Booking and Website Systems for Schools and Tutors in Lebanon
Thursday 15:40. The SAT tutor has a group of forty parents. Two of them think 17:00 is still free because a cousin said so in a side chat. A mother sends an OMT screenshot with no child name. Another asks in French whether the makeup from the strike week is “this Saturday or next”. The attendance sheet for the centre’s afternoon batch is a photocopy with coffee on it. The room holds twelve. Fourteen children will arrive if both rumours are true. That is teaching in Lebanon when the timetable lives in folklore.
Problems that are not “edtech”
The parent group as operating system. It is loud, useful for snow days, and useless as a source of truth. Messages scroll. A yes from March is under 200 stickers. If a slot is money (a private hour, a small batch) it needs a place that does not depend on who was online.
Makeup physics. Strikes, cuts, roads, a teacher’s visa run. Everyone deserves a replacement hour. The room and the teacher do not clone. When makeup is a voice-note favour, Saturday becomes a pile-up and the paying family from last month gets squeezed. Makeup has to occupy a real cell in the week.
Money without a name. OMT photos, Whish numbers, envelopes. You are not a bank. You still need to know which child is paid through which term. Mixing two siblings into one “the family paid something” is how you argue at the door in front of other parents.
The relative abroad who pays and cannot find you. They search the centre name in English, see nothing, and wire to a cousin who “knows a guy”. A page with hours, location, WhatsApp, and the languages you actually teach in (Arabic, English, French as they are used, not as a slogan) is how that wire finds the right desk.
What we set up for a room, a teacher, and a parent
A public page: who you are, where the door is, what you teach, how to ask for a place. Not a stock photo of a university lawn in another country. A calendar of sessions with a cap, waitlist, and a makeup type that still consumes the room. Reminders on WhatsApp the day before, because email is not where parents live. A simple paid/owing mark per child, fed by how you already collect (screenshot, cash, transfer) not a fake checkout that bounces.
Optional: a private note field staff see (“does not wait downstairs alone”) that never belongs on a public site. Optional: two teachers as two resources so you do not sell the same hour twice. We do not build a ministry information system unless that is the written job. We make Thursday 17:00 true.
The teaching-shaped example is the education platform hub. Findability is in getting on Google. Whether Instagram of smiling students is enough is in do I need a website.
Lebanon in the classroom doorway
Parents mix languages in one thread. Fees move with the week’s dollar talk; you may charge a number in fresh dollars and still receive lira. Say it plainly on the page you show before they enrol. Power cuts cancel a session; the makeup still has to land somewhere. WhatsApp is the school bell and the complaint desk. I will not invent pass-rate statistics or name a college. The work is: the hour is the hour, the receipt has a child’s name, the aunt in Lyon can find the door.
Services and from-prices
A website from $350 so search and relatives work. An online booking system from $600 for sessions, caps, and makeup cells. WhatsApp automation from $300 for location, hours, and “send the OMT to this number”, never for pretending to be the teacher about a grade. If you later want an owner view of who vanished this month, that is a dashboard quoted separately.
Send the centre Instagram or the old page through the free website check, or describe the Thursday 17:00 collision on contact or WhatsApp. Twenty minutes free. A project starts when you accept a fixed scope, not when a parent group votes.
Questions owners ask
Parents only use the WhatsApp group. Why add booking?
The group is where rumours live. It is a bad timetable. Makeup lessons collide because two mothers heard two times. Booking is so Thursday 5pm is either taken or not before anyone drives from Aley. The group can stay for photos of homework.
How should I take term fees?
The way you already take them: OMT screenshot, Whish, cash in an envelope, a transfer. The system should mark the child as paid or owing. It should not pretend you have a European direct debit. A false “pay online” button that fails is worse than a clear instruction.
Two siblings, two packages, can that work?
Yes if each child is a person with their own sessions, not one family chat that means everything and nothing. Discounts can exist. They should not erase who is supposed to be in the room at 4pm.
Do small schools need the same thing as a private SAT tutor?
The tutor needs a calendar, waitlist, and receipts. A small school also needs attendance someone can stand behind, and a page parents abroad can find. Same idea, different rules. We write yours, not a “campus platform”.
Makeup after a strike or a cut, how do we not double-book the room?
Treat makeup as a real session occupying a room and a teacher, not a favour in a voice note. If the room holds one group, the second makeup waits. Kindness that oversells the room is how Saturday becomes three classes in one hour.
What does a tutor or small-school setup start from?
A findable page starts from $350. Session booking starts from $600. WhatsApp replies for hours and location start from $300. Ministry-grade SIS is not this job unless we say so in writing.
Book a free 20-minute consultation
Tell me what is wasting the day in the shop or clinic. I will say if a site, booking, or orders are the next step, with a written scope before paid work.