The SharePoint team is excited to launch site templates for schools and universities, available via the Microsoft Look Book. The templates bring together news, events, highlighted content, quick links and more. Each has been designed with a specific scope and audience for our Education customers:
- School home page: a central, institution-wide landing experience for students and staff with the latest school happenings and important resources.
- Staff home page: a dashboard for staff members with time-saving links, documents, and calls-to-action. This template is designed to be used with a Staff team or a Professional Learning Community (PLC) team in Microsoft Teams for Education.
- Class home page: a dashboard for a class with resources, updates, and learning content. This template is designed to be used with a Class team in Microsoft Teams for Education.
While planning and designing the templates, we listened to school leaders and educators all over the world. Armed with this feedback, we went to work to provide rich, effective site templates that help students and staff stay connected and up-to-date on school life and class work. Plus, the sites look great on any device by default, so students and educators can use them on desktop, tablet and mobile.
To help you get started quickly, we've provided step-by-step guidance on how to customize the templates to suit your needs, and how you can bring your home pages into Microsoft Teams for Education.
Staying engaged and on top of key information is critical for students and educators, especially when faced with the new challenges of hybrid learning. These site templates provide a straightforward path for everyone in your school community to access what they need. Here’s how each of these templates can benefit your school:
School home page
Dress it up in school spirit with your school colors, logo, motto, and values - this is the internal landing experience for your school. School leaders share schoolwide news, events, and resources, making it the single place where teachers and students can stay up-to-date on the latest happenings that affect their teaching and learning.
Learn more about more about the School home page template and how to make it your own.
Staff home page
Use this template as a dashboard for staff members - whether it’s schoolwide, a department working groups, or a PLC. This is where highlighted documents, tool links, and essential event info lives together, organized.
Bonus: This page can be added alongside your team meetings and discussions in Microsoft Teams. Pin it as a tab to your Staff or PLC team so staff members always knows where to get their updates.
Learn more about the Staff home page template and how to customize it just for you.
Class home page
This template serves as a central dashboard for a class. Welcome students, highlight key information and learning resources, and get students what they need. You can even add your contact info and an introduction.
The Class home page template is intended to be used with a Class team in Microsoft Teams. Students get the combined functionality of the Class home page along with assignments and online meetings, without ever leaving Teams.
Learn more about all the elements in the Class home page template and how you can customize them.
Summary of what’s included with each template:
- Home page layout and sample content.
- Branding elements, including a site theme.
- Documentation to help you get started and make your sites your own.
FAQ
1. What permissions do I need to add the templates from the Microsoft Look Book site?
- School home page: You need to have the permissions to create new SharePoint sites in your organization.
- Staff home page: You need to be an Owner of the Staff team or Professional Learning Community (PLC) team where you want to add this site template, or be a Global admin.
- Class home page: You need to be an Owner of the Class team where you want to add this site template, or be a Global admin. All teachers of a Class team are Owners by default.
2. How do I bring the sites into Microsoft Teams for Education?
- School home page: You can add the home page as a Website tab in teams of your choosing. Learn how.
- Staff team: You can add the home page as a SharePoint tab in the associated Staff or Professional Learning Community (PLC) team. Learn how.
- Class team: You can add the home page as a SharePoint tab in the associated Class team. Learn how.
3. Can you show me an example of how these site templates can be customized?
Yes. Here’s an example showing each of the three site templates customized for a higher education institution just by changing the theme, text, images, page layout, and linked content. With SharePoint, it is easily edit, add, move, or remove elements of the page to suit your needs. Try it today.
Related reads and resources
- Inform and engage your school staff & students with site templates (guidance documentation)
- Microsoft Look Book
- The Intrazone podcast, episode 39: “Education: SharePoint and Microsoft Teams in the classroom”
- SharePoint help & learning
- Microsoft Education help & learning
- Microsoft Student help center
- The Intelligent Intranet – Explore, Align, Implement, Engage