Birmingham City School Facility Usage Service customers are required to have an email account of some sort in order to submit a Facility Usage Request. There are a number of sites that offer free email service (Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Outlook Online, etc). If you do not have an active email account at this time, we would suggest opening a Gmail (Google Mail) account.


Many features of Google Mail make a Gmail account useful for more than just email. Your Gmail can act as storage for your address book on your smart phone. It can be used for its calendar and scheduling capabilities, and for its chat feature and video conferencing.

To obtain a Google Mail account:

  • Go to the Google homepage. (www.google.com)

  • Look in the top-right corner of the page and click Gmail.

  • You will now be in the ‘Sign in’ section. As you do not have a Google account yet, you need to create one. Click Create an account.

  • To set up your new account, Google needs some information about you.

  •  – first, your first and last names. The ‘choose your username’ is the unique email address that you wish to use, which will be placed before ‘@gmail.com’. Because it needs to be unique, Google may have to check the availability of any name that you decide on to make sure that no one already has it. Type an email name into the ‘choose your username’ box and then fill out the rest of your information.

  • You will need to ensure that the ‘I agree to the Google terms of service and Privacy Policy’ box is checked. Then click next step.

  • If the email name that you requested is not available, you will get a message saying that somebody already has that username and you will be offered some alternatives. You can decide to accept one of the alternatives or type in another name and check its availability once more. You will have to complete some of the other boxes again. You may have to do this a few times to find a unique email name. Once you finalize your email address, it is a good idea to make a note of it so that you can refer to it until you remember it.

  • You will need to come up with a password so that you can log in securely to your account. Google may explain that you should try one that is at least eight characters long to be secure. Use letters and numbers to make the password more secure and difficult to guess. You will need to re-enter your password to ensure that it is you choosing it and not a hacker’s robot. This is why it also asks you to insert two random words at the bottom of the page – this is a CAPTCHA code. You can skip this step if you do not want to type in the CAPTCHA code but you will need to verify via a mobile phone if you don’t.

  • Once you have completed this page fully, clicking Next Step will take you to the Create Profile Page. If you do not wish to have a picture on the web, click Next Step to complete setting up your email. If you do, click on Add Profile Photo and find a photo to add. Then click Next Step.

  • You now have set up your account. You can click on Add a photo to select and upload a photo, or click on Next Step to go to your inbox and get started.