Adding a New Student and Completing the Intake Interview
Every student in Primer starts with an intake interview: a short, guided set of questions that tells the app who they are, what they're interested in, where they currently stand academically, and how they learn best. This article walks through adding a student and completing that interview from scratch, using a new sixth-grade student as an example.
Step 1: Add the student
From the Family Dashboard, click the + button.
Fill in the student's first name and date of birth, then click Create Student.
Step 2: Start the intake interview
A new student lands on a simple prompt to begin their interview.
The interview has ten steps. You can go back and change any answer later from the student's Profile, Curriculum, or Accommodations tabs, so nothing here is permanent.
1. How Primer Uses AI
The first step explains, in plain language, how AI is used to generate lessons and requires you to check off that you understand and consent before continuing.
2. Basics
Set the student's primary language, grade level, and any general accessibility needs.
3. Strengths & Interests
Pick topics and activities the student enjoys. These directly shape the examples and hooks used in generated lessons later (a student who loves animals might get a fractions lesson framed around feeding a litter of puppies, for instance).
4. Where They Are Now
For each core subject (Math, Reading, Science, History), expand the row and select the specific skills the student is currently working on or ready for.
5. Anything That Gets in the Way?
Flag common friction points, like difficulty starting tasks or getting through word problems.
6. Learning Profile & Supports
If the student has diagnosed or suspected learning differences (Dyslexia, ADHD, Autism, Anxiety, and so on), note them here, along with anything that's helped in the past. This step is entirely optional: you can leave it blank, which is what we did for this example student.
7. Triggers & Strategies
Describe what frustration tends to look like for this student and what helps them recover: short breaks, step-by-step hints, encouragement, and so on.
8. Goals
Choose big-picture goals (like "better math reasoning") and optionally spell out specific topics that must or must not be covered.
9. Standards Alignment
Decide whether lessons should be checked against academic standards (Common Core, NGSS, C3, or your state's framework), and how strictly.
10. Safety & Permissions
Set preferences for things like whether external videos can be used in lessons, and how much say the student gets in choosing their own topics.
Step 3: Review and complete
After the last step, Primer generates a short written summary of everything you entered, so you can sanity-check it in plain English before finalizing.
If something looks off, you can type a correction into the "Describe a change" box and click Apply Change, or go back and edit a specific step. When it looks right, click Complete.
Completing intake immediately makes the student's Curriculum, Path, and lesson generation available. That's covered next in From Intake to First Lessons.