Use voice commands

Written for: All school staff.

You can use your voice to move around Student Radar, open a pupil’s profile, or start a task, calendar event or first aid record. Voice commands never save anything for you. Anything you start by voice opens in the usual form for you to check and save yourself.

Start voice commands

Click the microphone at the top of the screen, next to Give points. The search box is replaced by the voice bar, and Student Radar starts listening.
The first time, your browser asks whether Student Radar can use your microphone. Allow it.
Say what you’d like to do, for example open attendance. Your words appear in the voice bar, and Student Radar replies there.

After each command, Student Radar keeps listening for your next one, for up to 5 minutes or 24 commands. Each time it listens, you have up to 15 seconds to speak.

The voice bar has four buttons on the right:

The pause button stops listening. Click it again to resume.
The keyboard button lets you type a command instead of speaking it. Check or edit it, then click Use reviewed command.
The settings button, with sliders on it, shows the speech options and what happens to your audio. See below.
× stops voice commands and brings back the search box. You can also say stop or press Esc.

Things you can say

To do this	Say, for example
Open a page	`open attendance`, `go to the heat map`, `take me to calendar`
Find pages	`what can I open`, `find behaviour`
Go back to the previous page	`go back`
Open a pupil’s profile	`open` followed by the pupil’s full name and `profile`
Then see more of that pupil	`show their attendance`, `show their behaviour`, `go back to that pupil`
Give a pupil positive points	`give a point to` followed by the pupil’s name, then `for` and the reason
Start a task	`create a task called` followed by the task’s name
Start a calendar event	`create an event called` followed by the event’s name
Start a first aid record	`log a first aid incident`
Clear what you’ve started	`start again`
Stop voice commands	`stop` or `cancel`

You can only open pages and pupils you already have access to. If more than one page or pupil matches, Student Radar lists them on screen. Say which one you mean, or click it.

After you open a pupil’s profile, show their attendance and similar commands work for the next 5 minutes. After that, open the profile by name again.

Give points by voice

When you ask to give points, the Give points window opens with your suggestion at the top. Voice never chooses the pupil or awards points. Check the pupil, choose them and the right category in the window, as you would normally. If only one pupil matches the name you said, click the button under the suggestion to go straight to their class.

Start a task, event or first aid record

Student Radar asks you for each detail in turn and fills in a draft as you answer.

Task: its name, then an optional description.
Calendar event: its name, the date, the start time and the end time.
First aid: the pupil, what happened, the treatment given, where and when it happened.

Say skip to leave a detail for later. Say repeat to hear the question again. Give times with am or pm. Student Radar won’t guess a date or time you haven’t said.

When the draft is ready, click Open review form. The usual form opens with your answers filled in. Check every field, make any changes and click Save in the form. Nothing is saved until you do.

Drafts are kept for 5 minutes. A first aid draft records what you saw and did. It isn’t medical advice. You can only start a first aid record if you’re able to log first aid in Student Radar.

Settings and your audio

Click the settings button in the voice bar to see the voice options.

Spoken replies: tick this to hear Student Radar’s replies read aloud, as well as seeing them on screen.
Speech mode: leave this on Browser speech. Student Radar uses your web browser’s own speech recognition to turn what you say into text. Depending on your browser, your audio may be sent to the browser maker’s speech service to do this.
The settings also offer Live Vesper and Classic Fable speech modes and a box to Use OpenAI to understand requests and draft observations (sends your words to OpenAI). These OpenAI options aren’t available in schools yet. Leave the box unticked. If you choose them, voice commands won’t work until you switch back to Browser speech.

Notes

Voice commands need a browser with built-in speech recognition, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge or Safari. In other browsers, you can still type commands.
Voice commands aren’t available in the Student Radar demo schools.

If something doesn’t work

What you see	What to do
The microphone is greyed out	Student Radar is still checking your school access. Wait a moment, or reload the page.
“Microphone speech recognition is unavailable in this browser. Type a command below.”	Your browser can’t recognise speech. Use the keyboard button to type, or switch to a browser that supports it.
“The browser could not capture microphone audio (audio-capture).”	Check your microphone is connected and that your browser and computer allow Student Radar to use it.
“No speech was detected (no-speech). Check your microphone and try again.”	Speak a little louder or closer to the microphone, then resume listening.
“Automatic listening stopped. Start the microphone again when you are ready.”	Click the resume button in the voice bar to listen again.
“Page not recognised or unavailable for your current access.”	Try another name for the page, or say `what can I open`. You may not have access to the page.
“Which pupil? Open their profile by name first.”	Open the pupil’s profile by name before asking for their attendance or behaviour.
“Page interpretation could not complete. Use a page name or try again.”	Untick the OpenAI box in the voice settings and say the name of the page you want.
“Draft details expired. Start again.”	Your draft was more than 5 minutes old. Start the command again.