Primary School NM & ICT tech's advice

[starscream]

I love working in primary schools and hate it too!

I work in 4 primary schools, 2 infant schools and 2 full primary schools, used to be 3 infant schools but 1 shut down.

My biggest complain is of course lack of a base. My bases comprise of...

1. IT Suite
2. Standing in hall all day at a check height bench!
3. Staff room if it is not in use
4. Library if it is not in use

The worst thing is getting kicked out of the IT Suite for guitar lessons and getting kicked out of staff rooms for special needs things and getting kicked out of the library for exams and other stuff.

I am always moving around. What I refuse to do though is to work in any of the server rooms and these are usually cupboards with cleaning stuff in, I would rather be in the hall!

I am a bit gutted as one of the schools is moving to a new site in the summer and there is no ICT suite! That's right! someone high up in education is tell schools not to have it suites in their new buildings.

It is a stupid idea, means we rely 90% on wireless laptops, and we all know how reliable laptops are!

Other than that I enjoy the everyday tasks and it is a challenge to fix everything in the field.

...And yes it is sad but very cool nontheless when the kids gasp in amazement when you open computers up before their very eyes!

[russdev]

Leicester Mercury I saw it in.

Russ

[CHR1S]

Something else to consider is your work load, depending on your efficiency etc you may have alot of dev and creative time on your hands. Be sure your proactive enough to show you can fill that time.

[witch]

Something else to consider is your work load, depending on your efficiency etc you may have alot of dev and creative time on your hands. Be sure your proactive enough to show you can fill that time.

not a chance - if the school is anything like mine you are running around like a headless chicken trying to keep old kit going and keep up with all that lovely educational software! Primary software can be a real pain as a lot of it is very very old.

[enjay]

Primary software can be a real pain as a lot of it is very very old.

Even the new stuff is often more of a headache than the stuff which our Seniors buy - the concepts of "network", "public folders" and "MSIs" seem alien to many of the developers of primary-focussed software.

I wonder if they're thinking back to the "IT" when they were at primary school - i.e. one computer on a trolley which is wheeled in to the room to the amazement of all pupils - and don't realise that things have moved on since then.