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How to Use Story Approval

Set up and manage Educa’s review and approval process for learning stories.

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Written by Educa
Updated this week

🔒 Site Admins only – If you don’t see this option, you don’t have permission. Ask someone with site admin access at your centre to help.

Story Approval helps your centre maintain quality and consistency in learning stories. It ensures stories are polished before families see them, provides teachers with mentoring through reviewer feedback, and makes publishing more efficient by clarifying who writes, who reviews, and when a story is ready to publish.

Overview

Here’s what the review workflow looks like once enabled:

Step 1: Enable Story Approval

  1. Go to Settings > Site Settings > Site Features.

  2. Tick Story Approval to activate.

GIF showing how to enable Story Approval in Site Settings

Step 2: Assign reviewers

  1. Go to Settings > Site Settings > Story Approval.

  2. Select teacher(s) who will act as reviewers and tick Is a Reviewer.

  3. Assign each teacher who need story approval up to three reviewers.

GIF demonstrating adding a reviewer for story approval

Note: For teachers who do not need approval, enable Auto-Approval in their teacher profile. This allows them to publish stories directly without going through the review process.

GIF showing how to turn on Auto Approval on a teacher profile

Submit Stories for Approval (Teachers)

  • Teachers who need approval will see Submit for Approval instead of Publish.

  • You can leave a private comment for your reviewer before submitting.

  • Once submitted, the story status changes to Pending.

  • Reviewers receive an email notification.

Story editor with ‘Submit for Approval’ button highlighted

Important: After submitting, you cannot edit the story yourself. Your reviewer must either:

  • Edit on your behalf, or

  • Return for Rework so you can revise and re-submit.

Review pending stories (Reviewers)

  1. Go to Children > Pending Stories.

  2. Select a story to open the review page.

  3. Choose an action:

    • Approve → Publishes the story immediately.

    • Return for Rework → Sends the story back to the author.

    • Edit on Behalf → Make edits directly before approving.

Note: A story only needs approval from one reviewer. Once approved, it is published and removed from the pending list for all other reviewers.

List of pending stories with Approve, Return for Rework, and Edit options

  • Reviewers can also add comments before approving or returning a story.

GIF showing how to add a comment for approval

  • Teachers can view all of approval comments in their Teacher Profile.

GIF showing to access approval comments through teacher portfolio

Best practice

  • Keep reviewer numbers small – assigning too many reviewers can cause delays.

  • Use reviews as mentoring – encourage constructive feedback, not just corrections.

  • Set clear turnaround times – agree at your centre how quickly reviewers should respond.

  • Enable Auto-Approval for experienced teachers – this avoids unnecessary steps for staff who consistently meet your centre’s standards.

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