The complete chess coach guide

🚀 Getting started as a coach

Free forever for up to 30 students. No card, no trial clock.

1. Confirm you're a coachOpen the Coach section and tell us you teach. It takes one click.
2. Get verifiedThe Nexus team reviews new coaches — usually within 12 hours — before you can add students. This keeps the platform safe for children.
3. Your workspace opensDashboard, roster, assignments, courses, library, schedule, activities and the live classroom are all unlocked straight away.

👥 Adding students & organising batches

Your roster is the base everything else builds on.

• 🔗Students join youA student sends a join request, or you invite them. Once accepted they appear on your roster with rating, recent activity and attendance.
• 🗂Group into batchesCreate batches by level, age or class time. Assignments, schedules and activities can all target a whole batch at once instead of one student at a time.
• 🟢See who's onlineThe coach sidebar shows which of your students are online right now — useful before starting a class or a race.
• 📝Private notesKeep per-student notes only you can see, so you remember what each child is working on.

📝 Creating assignments

Seven assignment types, all tracked automatically.

• 🎯Puzzle topicSet a theme like Mate in 2, forks or pins, and a target number of puzzles. Solve rate and accuracy are recorded per student.
• 📚Study or study chapterAssign one of your studies, or a single chapter from it, so students work through exactly the material you taught.
• ⏱️Puzzle RushA timed race against the clock on a topic you choose — great for building pattern speed.
• 🏁Arena tournamentSet a tournament as the assignment; completion is tracked when they play it.
• ♟️Play vs Stockfish positionDrag pieces onto a visual board editor — set side to move, castling and en passant — and it writes the FEN for you. Students play the position out against the engine.
• ✍️Custom taskAnything else you want to set, in your own words, with your own target.
• ♻️Save & reuseSave your best assignments as templates, or pull from the admin blunder library, instead of rebuilding them every term.

📚 Building courses

A course is an ordered syllabus your students work through in sequence.

You create a course, add lessons in the order you teach them, and enrol a batch. Students see their progress through the syllabus as they complete each lesson. A course can mix five kinds of lesson:

• 📖Your own studiesAny study you've built — whole study or a single chapter.
• 🏛️Nexus studiesBuilt-in studies that ship with the platform, so you don't have to author everything yourself.
• 🎬VideoDrop in a video lesson alongside the board work.
• ♛Master gamesTeach from the master game collection — thousands of annotated games.
• ♔EndgamesEndgame positions, including premium endgame picks for coaches on a paid plan.

Alongside courses you get a coach library — saved positions, games and templates you keep on hand to drop into any assignment or course later.

📅 Class schedule

Set it once a week; every student sees it in their own timezone.

• 🗓Weekly slots per batchChoose the days, start time and duration for each batch. You enter the time in your timezone; every student sees it converted to theirs automatically.
• 🔔Students are toldWhen you change the schedule, a notice is posted automatically into each affected student's coach chat — their Messages badge lights up. Nobody has to be told manually.
• 📍Where students see itUpcoming classes appear on the student's My Coach page, so there's one place they always check.

🏁 Private activities for your class

Races and tournaments only your students can enter.

• 🔒Private by defaultCoach-created arena races and tournaments are visible only to your accepted students. They never appear on the public Arena page, so no outside player can join your class session.
• ⚡Arena racesTimed puzzle races for the whole batch — everyone solves the same set and climbs a live leaderboard.
• 🏆Arena tournamentsRun a tournament for your class, with standings tracked as it plays out.
• 🔔Students get notifiedNew activities show on the student's Activities tab with a badge, so they know something is waiting without you chasing them.

📋 Attendance

Three states, CSV export, and it fills itself in when you teach live.

• ✅Present, Absent or Catch-upCatch-up covers a student who missed the class and made it up separately, so your records reflect what actually happened.
• 🎥Marked automatically in live classWhen you teach in the built-in classroom, each student's attendance is written the moment they're admitted. No separate register to fill in.
• 📤CSV exportExport attendance for any period — for your own records, for parents, or for an academy you report to.
• 💳Fees alongsideTrack enrollment and record payments in the same place, so attendance and fees stay in step.

📊 Parent reports

One link per student. No account needed for the parent.

Every student has a shareable progress report you can send to their parents. It shows rating over time, puzzles solved, assignment completion, attendance and recent games — including games they played on Lichess or Chess.com in the last 30 days. Parents open the link and see it; they never need to sign up.

🎥 The built-in live classroom

Teach inside Chess Nexus — video, screen share and one shared board. No Zoom, no extra apps.

• 📹HD video & screen shareSee your whole class and share your screen when you need to. Background noise suppression and video touch-up are built in.
• ♟️One shared boardEvery student sees the same position, live. Move a piece and it moves on their screen instantly.
• 🖱️Give a student controlHand the board to any student so they play the move themselves in front of the class — then take it back with one click.
• ✏️Draw on the boardArrows and square highlights sync to everyone, so you can point at the plan instead of describing it.
• 📚Load any content instantlyPull in your studies, Nexus studies, courses, the coach library, endgames (including premium picks), puzzles by theme or rating, and master games searchable by player or opening.
• 🧩Puzzles for the classLoad a puzzle at the level you choose and solve it together — Healthy Mix, by theme, or by number of pieces.
• 🤖Private engineStockfish runs on your side only. You see the evaluation and best lines; students see just the board.
• ⏳Waiting roomStudents wait until you admit them, so nobody wanders in mid-explanation.
• ✋Raise handStudents raise a hand and their tile jumps to the front of your grid. You can lower it for them when it's dealt with.
• 🎙️Mic & camera controlMute a student or turn their camera off in one click, straight from their video tile. To turn either back on you send a request — the student accepts. A child's mic or camera is never forced on.
• 📋Attendance writes itselfAdmitting a student records their attendance for that class automatically.
• 💬Class chatA chat panel for the session — good for links and quick questions without interrupting.
• ♟️Play in classPair students into real games from the Activities panel — the whole class can play at once, each on their own board with live clocks. You watch every board live, spotlight one for everyone to follow, and load any finished game onto the teaching board to review it together.
• 🎲Simul — play the whole classRun a simultaneous exhibition against every student at once. Send a join request; once they accept you get one big active board plus a strip of all the others — click any board to swap to it and move, just like the Lichess simul page.
• 🏁Activities in the roomLaunch a private Arena race or tournament for the class without leaving the room — only your own students can join.

What each plan includes

Every coach — including free ones — gets the live classroom. Paid live plans raise how often you can teach, how long each class runs, and how many students can join at once.

❓ Coach FAQ