Classroom

Open a resource for a lesson on a copy, never the original. The copy goes to <sessions folder>/<date>/<lesson label>/ and opens in your editor (Thonny by default). Afterwards: see what you changed, re-open it, or promote the edited version back beside the original as name_v2.py.

In the panel

1. Resource: pick from the library (⌘O gets you here) or browse.
2. Lesson label: one short line, e.g. P3 Y9 loops. Not a class, not pupils.
3. Open for class.

Past sessions lists every copy classroom made: the files in each <date>/<lesson label>/ folder that has a .origin.json. Anything else in the sessions folder is left out, including outputs/, where tools save sheets made with no input of their own (Outputs), and folders or files you put there by hand. Select one for Diff vs original, Re-open or Promote (copies back next to the original under a new versioned name; never overwrites). Promote first compares the copy with the original and with the latest promoted version: an unchanged copy writes nothing, and the message says so (Already promoted as resource_v2.py: the copy has not changed since, or No changes: the copy matches the original resource.py; nothing to promote). Edit the copy again and the next promote makes _v3.

Each session folder also holds a .origin.json with the lesson label and, for each copy, the absolute path of the original it came from: that is how Diff and Promote find their way back. The label is at most 60 characters, and the app cannot check what you put in it, so keep it to the lesson (Privacy).

On the command line

staff classroom open path/to/resource.py --label "P3 Y9 loops"
staff classroom list
staff classroom diff "2026-10-06/P3 Y9 loops/resource.py"
staff classroom promote "2026-10-06/P3 Y9 loops/resource.py"
staff classroom reopen "2026-10-06/P3 Y9 loops/resource.py"

Settings that matter

Settings › Classroom: Sessions folder (local by default) and Editor (Thonny, IDLE, System default, or Custom with a Command in which {file} is replaced by the copy's path).