Class Teams Homepages: Everything you need to get started

The new homepage feature in Microsoft Class Teams allows you to create homepages within Microsoft Teams for each class, filled with the latest announcements, pinned class resources, upcoming assignments, recently edited class files and much, much more.

The good news is that this doesn’t take much time to set up – it’s mostly automatically generated for you. However, you can customise your Class Teams homepage, which we talk about later in this guide.  

 

 

How to set up a Class Teams Homepage. 

1. Select the class you want to view a homepage for in Class Teams. 
2. Select Home page in the left-hand side panel of Class Teams.  

As you can see, much of the content is automatically created for you, pulling information and files from that specific class.  

The homepage can include most web parts that can be added to a standard SharePoint site.  

Here are some examples:  

• Welcome banners 
• Quick links to class resources 
• Upcoming assignments 
• Recently edited class files  
• Images and video 
• Text blocks  
• Social media feeds 
• Yammer conversations 
• Countdowns
• News  
• And much, much more!  

How to edit your Class Teams homepage.  

1. Select Edit. You can then go ahead and customise each section or web part as you would usually on a standard SharePoint site.  
2. Add new web parts by hovering over an area of the homepage and selecting the grey plus button, and choosing which web part you would like (see a list of examples above).
3. Add new sections and change the layout by selecting the plus button in the left-hand corner of the page.  
4. Remove web parts by selecting the web part you want to delete and then select the bin icon.  
5. Move web parts around by dragging and dropping.  
6. Once you’re happy with your design, select Republish to publish it to students.  

We’ve rounded up our favourite web parts to include in your Class Teams Homepages here. 

Important: Use this tip to avoid wasting time on Class Teams homepages.  

It’s tempting to spend hours designing your Class Teams homepages and filling them with useful information and resources for your students. And, if you have the time, why not? 

However, we must remember that currently, Class Teams homepages are only for one specific class – they will not roll over to the next academic year like your other centralised learning resources.  

So, if you’re not careful, you’ll have to duplicate a lot of work next year when creating new homepages.  

Instead, try this tip to save time without compromising on quality.  

Don’t save all your resources in one Class Team, instead create a central resource area in SharePoint that you can reuse year after year.  

Then, use your Class Homepage to signpost your students to those learning resources.  

You can do this in a number of ways, including Quick Links web parts, buttons, links on images, and simply just inserting a link.  

We like how the Quick Links web part is laid out as you can simply keep adding to the list and create a unified list of key resources – all with their own customisable icon.  

Meanwhile, if you want a resource to stand out – perhaps it’s an “ultimate revision guide” you can use an image or button to highlight it even further. 

(Read a little bit more about transforming the way you work with centralised learning resources in this guide.)

 

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