Dear Parents/Carers 

Microsoft Educate: New Pupil Accounts

You will know from previous communications that we have been working hard to get our DfE approved platform, Microsoft Educate, embedded to further enhance and support our remote learning programme. 

We are pleased to inform parents that this set-up is now complete and need to advise you of the next steps which are going to hopefully iron out many of the technical glitches that we have been experiencing. 

Microst Educate - New Teams Quick Guide

Updated: 02/07/2021 1.09 MB

On first view, it will not appear significantly different to how we are running our daily sessions but there are some fundamental improvements:- 

  1. It is a PUPIL SPECIFIC account; this means you as the parent no longer need to access the Teams links or platform via your personal/work email, as your child now has their own username and password (see next steps); 
  2. Daily learning tasks are set as assignments within Teams, removing the necessity to send daily emails, which we appreciate can become a little unwieldy depending on the topic being shared. 
  3. You will no longer be waiting for a Teams invite as children will automatically ‘join’ their group when they first log-in and sessions will continue to run at the three scheduled times(see example below). 
  4. Your child has access to the rest of the Microsoft Office365 suite, so they can open ‘Word’, ‘PowerPoint’ etc. without any conflicts. The Quick Guide explains how this works depending on the device they will be using. 

Next Steps: 

  • As from today (Wed 27th Jan), we will start sending text messages to parents detailing your child’s unique log-in details. Please keep this information safe. 
  • On Friday morning, our Remote Teachers will hold a tutorial session for our home learners which we will also be broadcast to children in school. This will explain to them how to get logged in, where to look for their work assignments etc. 
  • Do NOT try and log-in with the new details until Friday morning otherwise they will miss the current schedule of Teams calls. 
  • We will start using the new platform from Monday 1st February. 

First Access: Example

  1. Mrs Dryden is waiting on Teams for the children in her ‘Scooby Snacks Group’ to join the session at 9.00am on Monday morning  – she hasn’t had to send an ‘invite’ as her pupils will automatically join the Team when they log-in.  
  2. At home, Lily has finished her breakfast, checks the clock and sees it is almost 9.00am – time to start school! 
  3. She gets on to her laptop, and types ‘Microsoft Teams’ into her web browser. 
  4. The webpage comes up and she is asked to ‘sign in’ to her account which she now does using her new school account. So she enters l.bloggs@fulwelljunior.co.uk
  5. She is then prompted to enter a password so types in: Pink54321 (example only!) 
  6. Hey presto! Lily is now diverted instantly to her Teams group – on her screen she can see the icon for Mrs Dryden’s Teams Group (easy to spot as it has Scooby Doo on it!) 
  7. She clicks the picture of Scooby to ‘join’ the Teams session. 
  8. Mrs Dryden knows straight away that Lily is there as she receives a notification and her name will appear in the teacher profile, so all Mrs Dryden then has to do is ‘accept’ Lily into the class.  
  9. All done and dusted – Lily is in the class, Mrs Dryden is ready to teach…everyone is happy….parents aren’t frazzled trying to connect through their Hotmail account (other providers are available!! ;-))….nobody is being left out….. 

There may well be a few teething problems at the start of the week, but we are confident this is going to be a much better way for children to work. 

What Happens to the Existing Email Groups? How do I now contact the teacher if there is a problem? 

The new platform means that the email groups we are currently using to set Teams sessions and direct work/resources will become a little redundant. 

However we know we still need to ensure you, as parents, can contact the teachers with specific concerns or queries.  

To that end we must insist you ONLY communicate to your child’s Group Teacher through our staff @schools email addresses. Please don’t try and email teachers through your child’s new Microsoft account.  

Remember, our four remote teachers are handling remote learning concerns for their whole Year Group so note the right person to contact: 

Year 3: Mrs Bankhead maria.bankhead@schools.sunderland.gov.uk

Year 4: Mrs Haswell  carly.haswell@schools.sunderland.gov.uk

Year 5: Mrs Dryden  nicola.dryden@schools.sunderland.gov.uk

Year 6: Mrs Hands caral.hands@schools.sunderland.gov.uk

Other queries NOT linked to teaching and learning can still be raised with myself and Miss Donoghue in the first instance. 

Finally, can we kindly remind parents that the expectation is for children to engage appropriately with the home learning offer; we have witnessed some very disappointing behaviour from some of our children whilst on the Teams calls, either not paying attention, chatting to friends, disrupting sessions by removing members of the group during the learning session and lowering hands etc. or waving toys etc. in front of their cameras. This is spoiling sessions for the vast majority of our children who are diligently trying their best to learn and pay attention in what are already difficult enough circumstances. We must therefore advise that teachers will dismiss a child from a call if their behaviour is affecting the delivery of the lesson and follow up on an individual basis via an email or telephone call. 

We do believe the Educate platform will give the teachers further control measures to prevent this in the first instance so hopefully examples of such behaviour will be extremely rare moving forward. 

Thanks again for your support and feedback as we endeavour to improve our remote learning offer week on week. We look to the trial session on Friday and the launch on Monday! 

Best wishes to you all. 

Joanne Anderson
Business Manager