Single sign-on for schools

Students and teachers on CBSE Math Revision can sign in with their school Google or Microsoft account, or with a one-time link sent to their school email. Nobody has to remember a password, and one sign-in works on all four of our revision sites.

In short: anyone can already use Continue with Google, Continue with Microsoft or Email me a sign-in link. A school admin can go further: prove the school owns its email domain, and then everyone who signs in with that domain is linked to the school automatically. If you like, you can also stop password sign-ins for your domain.

How a school admin switches it on

  1. Sign in with your school account and open the Department page (teacher menu → Department, or the Department page). It is there for the school licence admin and Heads of Department.
  2. In Sign-in & SSO, add your school's email domain, for example yourschool.org.
  3. The page shows one DNS record to add. Ask whoever runs your school's domain (IT office or web host) to add a TXT record on the domain itself, with the value shown, such as mathrevision-verify=….
  4. Press Verify. DNS changes usually show within minutes but can take up to an hour; you can press Verify again.
  5. Once verified, choose the options that suit your school:
    • Add teachers automatically: teacher accounts on your domain join your school's staff list the first time they sign in with Google, Microsoft or an email link.
    • Require single sign-on: accounts on your domain that sign in with a password are refused and asked to use Google, Microsoft or an email link instead.

What students and teachers do

Nothing new to learn. On the sign-in page they press Continue with Google or Continue with Microsoft and pick their school account, or type their school email and press Email me a sign-in link. Students on a verified domain are linked to your school straight away; they still join a class with the class code or from their teacher's roster.

Teachers can add a whole class by school email address from Add students, ticking no passwords: each student gets an email that tells them to sign in with their school account.

One login across our sites

Schools that teach more than one programme (IB Diploma, A Level, IGCSE or CBSE) use one school account for all of them. A teacher's dashboard lists every class on every board, and moving from one of our sites to another keeps you signed in.

Questions

Do we need Google Workspace or Microsoft 365?

No. Any school email address can use the email sign-in link. Google and Microsoft sign-in work with the accounts your school already has.

Why do we have to add a DNS record?

It proves that your school controls the email domain, so no one else can link your domain's accounts to their school or switch on rules for it.

What happens to existing passwords?

They keep working unless you switch on Require single sign-on. Existing accounts are the same accounts: signing in with Google or Microsoft on the same email address opens the same account, with all its work.

Microsoft says "Need admin approval". What now?

Some schools only let their Microsoft 365 administrator approve new apps. Your administrator approves ours once, in the Entra admin centre under Enterprise applications. We only ask for your name and email address.

Can we use a free email provider such as gmail.com?

No. Only a school's own domain can be verified, because anyone can create an address on a public provider.

Set it up now

Open the Department page and find Sign-in & SSO, or look at the school licence options first.

Open the Department page Teacher tools