Microsoft Classwork: The secret to less stress for teachers
03/10/25 • 28 min
n a recent episode of the Cloud Design Box podcast, Max Fritz from Microsoft sat down with Darren Hemming to talk about Microsoft Classwork – an innovative addition to Microsoft Teams for Education, designed to streamline lesson organisation, improve student engagement and reduce teacher workload.
What is Microsoft Classwork?
Microsoft Classwork is a powerful tool within Teams for Education, enabling teachers to structure learning materials into organised modules.
With seamless integration into Microsoft Class Notebook and Teams Assignments, Classwork ensures that your learning resources are easy to manage, access and reuse across multiple classes.
Darren and Max highlight how Classwork provides a streamlined digital learning environment, making it easier for teachers to focus on instruction rather than administration.
“Teachers were using Assignments to share non-graded materials, causing confusion for students and parents. Classwork provides a dedicated space for organising learning resources, making everything clearer,” explains Max.
Key features of Classwork that enhance your teaching
For teachers, Classwork offers a number of useful tools and features:
Drag-and-drop functionality
You can quickly organise lesson resources with an intuitive interface.
Publishing controls
You can decide when students can access content, allowing for better lesson pacing.
“Classwork allows you to organise materials that are meant to be consumed and read by students into a logical manner,” Max explains.
Pinned modules
Classwork highlights key learning materials to ensure students focus on the most important content.
As Max points out:
“With Classwork, students can navigate resources without confusion, making it easier for them to stay on track with learning.”
Reusable modules
Teachers can duplicate and modify past lesson structures for future use, saving time and effort.
Integration with Teams and Class Notebook
Keep all your resources in one place, streamlining the teaching and learning experience.
“We didn’t want Classwork to be just another silo. That’s why it integrates deeply with Class Notebook, Teams Assignments, and more,” Max continues.
Solving school and MAT challenges
For school leaders, Classwork offers a structured approach to improving student outcomes, while ensuring compliance with school policies and Ofsted standards:
Better resource management
Classwork simplifies how materials are structured, shared, and accessed, reducing administrative overhead and allowing educators to focus more on teaching rather than document management.
Scalability across years, classes and departments
Schools can reuse and adapt learning materials across different terms, ensuring consistency in curriculum delivery while reducing the need for recreating content from scratch.
Data-driven insights into student engagement
Integrated analytics provide teachers and administrators with valuable insights into student participation, allowing for data-informed decisions that enhance learning outcomes and identify areas for improvement.
Get the most out of your investment in Microsoft 365
At Cloud Design Box, we help schools and multi academy trusts (MATs) in the UK get the most out of Microsoft 365, Teams and SharePoint.
By creating a centralised SharePoint intranet, we improve whole-school and trust collaboration, streamline workflows and enhance the learning experience for both students and teachers.
Interested in transforming your school’s digital learning environment?
Contact Cloud Design Box today to find out how we can
n a recent episode of the Cloud Design Box podcast, Max Fritz from Microsoft sat down with Darren Hemming to talk about Microsoft Classwork – an innovative addition to Microsoft Teams for Education, designed to streamline lesson organisation, improve student engagement and reduce teacher workload.
What is Microsoft Classwork?
Microsoft Classwork is a powerful tool within Teams for Education, enabling teachers to structure learning materials into organised modules.
With seamless integration into Microsoft Class Notebook and Teams Assignments, Classwork ensures that your learning resources are easy to manage, access and reuse across multiple classes.
Darren and Max highlight how Classwork provides a streamlined digital learning environment, making it easier for teachers to focus on instruction rather than administration.
“Teachers were using Assignments to share non-graded materials, causing confusion for students and parents. Classwork provides a dedicated space for organising learning resources, making everything clearer,” explains Max.
Key features of Classwork that enhance your teaching
For teachers, Classwork offers a number of useful tools and features:
Drag-and-drop functionality
You can quickly organise lesson resources with an intuitive interface.
Publishing controls
You can decide when students can access content, allowing for better lesson pacing.
“Classwork allows you to organise materials that are meant to be consumed and read by students into a logical manner,” Max explains.
Pinned modules
Classwork highlights key learning materials to ensure students focus on the most important content.
As Max points out:
“With Classwork, students can navigate resources without confusion, making it easier for them to stay on track with learning.”
Reusable modules
Teachers can duplicate and modify past lesson structures for future use, saving time and effort.
Integration with Teams and Class Notebook
Keep all your resources in one place, streamlining the teaching and learning experience.
“We didn’t want Classwork to be just another silo. That’s why it integrates deeply with Class Notebook, Teams Assignments, and more,” Max continues.
Solving school and MAT challenges
For school leaders, Classwork offers a structured approach to improving student outcomes, while ensuring compliance with school policies and Ofsted standards:
Better resource management
Classwork simplifies how materials are structured, shared, and accessed, reducing administrative overhead and allowing educators to focus more on teaching rather than document management.
Scalability across years, classes and departments
Schools can reuse and adapt learning materials across different terms, ensuring consistency in curriculum delivery while reducing the need for recreating content from scratch.
Data-driven insights into student engagement
Integrated analytics provide teachers and administrators with valuable insights into student participation, allowing for data-informed decisions that enhance learning outcomes and identify areas for improvement.
Get the most out of your investment in Microsoft 365
At Cloud Design Box, we help schools and multi academy trusts (MATs) in the UK get the most out of Microsoft 365, Teams and SharePoint.
By creating a centralised SharePoint intranet, we improve whole-school and trust collaboration, streamline workflows and enhance the learning experience for both students and teachers.
Interested in transforming your school’s digital learning environment?
Contact Cloud Design Box today to find out how we can
Previous Episode
Boosting student confidence with Speaker Coach and Progress | Samantha Fisher, Microsoft Education
Microsoft’s Samantha Fisher sits down with Darren Hemming to explore the exciting new updates in Speaker Coach and the introduction of Speaker Progress.
Read the full write-up on our website:
www.clouddesignbox.co.uk/podcast-speaker-coach-and-progress-microsoft
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📈 Increase collaboration and engagement
⏰ Save huge amounts of teacher time and effort
📚 Ensure consistently high-quality learning resources
Find out how we can support your school or MAT: www.clouddesignbox.co.uk/contact
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Next Episode
Building a HR Hub for Education in SharePoint – A podcast with Spencer Academies Trust
Looking to streamline HR processes and communication within your multi academy trust? In this podcast episode, Educational Technology Lead at the Spencer Academies Trust Josh Gibbs shares insights into how they transformed HR management at the MAT with a SharePoint HR Hub.
Watch the full podcast episode here:
About Josh Gibbs and Spencer Academies Trust
Josh is a long-time fan of SharePoint in Education, previously working with Cloud Design Box to lead digital transformation projects for several schools and trusts.
Currently Education Technology Lead at Spencer Academies Trust, Josh wants to bring his wealth of experience and knowledge to help the MAT address its pressing need for improved communication and management of resources.
Josh has been working with our Onboarding Consultants to help build the trust’s new HR Hub, and we take a look at it in action in this podcast.
Building a HR Hub in SharePoint
Centralisation of resources with a SharePoint HR Hub
The trust’s rapid growth has created a complex landscape where managing HR documents across multiple schools within the MAT became increasingly challenging.
With HR documents scattered across different schools, there was a clear need for a single repository to house all essential files, making it easier for central and school-specific HR teams to collaborate.
The HR team needed a centralised platform to store important and sensitive documents securely and efficiently.
Improved security
As HR handle sensitive documents such as contracts, payroll information and personnel files, the trust required robust security measures and their existing systems lacked the necessary controls to manage permissions effectively.
By transitioning from traditional network drives to a cloud-based solution, the MAT can now enjoy better document management, version control and backups.
Challenges to implementing a SharePoint HR Hub
While the vision for the HR Hub was clear, its implementation naturally came with its own set of challenges and Josh discusses these in the podcast.
Migrating to a cloud-based system
Moving from network drives to a fully online system is undoubtedly a significant shift for any organisation.
This migration involved consolidating resources into a single tenant, which required meticulous planning and execution.
Our solution: SharePoint’s robust security features
SharePoint was chosen for its robust features and compatibility with the trust’s cloud-based infrastructure.
Its ability to centralise resources, manage permissions, and provide easy access to documents made it the ideal tool for the HR Hub.
Managing permissions without compromising security
It’s crucial to ensure that only the right people have access to specific documents and the Spencer Academies Trust HR Hub was no exception.
The challenge was to set up a permission system that was both secure and easy to manage in the future.
Our solution: structured permission groups
Instead of assigning permissions on an individual basis, groups were created in advance based on roles within the schools and trust.
This approach ensured that permissions were applied consistently and securely.
SharePoint staff training and adoption
With staff members accustomed to the old ways of managing documents, training them on the new system was essential. The transition needed to be smooth to avoid disruption in daily operations.
Our solution: Comprehensive training programs
Recognising the importance of user adoption, Josh and his team are developing training materials, including video guides and text inst
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