Catch-up lessons are now on the portal
A learner who is behind in reading does not need a report saying so. They need the lesson. Under the ARAL Program — Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning, now permanent law under Republic Act 12028 and implemented through DepEd Order 18, s. 2025 — every division has to put focused interventions in front of the learners who need them. Tutor LMS is where ours live.
Tutor LMS already runs on this portal, in the division’s own colours. What is being set up now is what goes into it: catch-up lessons and short courses, chosen and approved by the division, aimed at the gaps our own assessments have already found.
Who this is for
Learners take the lessons. A learner signs in to the portal, opens the course their teacher has pointed them at, and works through it — short readings, video, and a few questions at the end. Progress is saved, so a lesson broken off at the end of a period is a lesson they can pick up at home or on Monday.
Teachers use the same courses to introduce a lesson, to give a learner something to work on after class, or to run a catch-up session with a small group. The material is the same material; the difference is that it is in one place, and it is the version the division approved.
The gap has already been measured. What has been missing is the lesson sitting where the learner can reach it.
Where the courses come from
Not from whoever uploads first. A course appears in Tutor LMS because the division identified the gap and approved the material that answers it — the same quality assurance route learning materials already go through here.
That order matters. ARAL concentrates on reading, mathematics and science because those are the subjects that hold everything else up. A division that lets its course list grow by donation ends up with forty courses and no answer for the competency half its Grade 3 learners are stuck on.
What a learner’s results are, and are not
This is the part worth reading twice, because it concerns children.
A learner’s course results are their record and their teacher’s. They are not published, not ranked, and not posted anywhere a class can see them. A catch-up lesson exists because somebody is behind, and a platform that turns that into a leaderboard has taken a support and made it a punishment.
What the division sees is counts, not names. How many learners in a school worked through the Grade 3 reading course; how many finished; which competency has the most learners still on it. That is what a division needs in order to direct help, and it is all it needs.
Parents. Enrolment in ARAL interventions follows school policy and parental consent. If your child is pointed at a catch-up course, their teacher will tell you what it is for.
What works today, and what does not
Some of this already runs and some of it is still done by hand. Saying so plainly is cheaper than letting people discover it.
| Capability | Status | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Learners sign in and take a course | Working now | Tutor LMS, with the portal account the learner already has. |
| Progress kept between sittings | Working now | A lesson broken off is not a lesson lost. |
| Finding who needs which course | By hand | The boards name the learners. Matching them to a course is a teacher reading two screens. |
| Completions showing on the boards | To build | Reading completions out of Tutor LMS works on the free version. No licence required. |
| Enrolling a learner automatically | Needs a licence | Writing enrolments needs Tutor LMS Pro. Until then, enrolling a group is a few clicks. |
One thing we are deliberately not promising. That a finished course means a closed gap. It means a finished course. Whether the learner has caught up is what the next assessment is for, and we would rather show you both figures than let one stand in for the other.
What school heads can do now
- Nothing new to install. Same portal, same sign-in, for staff and learners alike.
- Tell us which gap has no course behind it. That is the most useful thing we can hear. Reading and numeracy first, per ARAL.
- Check your learner accounts work. A catch-up lesson nobody can sign in to is not an intervention.
Trying it small first
This starts with one course, a small group of learners, and one school for two weeks — including a school where the connection is poor, because that is where an online lesson either works or quietly does not. Several decisions in this are ours rather than a teacher’s: whether a learner repeats a course they scored badly on, what a half-finished course counts as, whether the teacher or the school head assigns it. Those are cheap to change now and expensive once a division has habits.
If you want your school in the first group, send a Technical Assistance request through the portal.