Empower guardians to engage, support, and monitor learners with School Connection

  • 5 minutes

The School Connection app in Microsoft Teams empowers guardians to engage with, support, and monitor their child's learning at school. Guardians can:

  • Review upcoming, overdue, or recently completed assignments
  • Read assignment feedback, grades, or rubric feedback
  • Access insights from the past month on their learner’s digital activity, assignment turn-ins, and reading progress
  • Contact educators from their learner's class directory via email

School Connection is a secure solution that’s easy to use and provides guardians with information they need to initiate meaningful conversations with their children about their learning. School Connection also saves educators time and deepens the partnership between educators and guardians.

Screenshot of a learner's assignments and quizzes in the School Connection app for guardians.

Guardian School Connection setup

To access School Connection, guardians must:

  1. Download the Microsoft Teams mobile app to their mobile device.
  2. Sign in to Teams with the personal email address that’s on file with their child's school. Guardians can create a personal Microsoft account for free with an existing email address.

In Teams, guardians then:

  1. Select the Profile icon.
  2. Open Settings.
  3. Select School Connection.
  4. Select Enable.

School Connection now appears alongside their other apps. The first time guardians open the app, they must:

  1. Accept the terms.
  2. Enter their child's school-issued email.

If they have learners at multiple schools, they can add all learners to the same profile.

Guardians can only add learners to their profile if all three of the following requirements are met:

  • They use a personal email (not a work email) to sign in to the Microsoft Teams mobile app.
  • The same email is on file as a guardian contact with their learner's school.
  • The school has turned on School Connection from the Teams Admin Center.

Once guardians add their learners to the School Connection app, they can view the same classes as their child. School Connection provides up-to-date information as it becomes available to learners. Additionally, School Connection provides a daily update of basic insights into a learner's education. The app compiles learning data from the learner’s activity on Teams in the last 28 days and gives guardians an updated list of their child’s classroom progress.

Learners’ details in the app include:

  • Assignments
    • Work that’s past due or yet to turn in this week
    • Assignments due in the next two weeks
    • All posted Teams assignments
  • Feedback
    • Points and comments for graded work returned
    • Rubrics posted by educators
    • Message educators about specific assignments
  • Insights – Monthly trends in a learner’s:
    • Digital activity
    • Reading progress
    • Assignment turn-ins