Teams Chat Between Students

[Olliedawg]

If you are blocking Teams chat between students (private chats), how are you doing this?

 

I've looked at the "Information barriers" feature in Purview, however this seems to require a licence to use. (as usual)

[Synkrox]

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoftteams/messaging-policies-in-teams#messaging-policy-settings

 

Chat - Turn this setting on if you want users in your organization to be able to use the Teams app to chat with other people. When this setting is off, chat is disabled for new one-on-one and group chats.

[Boredguy]

In the Teams Admin Centre, you can apply different policies to different users. We updated the "Secondary Students" policy to disable the chat feature and that is applied by group membership to students.

The only way they can "Chat" in Teams is in a channel that has not been set as moderated, or in reply to an existing post.

 

We enabled this as default for our students 5 years ago when remote learning became a requirement

[Olliedawg]

Does this not also disable 1-1 chat between a teacher, and student for example?

[TechMonkey]

You can use supervised chats to allow chat between pupils and staff, but not between pupils. With just policies, the teacher would be able to start a chat but a pupil would not be able to start a chat with the teacher.

[Olliedawg]

You can use supervised chats to allow chat between pupils and staff, but not between pupils. With just policies, the teacher would be able to start a chat but a pupil would not be able to start a chat with the teacher.

 

Thanks i'll take a look at that, looks promising

[snagrat]

Thanks i'll take a look at that, looks promising

 

This is the way to do it.

 

However, unless it has changed, this won’t stop already created 1:1 chats from continuing. It only stop creation of new

[Olliedawg]

This is the way to do it.

 

However, unless it has changed, this won’t stop already created 1:1 chats from continuing. It only stop creation of new

 

Yea got this in place now. Will save a few headaches in the future im sure.

[Space_Munkey]

Hey chaps,

 

We had an incident today which made us aware the policies need rejigging (again for the millionth time).

 

I was not aware of role-based permissions previously.

 

I have it set as follows:

 

YR 7 -11 - Restricted

6th Form - Limited

Staff - Full permissions

 

However on testing now, I have discovered that the student can just go into their year team, double click another student and begin a chat with them.

 

Do you see the same thing in your environments or have i missed a setting somewhere??

[psydii]

Related? "Block user policies created in the Microsoft Teams admin center or PowerShell aren’t blocking users as expected" Service health - Microsoft 365 admin center

[Space_Munkey]

On 3/20/2025 at 5:18 PM, psydii said:

Related? "Block user policies created in the Microsoft Teams admin center or PowerShell aren’t blocking users as expected" Service health - Microsoft 365 admin center

 

No way 🤣

 

Well i'll keep an eye out over the next day or so to see if it is now working as expected.

 

I did find a few posts online from the past few years complaining about the same sort of thing, but maybe it's only now being addressed?

 

Fingers crossed either way!

[Space_Munkey]

Yea frustratingly it's definitely not working as it should 😕

[kennysarmy]

Is chat such a big deal?

Are students not allowed to email each other either?

[DrCheese]

20 minutes ago, kennysarmy said:

Is chat such a big deal?

Are students not allowed to email each other either?

 

All blocked here - Both chat & email. Chat is completely banned for students & can only email teachers.

 

99% of what the younger years were using email for to each other was banter & slipped into bullying. 

 

[Space_Munkey]

30 minutes ago, kennysarmy said:

Is chat such a big deal?

Are students not allowed to email each other either?

We have students chatting to eachother during lessons rather than working. Sending each other rude and racist memes and as mentioned above it often slips into bullying. We also have students using after school hours to message one another and groups.

It also matters from a safeguarding point of a view as sixth formers for example are currently are able to message younger years.

 

We have had to completely remove users from teams before, but it would be a hell of a lot easier if the role-based permissions just worked as intended.

 

Also i get what you're saying "they can just email eachother" but thankfully the majority are not clever enough to understand the process of doing this lol

Edited March 27, 2025 by Space_Munkey

[Space_Munkey]

I hate to double dip!

 

IT DOES WORK!

 

I'm just lazy and didn't test and assumed! - Previously I had seen the chat box greyed out which was from disabling chat completely.

 

However with restrictions in place, the chat box is active and usable - you just cannot send the messages / create 1-to-1 chats.

 

I believe already created chats can still be used, but I may look into script deleting these at some point over the summer.

 

Woohoo!