Would love your feedback on Assignments in Microsoft Teams (homework)

[brevity]

Hi all,

 

I'm keen to hear people's experiences using Assignments in Microsoft Teams for homework.

 

What do you like and dislike? 

 

I think it's included in our E3 licences but have you found any hidden costs/necessary upgrades?

 

We have a working group of 2 primary and 2 secondary schools so keen to hear any feedback.

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited September 11, 2025 by brevity

[Rob_D]

Teams and assignment manager are fully included in our A1 licenses (I'm surprised you're not using A-series licenses in your schools).

It works well for us, the main thing missing is a good way for parents to see what homeworks their kid has.

 

[brevity]

Thanks for the info @Rob_D

Ah ok, so the students get alerted, but parents cannot see or encourage their child to complete it. 

That's interesting. Do parents get an email about homework at least?

[Rob_D]

29 minutes ago, brevity said:

Ah ok, so the students get alerted, but parents cannot see or encourage their child to complete it. 

That's interesting. Do parents get an email about homework at least?

Yeah, students get Teams notification and it will show up in their Teams Assignments app/tab.

 

 

There is an option to set up weekly "parent/guardian emails" which shows all the assignments that week, but we've had mixed results with this. Mostly because back when we tried it, the SDS config was generally a bit hit and miss. SDS seems much more reliable now, but we have a 3rd party parent app that hooks into Teams to show homework to parents (Bromcom MCAS), so we never looked at it again.

TBF, I think the way most parents work, is getting their kids to log on and show them their assignments page.

Edited September 12, 2025 by Rob_D

[Sylv3r]

I am not sure which MIS you use, but I understand Arbor is bringing the Teams integration into their apps too (Certainly the student app) and it may well be that this includes the Parent app too for visibility. I don't know the timelines, but I am sure it's on their roadmap.

[TechMonkey]

Works for us.  Biggest issues we have is staff not using it correctly and pupils not clicking hand in if they have to hand in hard copy. This leaves the assignment open forever and parents then get fed up that there is lots open.  No way to bulk close.

 

We got My School Portal that had a Teams Assignments widget that our Parents love.  The only issue seems to be it only deals with class teams, not some other teams that have been set up manually.