Myths and Facts

[beeswax]

just been handed a sheet from a meeting which took place yesterday. It says,

"FACT

The only stipulations of the national BSF programme with regard to ICT are that:

The solution should remove from schools the burden of procuring and managing ICT;
An area-wide solution should be procured which recognizes the new dynamics of Every Child Matters and the changes in 14-19 education; and
The ICT solutions procured should meet or exceed the latest BECTA functional and functional specifications"

[Lee_K_81]

just been handed a sheet from a meeting which took place yesterday. It says,

"FACT

The only stipulations of the national BSF programme with regard to ICT are that:

The solution should remove from schools the burden of procuring and managing ICT;
An area-wide solution should be procured which recognizes the new dynamics of Every Child Matters and the changes in 14-19 education; and
The ICT solutions procured should meet or exceed the latest BECTA functional and functional specifications"

I think not having a say on what their ICT staff (not that they will have any) do; set their own priorities for ICT; etc. would be a bigger burden.

[GrumbleDook]

just been handed a sheet from a meeting which took place yesterday. It says,

"FACT

The only stipulations of the national BSF programme with regard to ICT are that:

The solution should remove from schools the burden of procuring and managing ICT;
An area-wide solution should be procured which recognizes the new dynamics of Every Child Matters and the changes in 14-19 education; and
The ICT solutions procured should meet or exceed the latest BECTA functional and functional specifications"

Oooh ... where did you get that? The Functional and Technical Specifications (an early draft) are already on EduGeek for discussion and I will put up the new most recent ones on friday ...

Talking of which Becta would like a small group of us to sit down and go through them properly to see what we think on a primary / secondary / special school basis.

PM me if you are interested (I will do this as a formal announcement later too ... off to a meeting though ... )

I would like to compare the document against materials from SLICT and other information given to LEPs via NCSL.

[CyberNerd]

The entire point of the Technical Specs were for BSF - they are a contractual requirement to ensure standards are high. This is why nobody is enforcing schools to follow it now. I'm sure I mentioned this before, they've been around since October 05 and I had conformation when I called becta.

[russdev]

just been handed a sheet from a meeting which took place yesterday. It says,

"FACT

The only stipulations of the national BSF programme with regard to ICT are that:

The solution should remove from schools the burden of procuring and managing ICT;
An area-wide solution should be procured which recognizes the new dynamics of Every Child Matters and the changes in 14-19 education; and
The ICT solutions procured should meet or exceed the latest BECTA functional and functional specifications"

I think not having a say on what their ICT staff (not that they will have any) do; set their own priorities for ICT; etc. would be a bigger burden.

But I think that is point no one is saying that schools must lose the control...

Russell

[beeswax]

Russ, I'm trying to see the positives in this, but so far, there's very little to sustain me. To me, losing the burden is the same as losing the staff. I can't see that my school can afford to keep me on as a "specialist" while being asked to pay £100 per pupil per year (those are the figures in front of me).

[russdev]

That's decided it over Easter I am going to sit down and do post about BSF and my views and what is wrong with bsf and what is right. What the benefits and different models that could be used and imho should be done.

So watch this space..

Russell

[GrumbleDook]

The entire point of the Technical Specs were for BSF - they are a contractual requirement to ensure standards are high. This is why nobody is enforcing schools to follow it now. I'm sure I mentioned this before, they've been around since October 05 and I had conformation when I called becta.

The technical specifications were thought about long before BSF raised its head. The technical specifications are really a drill down from UKERNA to ensure that RBCs connecting to SuperJANET/JANET could handle it ... and then we get standard network builds and so on ...

The earliest I have seen about technical specifications is from around 1989 talking about what sorts of computers and systems should be used in schools and universities (based on stuff from the States IIRC) ... so it is nothing new ... it is just the focus that is changing and the reasons why it is important.

I'll post more on Friday about this.

[beeswax]

thanks for that Tony. I'm afraid I don't hold information in my head the way some people do. I have to prepare everything beforehand and it does tend to mean that my wonderful rebuttal of an argument, like the glorious put-down, is something which arrives three days later.

[bossman]

Could i intercede for a moment: Having read not just the ICT requirements and specs for BSF but everything that goes with it i.e. communities within schools i find this a really hard pill to swallow. Does the government realise that for years and years the paramount question other than educating children was keeping children safe. If the government is so fired up with these community within schools (BSF) is this not opening the gates to all manner of kind (peodophiles etc etc) I have heard that they are going to be like America with shopping and service units attached on campus (BSF) what will they come up with next.

I know this puts a different slant on things as far as ICT goes but this looks like the bigger picture for all these schools. It just reeks of cost cutting on a large scale by the government who are putting another spin on how much they are spending on education using BSF as their model.

As a tax payer i find this money wasted form the top, down over as at each stage a slice of the cake is eaten in slightly smaller pieces until where the money is needed there is nothing if anything left (red tape, quangoes and beaurocrats)

sorry if i sound cynical but been alive too long now to be fobbed off by faceless men in ivory towers with no grasp of reality.

[CyberNerd]

The entire point of the Technical Specs were for BSF - they are a contractual requirement to ensure standards are high. This is why nobody is enforcing schools to follow it now. I'm sure I mentioned this before, they've been around since October 05 and I had conformation when I called becta.

The technical specifications were thought about long before BSF raised its head. The technical specifications are really a drill down from UKERNA to ensure that RBCs connecting to SuperJANET/JANET could handle it ... and then we get standard network builds and so on ...

The earliest I have seen about technical specifications is from around 1989 talking about what sorts of computers and systems should be used in schools and universities (based on stuff from the States IIRC) ... so it is nothing new ... it is just the focus that is changing and the reasons why it is important.

I'll post more on Friday about this.

The current technical specification for institutional infrastructure was released on or about October 2005. I was informed that this document is the basis of any new school ICT contract or build. It was drawn up by Becta ( Dr John Chapman IIRC) for the purpose of ensuring a basic interoperability between schools. The focus is definately new, it doesn't stop at networking protocols. I am fully supportive of any measure to implement interoperability standards as I firmly believe that commonly understood standards are the fundamental basis of science, and therefore technology itself. What I question is the way that it is brought in, through BSF. Schools should be accountable, and should be pressured (carrot/stick) into adopting these standards without the need for mass ICT outsourcing.
The problem, as evident from many schools is that SMT is often unaware of technical interoperability issues and therefore they are overlooked. This is one of the things BSF will actually help with. Personally I'd rather not be outsourced and adhere to the standards myself, but I probably don't have that choice.

[GrumbleDook]

The drafts (from May 2006) are available here and I will get the latest drafts tonight or tomorrow night to add to that thread.

The specifications are two-fold ... functional and technical ... you cannot look at one without the other. They drive each other and cannot be seperated ...

When you are looking to explain technical aspects to SMT you can show the functional aspect and they show the relevant technical aspect(s) ... and vice versa ...

Although these are applied to larger groups of schools, these drafts can be applied to individual schools too ... it is just that some of the expertise and technology might be best done as part of a group or consortia for financial, time or staffing reasons.

Both Russ and I are trying to get some more info on BSF for everyone and samples of how it can work ... or where it is obviously failing.