Note: This is generally available to all regions except countries in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). The full release for those countries will be at a later date. Schools in the EMEA region can still use School Connection in Private Preview access by submitting this interest form.
The School Connection app in Microsoft Teams empowers parents and guardians to engage, support, and monitor their student's learning at school. As a parent, you can stay up to date on:
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Assignments: upcoming, overdue, or recently completed.
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Assignment feedback, grades, or rubric feedback.
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Insights from the past month on digital activity, assignment turn-ins, and reading progress.
Your school's not using it yet? Please consult with your school and share this link with them.
School Connection access
You can start using the School Connection app by clicking this link or visiting aka.ms/gotoschoolconnection. You must sign in using the personal email address you have shared with the school. Add a child to start using School Connection in the Teams mobile app.
Alternately, you can first download the Microsoft Teams mobile app to your mobile device. Then sign in to Teams with your personal email address that is on file with your child’s school. (Work emails aren't supported for School Connection.)
As next steps in Teams, tap your profile icon to open Settings where you’ll tap to open School Connection screen, then tap Enable. Alongside your other apps, you’ll now see School Connection. Open it, then enter your child’s school-issued email to proceed.
See a more descriptive version of the process here.
Learn more from any of the following topics
If you don’t already have a personal Microsoft account, you can easily create one for free on the Microsoft Teams mobile app or here.
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You can use any existing personal email address (although not your work email).
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If you would rather create a new email address for your Microsoft account, you can do that as well.
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Just ensure that the personal email used to sign into Teams matches the email that you have on file at the school.
If you get the below prompt while creating a personal Microsoft account in your Microsoft Teams mobile app, be sure to select Create a new account.
No. The email address used to sign-in to your Microsoft account can be from an existing Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, Gmail, Yahoo, or other providers. If this is the first time you’re creating a personal Microsoft account, you can use your existing personal email address from these providers but will have to create a separate password for your Microsoft account. If needed, see Create a Microsoft Account.
School Connection is supported for any email address which already has or can become a personal Microsoft account.
If you have a work account saved on file with your child’s school, we request you to replace it with a personal email address by contacting your school administrator. (See the preceding question here for more information.)
Access to School Connection in Teams is currently only via email. Please login to Teams with the personal email address that is saved on file with the school.
Currently, School Connection is only available as a Microsoft Teams app for iOS or Android operating systems.
In such a scenario, try these steps:
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Check your network connection.
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Sign out of the Teams mobile app and sign back in.
Students can only be added to your profile if:
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You use a personal Microsoft account to sign in on Teams...
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That same email is listed as a parent/guardian contact with your student’s school, and...
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School Connection has been enabled by the school.
You should see the same classes that are visible to your student. Classes only show up in School Connection after they have been activated by your student’s educator.
To access School Connection using a different account, contact the school administrator to update your email on file. You will then be able to sign in with the new email on your Teams app and add your student(s) to that account.
Note: In this transition, you may temporarily lose access to your student’s class data.
To export your data, submit a relevant ticket through EDU Support, which you can reach by selecting the […] icon that is available on every screen in the app.
Please report any concerns through the EDU Support Portal, available via the […] icon which is available on every screen in the app. A support agent will process your request and follow up by email. Our engineering team will then work to resolve the issue.
School Connection provides up-to-date information as it becomes available. If you're not seeing assignments that you expect to see, try these actions:
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Check your network connection.
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Sign out of the Teams app and sign back in.
Teachers sometimes assign work that doesn’t have any grades or points associated. It's also possible that the teacher has chosen not to share grades/points for some assignments.
Teachers using Teams for Assignments will typically post most or all assignments there. However, some may post only a smaller selection there, and will instead prefer other ways to distribute the class work.
Currently, all Teams Assignments require a submission to be considered “Turned in.” To be considered turned in, all Teams Assignments require that either a student submit the assignment online or that their educator mark it as completed.
Regardless of the school location, School Connection shows times in the time zone from which you are accessing the app.
To help you see trends and high-level takeaways, School Connection provides a daily refresh of basic insights into your student’s education. The app compiles learning data from your student’s activity on Teams during the last 28 days and gives you an updated list of new insights.
For a given class, Private Preview offers insights into these categories:
Assignments
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Number of late submissions.
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Whether a student submitted: all of their assignments, more than 70% of assignments on-time, or none of their assignments.
Reading Progress
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Whether a student’s accuracy on the Reading Progress tool has increased/decreased.
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Set of “challenge” words that a student struggled with and may consider practicing.
Activity
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Whether a student often worked early in the morning.
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Whether a student often worked late at night.
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Whether a student was inactive in a class, meaning they did not open files, attend online meetings, or visit any channels.
Student data is owned by each school organization. Parents are advised to contact the school for requests related to exporting student data.
