What arrives in your inbox
Two reminders per scheduled lesson: one on the morning of, at 08:00 in your own timezone, and one about an hour before it starts. The morning one is so you can plan the day; the hour one is so you actually turn up.
Beyond that, a circle emails you when a tutor sets homework or something happens in it. Nothing else — there is no promotional mail from a circle and no re-engagement drip.
Muting, and being removed
You can mute a circle, which stops its mail without leaving it — the right move for a cohort you want to read when you choose rather than be told about.
An owner can remove a member, and a removed member loses access to the circle rather than having their own record deleted: your progress, your lessons and your account are yours and are not part of the circle. Leaving or being removed costs you nothing you made.
Why posting sometimes stops — and the two different reasons
A circle can be locked, and locking stops writing only. You can always still read what is there; a lock does not take the room away.
There are two locks and they mean entirely different things. Telling them apart saves a confusing conversation with your tutor.
| Lock | Who applies it | What clears it |
|---|---|---|
| A safeguarding lock | The tutor or owner, by hand — to cool a room down | The tutor, whenever they choose. They can still post themselves while it is on. |
| An unpaid-seat lock | Nobody by hand. The nightly sweep sets it when the circle’s owner cannot pay for the seats it holds. | Paying for the seats. The tutor cannot clear this one and is not exempt from it either. |
If the circle has under-16s in it
Some features need the circle to be cleared first — somebody eligible has to take responsibility for the children being there. That is the tutor’s or the school’s job, not yours, and if a feature is refused the message names what is missing so they can fix it.
While a child is in the room, moderation fails closed: if the safety check cannot run, the message does not post. That costs an adult a minute occasionally and is the right way round.
Common questions
Yes — a Buddy Circle, one per account, for you and one study partner. Learning and Institution circles are created by tutors and schools.