In this guide learn about:

Not sure if a story is the right type of post? Learn more about learning stories.

To create a story, click 'Create' in the top right-hand side of the website, then choose 'Story'.

In the story editor, the top bar has a drop-down to choose the type of story you want to create. You can choose to write:

Once you begin writing a story it saves automatically to your Draft stories folder. Autosave saves your story a few times every minute – you can see whether your story has been autosaved at the bottom left of your story.
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​Note: You will need to click the Save and exit button to save your unfinished story to your drafts folder to finish later if you are not ready to publish.

To add children to the story, click the button under 'Children in this story'. You can search for and select one or more children here. You need to select at least one child before you can publish a story. Children's stories will appear on their profiles and be visible to their family members and other educators as soon as they are published.

Individual stories

If you’re creating a story about one child, find and click on the child in the list, then click 'Done'.

Group stories

If you’re creating a story about several children, select any children that appear in the story. If it’s a story about all children in a particular room, you can filter the list to a room using the menu above the search bar, click ‘Select all’ then click 'Done'.

The story editor is split into two main sections; the editor and the information panel. The editor is where you can write the body of the story and the information panel holds the story's date, author, children and learning tags.

When starting a new story you'll see a place for entering a title for the story, the content of the story, and an icon with a plus sign to add videos, photos or PDFs.

The story editor has sections which make up your story. This means you can have multiple text, image, video or PDF sections which you can then rearrange by dragging the section to reposition it. See more details about reordering content in the story.

It's recommended to add a title for your story, but if you choose not to, the 'Add title...' won't appear in your finished story.

When writing the main content of your story, add a new line of text within the same section by pressing enter. To add another text section, click the plus symbol on the left. Adding a new section lets you rearrange the sections, add different styling to the text area, or add images between sections.

In the story editor, click the blue upload button to open your computer's files:

Find the file or files you wish to add. Select one or multiple files (Hold down the 'Ctrl' key on a PC or the 'Command' key on a Mac to select multiple files in one go).

Images

Images in stories are rectangular (4x3 ratio) by default. This means that when you upload an image it will automatically fit it to this format. You can size it to 'fit' or 'fill' the space, rotate your image, or add a border to your image. Clicking an image will bring up the toolbar with these options.

Videos

You can upload videos in the same way you upload images. As videos tend to have larger file sizes, they may take a while to upload to your story. However, you can carry on with your story while you wait.

PDFs

You can upload PDFs in the same way you upload images. When you upload a multi-page PDF, each page will show as an image. If your PDF has a large file size you can continue working on your story while you wait for it to upload.

Read more about adding files in the 'uploading images and videos' section of our help centre.

Drag content blocks to rearrange your story

You can move images, videos and PDFs around in your story by clicking and dragging an image or using the handle on the left-hand side of a text block. A blue line will appear, indicating where the block will be moved to:

Change fonts, styles and colours

You can change font, font size, font colours, and text styles by highlighting the text and using the menu bar at the top of the editor. Learn more about how to change the presentation of your story.

Change the background colour
Select the paint can icon in the top right of the toolbar to change the background colour of your story.

By default, the date will show 'Today' and the date you started the story. To change the date, click it to select a new date from the drop-down calendar. (You might want to do this if you're writing about a particular day in the past or future.)

In the Learning tags section, click 'Add tag' to bring up all learning tags to select. From this area you can search for and navigate your service's learning sets and select the learning tags that relate to the story.

Adding tags to your stories lets you link your learning outcomes or curriculum (eg. Te Whāriki, Early Years, International Baccalaureate etc), allows you to filter published stories by those tags, and then see learning trends and tags used over time through reports.

Not sure which learning tag to add?

Hovering over the question mark before adding the learning tag will provide you with a little more information about the tag.

Alternatively, once you select the learning tag in the story you can click it to learn more.

You can share your draft story with other educators at your centre (in a view-only mode), and/or transfer editorship of your draft story with any educator at your service.

When you’ve finished your story and selected the child or children who appear in it, click the ‘Publish’ button. The story will appear on the selected children’s profiles and their family members will be notified that a new story has been added.

Save as a draft
If you don't wish to publish your story right away, you can save it as a draft by clicking the Save and exit button. You'll find all your drafts in your Draft Stories folder on the main left-hand menu.

​Story approval
If you have story approval turned on, instead of a Publish button you'll see a Submit for approval button. This will notify your nominated approvers. They can either publish the story on your behalf or suggests edits and send the story back to you.

📝 Other articles you may be interested in:

Add children to a story

Edit or delete a story

How to change the presentation of your story