Getting Started Guide

Welcome to the wonderful

world of Wordsmith!
Wordsmith is your toolkit to support your daily
English sessions, giving you a fantastic range of
resources for effective, dynamic lessons. Powered
by
, it brings together everything you
need to plan, allocate and assess all in one place.
This Getting Started Guide has been created to
help you familiarise yourself with Wordsmith, and
the features of Active Learn, so that you can get
going as quickly and easily as possible. Weve also
included information on where you can find
additional help and support should you need it.
Dont forget to refer to Wordsmith World for
more support and useful tools on getting started
with, and introducing, Wordsmith in your school.
The beauty of Wordsmith is that it will continue to
evolve based on your feedback and the
curriculum. For this reason, this Getting Started
Guide will be updated regularly. If you are viewing
a printed version of this guide, please bear in mind
it might not be the latest version. For the most
up-to-date copy visit wordsmith.pearson.com.

Contents
1. Setting up your school account

Activating your Wordsmith subscription

Logging in as an Administrator
Admin: Creating teacher and pupil accounts

2. The Teacher Toolkit

Home
Searching for resources
Allocating resources
Planning

My Class

3. The Pupil World

Logging in
Pupil Home

My Stuff
My Library
My Rewards

4. Troubleshooting
5. Glossary of terms
and abbreviations
6. Further help and support
7. Feedback

1. Setting up your school account

Activating your Wordsmith subscription
You should by now have received an email from us
(digital.support@pearson.com) asking you to activate your subscription.
To do this, you simply need to accept our terms and conditions - follow the instructions in the email if you havent yet done so. This will generate a second
email with your login details, including username, password and school code.
Tip: Still waiting on your activation email, or having trouble activating?
Give the Wordsmith Support Team a call on 0845 313 88 88 or
digital.support@pearson.com

Logging in as an
Administrator
1. Before you start, we strongly
recommend using Google
Chrome or Mozilla Firefox
web browsers with Active
Learn. If you prefer to use
Internet Explorer, you will
need at least IE9 in order for everything to work as it should.
2. Visit www.activelearnprimary.co.uk to log into Wordsmith. You may want to
bookmark the site.

For help on how to add teachers, pupils, classes, groups and cohorts there are
instructions on the import page itself and you can also see the Administration
section in Help.

2. The Teacher Toolkit

Home
This is the first screen youll see after logging in for the first time. On the Home
screen youll see:
1. Logos for the subscriptions your school holds. If you only have a subscription
to Wordsmith then youll just see the Wordsmith logo here.
2. Your recent activity (if you are assigned to a class this will just be your
activity and the children in your class activity).
3. My Messages section, which will include updates from us on new content
and features and maintenance.
4. You can also choose whether you see recently opened documents,
suggested resources, or resources youve bookmarked (My Files).
The next time you log into Active Learn, you will be taken to the last place you
were when you logged out previously. But clicking on Home at the top of the
screen will bring you back to this screen.
For more detailed help on the Home screen, and guidance on how to
personalise your view, see the Teacher Homepage section in Help.

3. Enter your username, password and school code into the login box. You will
have received these details as part of the activation process detailed above.

Tip: To check that you have everything you need to run Active Learn look
for the Will this work on my computer? button on the login page. See also the
Troubleshooting section if you are having any problems accessing Active Learn
or viewing content.

Admin: Creating teacher and pupil accounts

1
3
4

The main administrator in your school will need to add teacher and pupil details
in order to set up accounts and logins across your school. The good news is this
can be done as a bulk import.

Searching for resources

If you are searching for a
particular resource or activity to
use in a lesson or to allocate to
a child, then the Resource
Finder will help you do just this.
You can find resources by year
group, focus area, objective,
type of resource. The Resource
Finder works in a similar way to
a lot of online shopping
websites and is very intuitive
and flexible, allowing you to filter search results to find exactly what you need.
To access the Resource Finder, click on Resources at the top of your screen
and select Wordsmith. For help on using the Resource Finder, see the
Browsing Resources section in Help.

Allocating and bookmarking resources

You can allocate resources to a child to look at or work on from home.
The child will receive coins for every resource they complete to spend in the
rewards area of their pupil world. NB: some types of resources, like lessons
(anything with an icon rather than a thumbnail) cannot be allocated.
For more detailed help on allocating resources, see the Allocation section in
Help. You can also bookmark resources by adding them to your My Files area,
see the My Files section in Help for more information.

Planning
The Wordsmith planning area
allows you to see long-term,
medium-term and unit plans. To
access the planning area click on
Planning at the top of your
screen. Once there, the menu on
the left of the screen will help
you to navigate between plans
and drill down to the level of
detail you want.
For more detailed help on planning, see the Planning section in Help.

My Class
Once you have assigned yourself to a class you will be able to add notes to all
the pupils in your class here. To assign yourself to a class go to the Admin area
in the top-right corner of the screen.

3. The Pupil World

The Wordsmith pupil world is the place that your children will log into to read
books that you allocate to them, whether at home or in whole-class settings. It
is also where they can access rewards. Children earn rewards when they open
the books.

My Library
This is a store of old resources.
It is where resources will go
when you deallocate them from
a child.

Logging in for pupils

Once the accounts have been set up for your class (see Creating teacher and
pupil accounts section), you will have all the logins for your children.
Children log into the Wordsmith pupil world in the exact same way as you, via
www.activelearnprimary.co.uk.
Tip: Download login-reminder bookmarks from the Classroom Goodies
section of Wordsmith World for sending home with children or for keeping
in book bags.

Pupil Home
Once children have logged into
the pupil world, theyll arrive at
the Pupil Home. Children can
personalise their home screen
by choosing a world. The worlds
differ depending on key stage
but include Race World, Skate
World and Future World.

My Rewards
My Rewards is where children
go to select their rewards. They
can also customise avatars,
decorate a tree house, play
games and more. As with the
Pupil homescreens, these vary
according to key stage but
include a Treehouse, Game Zone
and Skate Shack. The more books
children read, the more rewards
they can unlock and buy.
For more detailed help on The Pupil World, see the Pupil section in Help.

My Stuff
This is where children can see
resources you have allocated to
them.

4. Troubleshooting
If you are having trouble accessing Active Learn or viewing and downloading
content, try these troubleshoot steps.
Recommended browsers
Pearson strongly recommends using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web
browsers. If your school prefers to use Internet Explorer you will need at least
IE9 in order for everything to work as it should.
1. Have you tried the Will
this work on my computer
button?
This can be found on the
login page. Follow the easy
on-screen instructions to
ensure your computer is
set-up in a way that will allow
you to use Primary Active
Learn site.
2. Have you set your default
browser?
See note above on our recommended browsers. Whichever browser you are
using to access Active Learn, you need to make sure it is set as your default
browser. This will ensure that resources always open in the same browser.
3. If you are having trouble opening PDFs specifically, have you got the latest
version of Adobe Reader?
Type latest version of Adobe Reader into an online search engine to find and
download the latest version.

4. Are you using Internet Explorer?

See note above on our recommended browsers. If you are using IE9 or above
and still having trouble, you may need to turn on Compatibility View:
With Active Learn open, go to Tools (if the Tools tab is not visible press the
Alt key on keyboard)
Select Compatibility View Settings
Copy and paste https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk into the box and click
add then close the window.
5. Try clearing your browsers cache
Firstly try a forced refresh, by pressing Ctrl+F5, to see if this makes any difference. If not, it may be necessary to clear the cache:
a. To clear the cache on a Windows PC, simply press Ctl+Shift+Delete to
bring up the Delete Browsing History option in the browser. From here you
can delete the appropriate history files.
b. To clear the cache on an Apple Macintosh machine when using Safari,
click the Safari menu and select Empty Cache, then click Empty. If you
are using any other web browser, the command is Shift+Command+Delete
(to bring up the Delete Browser History option) where you can then delete
the appropriate history files.
6. Check that Primary Active Learn is a Trusted Site
You may need to check that https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk has been
added to your school network list of Trusted Sites (especially if you have had
set restrictions previously). To do so, contact your schools network technician
or, if your schools internet connection is provided by your LEA, youll need to
contact your LA ICT contact.
Still having problems?
If these steps still dont resolve your issues then get in touch with the Wordsmith
Support Team: Email digital.support@pearson.com or call 0845 313 8888.
Office Hours: 8.30 - 17.30 Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays)
Note: You may require admin rights to edit browser/computer settings. Your network
technician should be able to apply these changes on the school network. However,
some settings might still be controlled or overridden at a Local Education Authority
level.

10

11

Glossary of terms and abbreviations

Book: an electronic book, designed for whole-class teaching, that can be used
on a whiteboard. Books can also be allocated to pupils to access in their Pupil
World. The Wordsmith non-fiction books contain enhanced features such as
extra videos, animations, texts, maps and diagrams.
Resource type: Book
Grammar blast: a discrete grammar lesson focussing on aspects of grammar
and punctuation. These grammar blasts appear under the recommended
grammar lessons in the Unit plans. Most grammar blasts have an associated
Pilots Licence.
Resource type: Lesson Plan
Lesson plan: a detailed set of lesson plans, accessible online or in Word,
incorporating many of the resources listed below. Unit plans set out work for 1-4
weeks of teaching. Grammar lesson plans are discrete activities that can be used
flexibly, from 10 minutes to 1 hour.
Resource type: Lesson Plan

Wordsmith acronyms
AR Additional resource
F Fiction
G Grammar
ITP Interactive teaching page
L Live
NF Non-fiction
PCM Photocopy Master
P Poetry
Example Wordsmith references
Additional resources: P AR 3.1.6 (P = Poetry, AR = Additional resource, 3 = Year
3, 1 = Unit 1, 6 = number 6)
Lesson plan:

Live Unit 1.1 (Live = live unit, 1 = Year 1, 1 = Unit 1)

Photocopiable:

NF PCM 4.1.3 (NF = Non-Fiction, ITP = interactive teaching page, 4 = Year 4, Unit 1, number 3)

Pilots Licence:

Quiz 4.1 (Quiz, 4 = Year 4, number 1)

Teaching tool:

F ITP 4.1.3 (F = Fiction, ITP = interactive teaching page, 4

= Year 4, Unit 1, number 3)

Photocopiable (PCM): a PDF sheet (Photocopy Master) that can be printed and
used to make or display practical resources, or worksheets on which children
write their answers
Resource type: Photocopiable
Pilots Licence: a fun animated quiz, for use with the whole class at KS2. They
help assess the key grammar knowledge and skills that have been practised in
that grammar blast.
Resource type: Interactive whiteboard; Assessment
Teaching tool: an interactive screen, containing text, images and/or video,
designed for use on a whiteboard. They support your front-of-class teaching.
Resource type: Interactive whiteboard

12

13

6. Further help and support

If you need any more help or support dont forget we also have:
a detailed Help Section - just click on Help at any point once youre
logged in.
a friendly Wordsmith Support team - call 0845 313 88 88 or email
digital.support@pearson.com with your query.
Help videos.
Professional Development - to help you get to grips with the new
curriculum and your Wordsmith resources.
You can find out more about all of the above at Wordsmith World.

7. Feedback

S890

Were always seeking to improve our service to you and look forward to
feedback, good or bad. The beauty of Wordsmith being online is that it has
the ability to evolve, so if you think we could improve on anything, then let us
know! Youll spot a Feedback button in the top-right corner of the site when
youre logged in.

14