MS Teams- is your secondary school doing it well?

[Updownin]

Just that really - ours feels a bit chaotic but that could be the Teams platform (a team for each subject and then a few channels). There doesn't seem to be a way for dc to see a timetable overview though of homework or home learning if they are isolating.

I keep reading how good the platform is but I'm struggling to see this - i think it is really hard for a 12 year old to keep track of work on.

It’s not the school’s fault - Teams is not really designed for remote schooling and doesn’t actually work all that well IMO. He will still have to use his planner to organise his work and deadlines and not rely on the platform to do that for him as it’s just not built well enough for that. I know you can integrate all sorts of widgets and apps into it but as a teacher I find it faffy and slow to do anything it the basic upload lesson materials/set and mark assignments.

I agree - it’s so difficult to see outstanding assignments. You have to click into each team and back out. It really adds time onto homework and puts my DS off knuckling down

Ours don't use Teams - they use Google Classroom. But the thing that seems to have been most useful for each class is to have a landing document which is where they find their timetable, work that is expected to be done, etc.

I use Teams a lot for work, and I agree, it is actually quite difficult to use in many ways, especially having to go in and out of different Teams constantly to find information.

I can't help thinking that somewhere someone will have worked it out or surely, given, it's extensive use, Microsoft will add a school extension. At the moment I would just like our school to acknowledge that it is is too complicated for 12 year olds a few weeks in the door and put some suppprt in place.

I'm an adult and I find it confusing- goodness know how the kids who don't have laptop or decent devices or a parent to help them navigate are coping. I think for the younger secondary kids it's a big barrier to learning and goes against all the attainment goals

We use Teams and I will admit that, as a teacher, I don't know what the student side of things looks like. However, as far as the timetable goes, surely your DC can just print a copy out from whatever platform the school normally uses for such things. I know our students have complained about the fact that all their assignments aren't in one place, which is frustrating, but when we were in lockdown, they all got to the right lessons at the right time so must have got their timetables sorted.

As far as the assignments go, can your DC create a planner of some sort, or a weekly to-do list with the due date of each task written on?

Ours trialled it on Friday on an inset day. None of the dc could message the teacher, though they could hear ok.
Today dd is WFH due to staff shortages. No idea how that will work (or not). Any tips on messaging welcome: it keep saying she has to add another member to use chat?

We've disabled the message function for students because they were using it inappropriately.
The assignments not appearing together is a known issue and we're told we'll be getting that back "soon". It used to work that way but when lockdown happened, it was removed at the Microsoft end.

One DC has teams, the other Google classroom. Both however have continued to use their online VLE for homework tasks, messages etc. Mine use Firefly, but I think similar to Show My Homework and other apps?

Does your son not have a regular homework timetable - most secondary schools do.

They haven’t disabled it (or not deliberately) as the teachers spent the trial session saying “X, I can see you’re there, message if you can hear me!” with no responses.

They were told to keep microphones off though.

Our school doesn't use the video conferencing functionality. It is purely used for delivering and handing in tasks - be it homework or home learning. As a task management tool I think it is pretty piss poor.

@HyperStella

I agree - it’s so difficult to see outstanding assignments. You have to click into each team and back out. It really adds time onto homework and puts my DS off knuckling down

Same for us teachers marking them. Add to that 30 or so students (from a 160 cohort so often more) inboxing to say "it marked me wrong on q12 and I'm right" etc

When setting assignments (maths) you have to input every possible variation of an answer. So the first.3 multiples of 6:

6,12,18
6 12 18
6, 12, 18
6-12-18

Then if someone puts 6 - 12 - 18 it's marked incorrectly 🙄

Also - tell your kids to turn on notifications and they'll get one when an assignment is set. They can note that down in their paper diary surely like they would any homework?

Does Teams come bundled with Office 365? I'm wondering if that's why schools choose to use it, given how difficult/poor it is compared to some of the others available. My DD's school uses Teams but thankfully only as a glorified video conferencing app. Finding anything in it is a pita!

Mine use teams, they also have an app called ClassCharts that notifies of of what homework you have then they can log into teams to find the assignment. I did notice the other day however that you can now click on the assignments icon and it lists all your outstanding ones which it didn’t during lockdown.

Yep

@BrieAndChilli @Bridecilla

That is fantastic news! Thanks so much

I fucking hate it.

Is it too hard for 12 year old to manage a as a task management tool though?

It's not really intended as a task management tool. Platforms like show my homework are much better for this.

Have the school explained the rationale for using teams?

That said, I would cut the school some slack (unless they are really hounding you over missed work), as everything is very difficult in school right now.

Could you/DD email her form tutor for some advice/support?

We put a lot of info in the student planners this year about teams and how to use it. Perhaps ask about that - it was one of my jobs in March to get that sorted ready for September, but it's a fairly big job.

Our school uses teams. DD in year 7 and DS in yr 10. They both find it fairly straightforward. Live lessons are sent as an appointment so they appear in the teams calendar. Work is set in subject teams on the relevant day for that subject’s homework so the children know what they will be getting. Both children have the teams app on their phones for quick checking and it seems to be the preferred way of messaging teachers (rather than the internal school email).
My dd had it in year 6 too at the start of lockdown and again had no trouble with it.
However, the school have done plenty of tutorials for the children to watch to explain to them how to use it which I think has made a big difference.

Totally agree OP but assignments started appearing in a list yesterday. Without my daughter doing anything differently. Not sure if that was a software improvement or something her school did. It’s not been like that before and I agree it’s a barrier.

I’ve not taught on Teams yet. I’ve been uploading work for isolating kids to complete in lockdown. Not really sure what teams looks like from the kids end.
Hopefully we will get a bit more training on what to do if we need to isolate ourselves and teach from home.

Teaching on Teams is very straightforward once you get used to it. The main thing you need to learn how to do is how to set the permissions so that only you can present! Otherwise the kids can mute each other, mute you, etc...😬