Lesson Terms and Conditions

Appendix to General Terms and Conditions

General basis

These START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN Lesson Terms and Conditions (further “Terms”) cover basic regulations about attendance, conducting, or possible manipulations (as well as the deadlines for making them) towards lessons purchased on START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN.

These Terms should be read alongside with and in an addition to START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN policies, including Subscription Terms and Conditions, Subscription Cancellation and Refund policy, Privacy Policy, as well as all other policies and rules published on the START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN website.

This document also defines a successful (“Done”) and unsuccessful ( “Cancel” or “Rejected”) lesson, explains each lesson status and the actions required from all participants.

These terms aim to help avoid any misunderstanding and ensure comfortable provision of services.

These terms are also our guiding principles when we look into failed or low-quality lessons, return lessons to the balance, and provide compensation.

Terminology

A booked lesson/scheduled lesson is a lesson withdrawn from a student’s START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN lesson balance and assigned for a particular day and time in a tutor’s schedule. Such lessons appear in the “My Profile.”
Lesson confirmation step is an obligatory step for both students and tutors when they must confirm attending/conducting a lesson, or missing it and report any issues or complaints related to the quality of the lesson, attenders, or technical issues with the platform.

Both students and tutors must complete this step at the end of each lesson.

An upcoming lesson is a lesson in your schedule that is yet to take place.

A completed lesson is a lesson that has already taken place and been marked as completed by both the student and tutor.
A tutor gets paid for a lesson right when its status changes to “completed”.
A pending lesson is a lesson waiting to be marked as completed by both the student and tutor.
A missed lesson is any lesson that was scheduled to take place but did not. It was not cancelled or rescheduled before it started.
A cancelled lesson is a lesson that was scheduled but later cancelled before it started. Such lessons return to the student’s balance at the moment of cancellation. Tutors don’t get paid for cancelled lessons.
A past lesson is any lesson that took place or was planned to take place in the past.
Reschedule request is a request from a student to a tutor or vice-versa to have an already scheduled lesson on a different day and/or at a different time. Such requests go to the “Individual lessons” or “Lessons as a package”.
For a lesson to be rescheduled, a reschedule request must be accepted. Any other kind of agreement on rescheduling is not considered official, and we bear no responsibility for what can happen in this case.
Lesson time is a period between a lesson’s start and ending. At the end of a lesson, both the student and tutor go to the lesson confirmation step. After this step, the lesson gets a corresponding status.

Platform where lessons take place

All lessons should take place on START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN unless the student and tutor agree in advance to have the lesson via an alternative platform such as Zoom or Skype.
It is not allowed to conduct lessons purchased at START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN platform on the other educational platforms (platforms offering similar services).
If a student and tutor agree to have a lesson on Zoom, Google meet or Skype, then:
- The tutor must send the student a link 10 minutes before the lesson.
- The tutor can send a link later only if there are technical issues.
- The tutor must send a link before each lesson and only in a message on START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN.
- It is up to both the student and tutor to have evidence of attending the lesson and of its duration. This evidence may be necessary for the START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN team to resolve potential issues and complaints.

Lesson duration

The START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN classroom becomes available 10 minutes before the lesson. In this time, the student and tutor can join to check their devices and connection. You can also check your camera and microphone.
The tutor must start (not just join) an actual lesson and finish it according to the time indicated in their “My Profile”.
A tutor must not finish the lesson earlier without the student’s consent. If it happens and the student complains about it, the tutor may not get paid for this lesson.
A student can join a lesson at any time within the lesson’s duration. But if a student is late, the lesson’s duration will not be extended.
The time of the active lesson (that’s happening right now) cannot be extended technically. That’s why starting later or finishing earlier should be personally agreed on by both the student and tutor.

Managing booked lessons : cancelling, rescheduling

All booked lessons must take place according to their time slots in the “My Profile” section. Every user on START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN sees all time slots in their profile’s time zone.

If a student can’t attend a scheduled lesson, this lesson must be rescheduled or cancelled:

A reschedule request can be sent and accepted before the lesson starts.
A lesson can be cancelled no later than 2 hours before its scheduled time.

If a student or tutor can’t attend a lesson but doesn’t want to lose it or the opportunity to get paid for it, they should do one of the following:

Reschedule this lesson to another date. It means that a reschedule request must be sent and accepted before the lesson.
Cancel the lesson so that the lesson status changes to “Cancelled” and the lesson does not take place.
Lessons can be cancelled either by students or by the START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN Support Team.
If you can’t reschedule or cancel, make sure to agree with your student or tutor not to attend the current lesson so neither of you wait for the other. At the lesson confirmation step, both participants must mark such a lesson as Not Completed.

Cancelling a lesson

Only upcoming lessons can be cancelled. Once a lesson starts, there is no way to cancel it.

When a student or support team cancels a lesson, the lesson status changes to “Cancelled” and another lesson is created for a different date.

The lesson can be rescheduled for another time or date no earlier than 2 hours before the start of the lesson. To do this, you need to write to us through the contact form, check with the teacher or through another convenient messenger. If you do not do this, the lesson will be considered completed if you do not come to it, especially for agreed group lessons

Important to remember:

Only students and the Support Team have the technical possibility to cancel lessons.
If a student decides to cancel a lesson by reaching out to the Support Team, it’s mandatory for the student to inform their tutor about the upcoming cancellation. If the student doesn’t inform the tutor in advance, the lesson may not be cancelled.

A lesson can be cancelled no later than 2 hours before its start. If a student wants to cancel a lesson later, they will have to get an approval from the tutor, and contact the Support Team, attaching the evidence of the tutor’s approval.
A student can cancel up to 2 lessons in 30 days (no matter if they cancel it on their own, or through the Support Team). If they need to exceed the limit, they will have to get a tutor’s approval first, and only after that, contact the Support Team, attaching the evidence of the tutor’s approval.

Package** lessons cannot be cancelled. They can only be rescheduled. If the tutor is not available for rescheduling, contact the Support Team.
Always indicate the real reason for cancellation.

*After canceling a lesson, you can request a lesson of the same duration that was purchased.

**Package lessons are lessons that had been purchased before START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN switched to the subscription-based model.

Rescheduling a lesson

Only upcoming and active lessons can be rescheduled.
A lesson is rescheduled only when the reschedule request is confirmed on START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN by the other side. After this,the lesson’s original time slot changes to the requested one.
If the request is ignored or rejected, the lesson stays in its initial time slot. Naturally, both the student and tutor must attend it.

Each lesson can be rescheduled up to two times, no matter who initiates a reschedule request.
A reschedule request can be sent and replied to before the lesson starts.
If a reschedule request stays unanswered, it gets automatically cancelled at the moment when the lesson starts. The lesson stays in the same time slot, and both the student and tutor get notified and must attend it.

Confirming a lesson or reporting the issue

The lesson confirmation procedure as well as reporting of issues with a lesson are mandatory for both participants (student and tutor) in order for us (START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN platform) to know if the lesson took place and ensure that you have no complaints about the quality of the lesson or the work of the platform.

At the end of each lesson, both the student and tutor must complete a lesson confirmation step. Students as well as tutors must complete it within 24 hours after the lesson.
If a student doesn’t complete the confirmation step within 24 hours, the lesson gets automatically confirmed and is considered to be successful (with no complaints about the quality of the services provided). Such lessons are neither revertable nor refundable.
If the tutor does not report problems within the given deadline, we will assume that nothing interfered with the lesson. The lesson will stay in the pending status unless both sides complete the lesson confirmation step. If a student marks such a lesson as “Not Completed,” it will also be automatically labeled as such on the tutor’s side. Consequently, the lesson will be returned to the student without payment to the tutor.

For the tutor to receive payment for the lesson, both participants must confirm it as completed.

If a student doesn’t show up for a lesson without prior cancelling or rescheduling, the lesson is considered completed and cannot be retuned to the balance or refunded. Exceptions are subject to individual review by the START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN team.
If the student accidentally confirms the lesson as completed, we cannot guarantee it can be returned to them. If this happens, contact the Support Team immediately.

When confirming a lesson as completed, remember to:

Report any kind of technical issues or suspicious users with whom you had a lesson within 24 hours after the lesson. Later reports may not be considered.
Be specific in your complaint to the Support Team.
Reply to messages from the Support Team within 24 hours if we contact you.

We do not consider lessons rated 4 and 5 or lessons with missing/incomplete details regarding their quality. Such lessons cannot be returned to the student’s lesson balance.

If you do not respond to messages from the Support Team within 24 hours, we reserve the right to not return a lesson.

When marking that a lesson didn’t happen, remember to:

Always give a real reason why the lesson did not take place.
When indicating that there were technical problems, describe the problems in detail, preferably with screenshots.
Specify on whose side there was the problem: your side, your student’s/tutor’s side, or on the platform in general.
If you had technical issues with a lesson on START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN and had the lesson on Zoom or Skype instead, confirm it as completed and report the tech issues you had on START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN to the Support Team.

Returning failed lessons

When we talk about returning lessons, we mean returning a failed lesson to your lesson balance.

No matter the duration of the failed lesson, you get back a lesson with a duration determined by your current subscription plan. If you’re no longer subscribed, you get back a lesson with a duration determined by your last subscription.

We can return a lesson to you if:

Both the student and the tutor indicate that the lesson didn’t happen and provide similar reasons.
The lesson was of poor quality. Such cases are considered individually based on the provided details. To get a low-quality lesson returned to you, contact the Support Team within 24 hours after the lesson.
The tutor did not show up and the lesson was neither cancelled nor rescheduled.
There are technical problems with START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN platform, due to which the lesson did not take place or was of poor quality. Make sure to provide details regarding the problem.

If you accidentally marked a lesson as completed, then immediately write to the Support Team. We do not guarantee the return of such lessons, but we will definitely do our best to help you resolve the situation.

Payment for lessons

A tutor gets paid for a lesson if:

After the lesson, both the student and tutor confirmed it as completed.
The student didn’t show up without prior cancelling or rescheduling, but the tutor attended the lesson and stayed until the end. Such lessons cannot be returned to students’ balance.
The tutor conducted a full lesson according to the time booked. It means they started no later and finished no earlier than when they were supposed to without the student’s consent.
The student violated the START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN In-House Rules or pursued goals different from the services provided by START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN. In this case, the tutor has the right to stop such a lesson without waiting for the end. They must immediately report such cases to the Support Team.

Tutors can get a compensation for a failed lesson if:

The tutor could not attend/conduct high-quality lesson due to START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN’s issues (e.g. technical issues during the lesson, or issues with the platform that prevented you from coming to the lesson on time, etc.).
The tutor was present for the entire lesson, but the student didn’t show up and didn’t reschedule or cancel the lesson in time. The tutor should confirm this lesson as completed and indicate that the student didn’t come. The tutor can mark such a lesson as Not Completed if they want to make an exception for the student and return it to the student’s balance. In such case, tutor will not get paid for the lesson.
The tutor couldn’t conduct a lesson because the student was abusive in any way. Confirm such lessons as completed and report such cases to the Support Team immediately.

When the student does not come, as a tutor:

Wait for 15 minutes in the lesson classroom (or Zoom, Google Meet or Skype). After that, you can leave, but stay reachable via messages on START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN until the end of the lesson.
Message the student on START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN if you leave after 15 minutes and let them know you are waiting for them outside the online classroom, and ask them to let you know if and when they join the lesson.
The lesson can be rescheduled for another time or date no earlier than 2 hours before the start of the lesson. To do this, you need to write to us through the contact form, check with the teacher or through another convenient messenger. If you do not do this, the lesson will be considered completed if you do not come to it, especially for agreed group lessons

If you can’t follow this procedure, we may not be able to pay you for such lessons.

START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN lesson-quality warranty

Before you decide to switch to another tutor, give your current tutor a chance. Tell them what you’d like to be different about your lessons and see if anything changes. We believe that true professionals will listen and take your wishes into account.

But if you’re 100% sure you want a different tutor, try another tutor:

Contact us within 24 hours of your trial lesson
Share with us the lesson ID and the name of the tutor you had this lesson with
Describe what specifically didn’t suit you
Attach the link to the tutor you want to try or ask the Support Team for help

We may be unable to give you a replacement lesson if your feedback is insufficient or unfounded, or not true, or you didn’t follow some of the START LANGUAGE SCHOOL by TYMUR LEVITIN policies and rules.

We may also reject the replacement request if we don’t hear from you within 24 hours of our request for clarifications.