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About LinkBacksOn the Becta Forums Paul Long has been asking about sharing technicians between schools.
How do people do it at their schools?
Follow up in EduGeek and I'll point him over here.
On the Becta Forums Paul Long has been asking about sharing technicians between schools.
How do people do it at their schools?
Follow up in EduGeek and I'll point him over here.
I'm shared between 9 primary schools and a secondry school.
I'm employed by one primary. The other primaries pay my primary for my time. I typically do 1/2 a day (either a morning or an afternoon) at each school.
The secondary school is a seperate contract from the primaries. I just do 90mins in the evening there after school.
Do you have to RDP/VNC or SSH in from home or are you that good that things can wait between visits?Originally Posted by Geoff
Generally things can wait. However the primarys are wired up to the secondary school for internet access. I have VPN access into the secondary school from home. I can also access any school from any other with RDP/VNC/SSH/SCP.
At my previous post at Lytham High I was paid by the high school but provided half day support slots to local primary schools 3 days a week and more if needed.
I believe that part of the technology college status required supporting local primaries.
Hmm
Makes me glad we got Science College status
Im based at a secondary school but am shared out between 12 primarys. No remote access to any of them so involves a lot of travelling. Different technologies and age of equipment also adds to the fury but I do enjoy the varied experiences. Is all set up through our specialist school status. Attend the primarys on a 1/2 day slot shared out over the week and four of the schools on a 2 week rotation.
Surely Tony you have enough people working for you to start your own outsourcing company?
I am shared between 8 primarys - all have 1/2 day slot except the biggest which has 2 slots and everyone shares the remaining slot for big jobs.
One primary actually employs me (they take turns each year), the others just transfer money to them once a year.
regards
Simon
I now have a technician working for me that is a cluster technician for 6 of our feeder schools he works monday - thurs 1 day a week in the bigger ones and half a day in the others.
He's only been in the job a week but seems to be doing well so far.
We support him from the high school and he is based here too allthough I won't see him here too much as he's out in the schools working.
Ben
Technical support for primary schools is a BIG issue. Generally, primaries get low amounts technical support. The most common arrangement is half day a week. This, quite simply, is not sufficient. It often results in a school 'building up' a list of problems for the technician to solve on his half day. This means that a problem can go a week before it is even reported to the technician. If that problem cannot be solved during the half day or if there are too many probkems to be solved in a half day, then problems can be carried over to the following week. If problems need to be reported to third parties (e.g. suppliers) then further delays can be experienced.
I daresay many of us have experienced these problems, or worse. The point is, though, that we really need to address the issue of technical support for primary schools far more effectively if we are to expect our primaries to make best use of their ICT.
Here is my situation:
I am employed by 4 Primary / Combined Schools. 3 Have me for one day a week, and the largest one has me for 2 days a week. My contract is with the council but I get paid from the schools. This works well as the schools all use the same payroll company so just get 1 pay slip with 4 payments on it.
It works well; once things are set up most things can be fixed in the day a week. If I need to chase suppliers I can do this via email / phone from which ever site I am on. I can also access server from either site if the need arises.
It can get hectic when you have different projects at different schools on the go at once. But hay it adds to the fun and interest of the job.
Situation last year
Should point out first each primary has a minimum of 80 machines. Largest one being around 150 machines.
6 Primaries supported by 3 technicians.
2 days at smaller primary 3 days at larger primary per week.
Politics aside (6 bosses) this worked well.
Situation this year
Funding not as good (temp contracts for technicians expired in September)
2 Primaries opt out of High School support.
4 Primaries supported by one technician
1 Day a week @ a primary school
1 day at High School
As for the 2 opting out primaries I'm at them after "changing jobs" in September.
4 days/week at one 1 day/week at the other.
Next Year
1 Other school has opted out of high school support and is sharing with another school outside the cluster.
The school I'm providing with 1 day/week has got an external company to provide them with 2 days support after we decided 2 days was too much time for me to give up. I'll be 5 days at 1 primary (120 machines) from September
Not sure what the other 3 primaries are doing, but it seems 1 day is not enough in our cluster. Until the SATS came along I always seemed to be fire fighting at my 1 day school.
My temp contract has expired. However I'm on a permernant contract as per LEA rules as I've been on recurring temp contracts for 3 years. They can't get rid of me now. They have to 'redeploy' me elsewhere. I have not reminded the schools of this fact yet though.
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