Cover teacher — you need no subject knowledge
Print: this sheet, one per pupil. The whole lesson works on paper — no computers needed. The two grey boxes contain every option the school's Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace accounts actually offer, so you can check pupils' answers against them.
Run: 5 min read the options box · 12 min decide the six scenarios · 15 min fill the table with reasons · 13 min the "fix the mistake" task · 5 min swap and tick.
Collect: this sheet. Nobody shares anything today. If a machine is available, pupils may open the Share dialogue on one of their own files to look at the options, but they must not send a link to anyone, and nothing is ever shared outside the school account.
What you are doing
When you share a file in your school account you make two separate decisions: who can get at it, and what they can do once they are in. Get either wrong and you have either leaked something or blocked the person who needed it. You are going to make both decisions correctly for six real school situations and justify each one.
Decision 1 — what they can do (Google Workspace roles)
| Role |
Open it |
Add comments |
Change it |
Share it with other people |
| Viewer | Yes | No | No | No |
| Commenter | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Editor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, by default — and can change other people's permissions |
| Owner | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, and only the owner can hand ownership on |
Microsoft 365 offers the same idea with fewer names: Can view or Can edit, and in Word, Excel and PowerPoint you can also open a file in Reviewing mode so suggestions appear as tracked changes.
Watch out: in Google Drive, access you set on a folder is inherited by every file inside it. You cannot give someone less access to one file than they already have on the folder that contains it.
Decision 2 — who can get at it (Microsoft 365 link scopes)
- Specific people — only the people you name. If they forward the invitation, nobody new gets in. This is the safe default for schoolwork.
- People in <your school> with the link — anyone signed in to a school account who has the link, whether you sent it to them or it was forwarded.
- People with existing access — changes nothing; it just sends a link to people who could already open the file.
- Anyone with the link — anyone at all who receives the link, including people outside the school. School administrators often switch this option off completely, and you will see it greyed out.
You can also set an expiry date on a link and set a password for it. Google Drive calls the same two settings "Restricted" (only people you add) and "Anyone with the link", under General access.
Rule for today: everything stays inside the school account. No scenario on this sheet has a correct answer of "Anyone with the link".
The six scenarios
- Revision notes. You have typed up brilliant notes on the water cycle and want everyone in your Year 7 class to read them. You do not want anyone rewriting them.
- Group presentation. Four of you have to build one presentation together by Friday. All four need to type into it.
- Draft essay. You want your teacher to suggest improvements to your draft, but the words on the page must stay yours.
- Trip list. Your tutor asks you to pass on the class trip list, which has pupils' names and medical notes on it, to two members of the school office.
- A link in the year group chat. Someone posts a link to a folder of photos from sports day and says "it's set to anyone with the link so it definitely works". What do you do?
- Leaving the project. You built the group's spreadsheet but you are moving to a different project. The other three must keep working on it after you stop.
Your decisions
| No. |
Who can get at it |
What they can do |
Why that is the right choice |
| 1 | | | |
| 2 | | | |
| 3 | | | |
| 4 | | | |
| 5 | | | |
| 6 | | | |
Fix the mistake
Read what Alys did, then write what she should have done and what could go wrong if she leaves it as it is.
"I needed to get the maths homework to Rhys, so I put the file in my shared folder, set the folder to Anyone with the link, gave it Editor, and posted the link in a public group chat. It worked, he opened it fine."
Step by step
- 5 min — Read both grey boxes. Highlight the row that says what an Editor can do that a Commenter cannot.
- 12 min — Read the six scenarios and write your two decisions for each in the table.
- 15 min — Add the "why" column. Each reason must say what would go wrong with the next setting up or down.
- 13 min — Do the "Fix the mistake" task in full sentences. Name at least three separate errors.
- 5 min — Swap with a partner and tick their sheet against the success criteria.
Success criteria
- I can choose between Viewer, Commenter and Editor and say exactly what each one can and cannot do.
- I can choose the right link scope from Specific people, People in the school, People with existing access and Anyone with the link.
- I can give the least access that still lets the job get done, rather than the most access that definitely works.
- I can explain why personal information, like medical notes, is shared with named people only.
- I can recognise an unsafe share and say what I would do about it instead of joining in.
If you finish early
- Two settings on a link are an expiry date and a password. Write the school situation you would use each one for.
- In Google Drive, folder access is inherited by the files inside. Explain, with an example, why that makes putting one private file into a shared folder risky.
- An Editor can change other people's permissions by default. Write the sentence you would add to the school's rules to deal with that.