Supporting schools and colleges to deliver remote education using Office 365 Education

Case Study | Stratford School Academy 

Challenge  

In response to COVID-19, schools, colleges and universities are having to implement new ways of working. Teachers, students and schools are among those having to quickly adapt and implement alternatives to traditional approaches to education.  

Stratford School Academy engaged with Escalla to address the issue of having to shift everyday classroom learning exercises as well as assignments, homework, and engagement with students on to an online platform with Microsoft Teams for Education. 

Requirements 

 Specifically, they faced the following challenges: 

• Upskill over 100 staff to modify their lessons into effective online lessons.  
• Be confident and proficient in the use of Microsoft Teams for Education to achieve this.
• Encourage and train students and parents to positively engage with these new methods of learning. 

Solution 

Escalla were ready to create and deliver bespoke Microsoft Teams and Office 365 applications training that was both efficient and bespoke to exceed their needs.  

Stage 1 - We primarily delivered an informative webinar that provided an in-depth overview of the key functionality of Teams for Education. This allowed staff to understand the capability and ask questions around the pedagogical application of the software.  We also ran a Q&A session giving all staff the opportunity to join, ask questions and run through any process or feature that they wanted to cover. 

Stage 2 - We then engaged with each individual department through two days of bespoke online workshops to determine exactly which applications and features they would need to effectively transition their individual subjects, classes and teaching methods on to Teams and Office 365.  

From this we identified key elements that could be quickly implemented to allow them to create a positive experience for parents, students and staff members.  This included: 

• Using MS Forms to create quizzes that could be marked automatically or be reviewed manually. 
• Transitioning classroom sessions into PowerPoint presentations .
• Using the bespoke OneNote Class Notebook application embedded into Teams for Education. 
• Determining the best practice when using the Assignments feature to allow teachers to create, mark and keep a record of assignments set for their students.
• Integrating and collaborating with other Office 365 applications 

We also explored the student experience so that they could easily receive, complete, and submit schoolwork, exercises, and assignments.  

Stage 3 – Finally, we delivered a school champions online event with at least one nominated champion from every department attend to explore in detail every useful process identified with a view to delivering training to a wider audience of parents and students. 

Results 

Over the course of a week, the staff at Stratford School Academy had a clear and confident working knowledge of Teams and could both visualize and confidently transition their classroom lessons and assignments on to Microsoft Teams for Education and Office 365. They were empowered to use Microsoft Teams to swiftly and confidently transition into remote classrooms.

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