Free Office 365 A1 is retiring: a plain-English guide for schools

You may have seen Microsoft’s announcement on 5 November that the free Office 365 A1 licence is being retired. A lot of schools, primary schools especially, rely on A1 for staff email and Teams, so I’ve put together a guide for principals, boards and ICT coordinators.

The short version:

• Nothing changes today. Your licences keep working to the end of your current agreement or term.
• From your first renewal on or after 1 January 2028, staff will need a paid licence (A2 or higher) to keep email, Teams and SharePoint.
• The new free pupil licence (A0) is only available if every member of staff is on paid A2 or higher. It’s for pupils on Windows devices and has no email or Teams.
• The free 100 TB storage pool goes too. Your storage will depend on the paid licences you have.

The guide covers the key dates, what to do this term, a note you can paste into the principal’s report for your board, step-by-step checks for your ICT coordinator and a teacher list template. Every fact links back to Microsoft’s own pages or the Oide guidance. I’ve also listed the questions Microsoft hasn’t answered yet.

https://stratusit.ie/office-365-a1-retirement-irish-schools/

If you’d rather watch than read, there’s a 6-minute video on the page.