How to Graduate Students on Flat for Education

What Is Flat for Education?

Flat for Education is a browser-based music notation, composition, and assessment platform built for K-12 schools. Teachers create assignments, auto-graded theory exercises, sight-reading tasks, and performance assessments. Students compose, collaborate, and submit work in real time, from any device, without installing any software. It integrates natively with Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Canvas, Schoology, and MusicFirst, among 20+ other platforms.

Students access Flat for Education through a school-managed account, created and controlled by the teacher or admin. That is precisely what makes it safe and FERPA-compliant for classroom use. It is also why graduating students lose access when their school email is deactivated or when the school's subscription doesn't carry them forward.

Flat for Education is a school tool. It was designed that way on purpose. But that design creates a real problem at the end of the year if no one plans for the transition.

Why Graduating Students Lose Access (and Why It Matters)

A student who joined your music class and spent the year (or multiple years!) composing original pieces, working through sight-reading exercises, and recording performance assessments has built something real. It might be a portfolio piece. It might be something they want to show a college admissions panel or a summer music program. It might just be the best thing they've made so far, and they'd like to keep it.

But their access to that work is tied to two things: your school's subscription and their school email address. When they graduate, both can become unreliable. Most school districts deactivate student email accounts within weeks of the last day of school. Flat for Education accounts tied to those emails become unreachable.

There is a 90-day window between account expiry and permanent deletion. In theory, students could act during that time. In practice, most don't know the window exists. They try to log in over the summer, find they can't, assume their work is gone, and move on.

The fix is simple, and it sits entirely with you.

What "Graduating" a Student Actually Means in Flat for Education

When a student account is converted in Flat for Education, it moves from your school-managed organisation to a free personal account on Flat, the consumer version of the platform. This is completely separate from Flat for Education and does not require a school subscription.

A few things to be clear about here.

The free Flat account is not a school account. It does not have LMS integrations, classroom features, teacher dashboards, or assignment workflows. It's a notation and composition tool for personal use. Students can continue writing music, open and edit every score they brought with them, and build on the work they started in your class. They just do it outside the school environment.

The conversion does not affect your account, your other students, your assignments, or your classes. It only moves the students you select. Everyone returning next year stays exactly as they are.

The conversion is permanent. Once a student is moved out of your organisation, they are no longer on your licence. You cannot undo the educational data that is deleted with the conversion, such as the grades, which is why it's worth being deliberate about who you select.

Before You Convert: The One Thing Students Need to Do First

This is the step that causes the most problems, and it's also the easiest to prevent.

Every Flat for Education student account is linked to an email address. When you convert a student to a free personal account, that email address becomes their login for Flat. If the email address is a school address that will be deactivated after graduation, the student will be locked out of their new account before they've ever used it.

Ask your graduating students to update their email address to a personal one before you run the conversion. This can be done from within their account settings. It takes 30 seconds.

If a student has already lost access to their school email and cannot log in to update it themselves, contact the Flat for Education support team at edu@flat.io. The team can update email addresses manually. Don't assume the work is lost because the email is gone.

How to Graduate Students on Flat for Education: Step by Step

This process is for school admins only or teachers who have access to the student deletion portal. If you are a teacher without student deletion rights, the right move is to flag this to whoever manages your school's Flat for Education account and ask them to take care of it before the year ends.

Log in to your Flat for Education admin account and go to the People page. This is where all student accounts in your organisation are listed.
Select the students who are graduating. Use the checkboxes to choose only the students finishing this year who will no longer need a school account. Students returning next year should stay in your organisation. Do not select them.
Click Delete accounts. This button triggers the removal flow. You will immediately be shown two options: permanently delete the accounts, or convert them to individual Flat accounts.
Choose Convert to individual accounts and confirm. The students' scores transfer to their new personal accounts instantly.
Let your students know. They will receive access to a free Flat account at the email address on file. If they updated their personal email beforehand, they can log in right away.

A note on eligibility: the conversion option is only available for students above the minimum legal age in their country. For students below that threshold, the only option is permanent deletion. Check the Flat for Education required age page if you are unsure.

The full step-by-step guide, including screenshots, is available in the Flat for Education help centre.

What Students Keep When They Convert

When a student is converted to a free Flat account, their score library transfers with them. Every piece they composed or worked on in class is accessible in their personal account, organised the same way they left it.

What they gain is continued access to the Flat notation editor at no cost, so they can keep writing and editing music independently after they leave school.

What they do not get is a continuation of the school experience. The classroom features in Flat for Education, including LMS integrations with Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Canvas, Schoology, and MusicFirst, teacher dashboards, assignment workflows, and assessment tools, are part of the school subscription and do not transfer. That is by design. Flat is a personal creative tool. Flat for Education is a school platform. They serve different purposes, and the conversion moves students from one to the other.

When to Do This (And What Happens If You Don't)

The ideal time to run conversions is before your school's subscription expires, while you still have admin access to the People page. Two to three weeks before the last day of school is a reasonable window. It gives students time to update their emails beforehand and gives you time to contact support if anything goes wrong.

If your subscription has already lapsed, you still have a 90-day grace period before student accounts are permanently deleted. The conversion tool remains available during that window. But waiting introduces risk: students may try to log in, find they can't, and assume their work is gone. Acting before expiry removes all of that uncertainty.

If no action is taken, student accounts are permanently deleted after 90 days. There is no recovery after that point.

A Note on What This Isn't

This post is about graduating students, specifically students who are leaving your programme for good and need their work moved somewhere they can keep it.

If you have students moving to a different school that also uses Flat for Education, account transfers between institutions work differently. Contact support at edu@flat.io for guidance on that scenario.

If you are retiring a class but the students are returning next year, archiving is the right move, not conversion. The end-of-year checklist for Flat for Education covers both archiving and removing students in detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens to a student's work if I don't convert them before graduation?

Student accounts tied to a school subscription enter a 90-day grace period after the subscription expires. During that window, the accounts still exist, but the student may not be able to log in if their school email has been deactivated. After 90 days, the accounts are permanently deleted, and the work cannot be recovered. The safest approach is to run the conversion before your subscription expires.

Can students access Flat for Education on a personal account after graduating?

No. Flat for Education is a school-specific platform. After conversion, students have access to Flat, the free personal version of the platform, which includes the notation editor and their existing score library. The classroom features in Flat for Education are part of the school subscription and are not available on personal accounts.

Do I need to be a school admin to convert students?

Yes. The conversion flow is available on the People page, which is accessible only to account admins. If you are a teacher without admin access, contact your school's Flat for Education administrator and share the step-by-step guide with them.

What if a student's school email has already been deactivated?

If a student cannot log in to update their email address before conversion, contact the Flat for Education support team at edu@flat.io. The team can manually update the email address so the converted account goes to an address the student can actually access.

Can I convert students after my subscription has expired?

Yes, within the 90-day grace period. After that, accounts are permanently deleted. Conversion is not possible after permanent deletion.

Make Sure the Work Goes With Them

Your students spent time composing music in your classroom. Some of it is probably pretty good. A few of those pieces might genuinely matter to them: the first time a chord progression clicked, an arrangement they're proud of, something they want to play for an audition panel. It takes about two minutes to make sure that the work goes with them when they leave.

If you're the admin at your school, head to the People page before the year ends and take care of it. If you're a teacher, send this to whoever runs your account and ask them to do it.

And if you're not yet using Flat for Education in your classroom, start a free 30-day trial and see what your students build.

How to Graduate Your Students on Flat for Education