General information
Congratulations! Finding this set of guides and how-to documents is your key to getting set up for helping your child work effectively on their school work from home.
Don’t worry, this is new to everyone and you have a great support network to get you through the difficult bits.
These guides are going to evolve as we find new and interesting quirks of the system, so please bear with us, be patient and check back for updates if you are stuck.
This guide is currently written for people using a computer web browser, other options exist:
• Microsoft Teams App (PC, Mac, iOS, Android)
• Phone or Tablet web browser
I suggest using this guide in a web browser on a computer first, then experimenting with other options later.
Section 1: how to log in
Note: This section represents the happy path … i.e. everything working as it should. If you run into problems please see below for some common questions and problems.
Login to Microsoft Teams can be done from your web browser, the URL is:
https://teams.microsoft.com/
If you’ve never used teams before you will see this:
Type in your child’s school account username which ends @barnes.richmond.sch.uk then click ‘Next’.
You’ll now be prompted to enter the password:
Enter the password and click ‘Sign in’.
You should now be logged into Teams and you should see the following screen.
Note: The very first time you log in with a child’s account there can be a bit of a delay before you see the screen below. This is due to the current incredibly high levels of activity which Microsoft are dealing with due to half the world’s population trying to log in and work from home. Please be patient, wait 10 minutes and try again.
If you’ve got this far and see what you expect that’s great, you are done with this guide!
Please use the following guides available from <> to learn more about using Teams and getting your child set up.
Any known browser or platform problems?
Funny you should ask … yup there are always some of those!
This section will detail these sorts of problems and any workarounds:
- On a Mac the Safari browser doesn’t work that well with Teams; it looks like it is working and sometimes does … but then it mysteriously fails. Best use FireFox or Chrome. I am on a Mac and I’ve found FireFox has not failed me. I don’t use Chrome that much but other parents have reported it is working fine.
- On an iPad the iOS version of Teams downloaded from the App Store seems to be working fine. Some notes:
- The MS Office document display within Teams on iOS isn’t great, it doesn’t display tables very well. You can open the files in the Word app on the iPad for better results
My child’s login details are incorrect, or they don’t work
- Try typing the username and password very carefully noting capitals etc in the password
- Make sure there are no odd spaces at the beginning or end of the username/password if you copied and pasted it
- If you have two or more children, check whether the problem affects one or both of them
If you still have problems, then email: support@barnes.richmond.sch.uk including:
- Your child(s)’ name, class
- The username and password they have brought home
- A picture of the screen you are seeing, or at least the error screen that is shown
As you can imagine the school IT support has a lot to manage at the moment so please be patient when you write in; we will get back to you as quickly as we can but it might take some time.
Don’t worry though, the school and the teachers understand there will be teething troubles and your child won’t lose out or be left behind!
I see something like this when I access Teams on the website:
A: That’s ok, just click ‘use another account’ and log in with your child’s account.
I already have my own Microsoft account (I use Teams for work, have a Hotmail.com or live.com account); can I access the school information with this?
A: No, the Barnes Primary School Teams area is only accessible using the school provided login that has been given to your child. Either:
Log out of your own accounts then log in with your child’s accounts
Open a Private Browsing or Incognito window in your web browser and log in to the school Teams in that window (this means it won’t get mixed up with the school account)
Use a different web browser for your child’s account (maybe Chrome, Firefox etc); this also means there won’t be a conflict
You need to log in with his/her account details which look something like this:
U: something@barnes.richmond.sch.uk
P: PBS24vg54gy
Usernames are all lowercase
Passwords are case sensitive so please be really careful how you type it!
How do I open a Private Browsing or Incognito window?
A:
If you use Chrome here is Google’s guide to doing this:
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95464?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en
If you use FireFox here is Mozilla’s guide:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/private-browsing-use-firefox-without-history
My child’s login details were accepted, and it looks like I was able to log in ok but I don’t see the screen I was expecting
A: The very first time you log in with a child’s account there can be a bit of a delay before you see the screen below. This is due to the current incredibly high levels of activity which Microsoft are dealing with due to half the world’s population trying to log in and work from home. Please be patient, wait 10 minutes and try again.
This is not anything to do with the school’s systems, it is an issue of global server capacity.
Timeout problems, slow loading and all that jazz
A: Basically, just be really patient, try at a different time of day or night. Try outside normal EU working hours when there is likely to be less activity.
This is due to the current incredibly high levels of activity which Microsoft are dealing with due to half the world’s population trying to log in and work from home. Please be patient, wait 10 minutes and try again.
