Keyboards and Mice being vandalised constantly.

[Silica]

We're having to replace half a dozen of these a week across ~400 desktops....

 

Any suggestions to prevent vandalism with the equipment?

[Cevans]

Do you work in a school or an office?

 

School - Put some sort of card lock on the door so students can't access it without a member of staff there?

Office - Allocate a budget to each member of staff or department and when they exceed the limit based on replacements they will go without, or need explanations?

[Silica]

Do you work in a school or an office?

 

School - Put some sort of card lock on the door so students can't access it without a member of staff there?

Office - Allocate a budget to each member of staff or department and when they exceed the limit based on replacements they will go without, or need explanations?

 

School.

 

The rooms are generally locked. Students are doing this in lessons it seems like.

 

Departments aren't taking responsibility because the suites are shared resources.

[Jawloms]

School.

 

The rooms are generally locked. Students are doing this in lessons it seems like.

 

Departments aren't taking responsibility because the suites are shared resources.

 

Spot check rooms. Check it before a lesson, then check it after the lesson. You then know who the teacher was and which child logged in last. It's a PITA, but cheaper than CCTV.

[Cevans]

Yeah spot checking rooms is a good idea. You could also have a sign-off sheet that teachers need to sign before leaving and starting classes to verify their equipment was in good condition before and after.

[DrBeaker]

We're having to replace half a dozen of these a week across ~400 desktops....

 

Any suggestions to prevent vandalism with the equipment?

 

School.

 

The rooms are generally locked. Students are doing this in lessons it seems like.

 

Departments aren't taking responsibility because the suites are shared resources.

 

I feel your pain believe me.

 

We used to get this at one place and was still a problem when I left.

 

* room checks twice daily for a month

* fixing all issues during holidays and after school so we knew for a fact it hadn't "been like that for ages"

* photos and videos of damage

* CCTV footage

* kids caught red-handed damaging it

* spot checks of rooms

* equipment reporting sheets

* etc etc

 

In all those years NOTHING was ever done about it. No teachers reprimanded, no students reprimanded, no costs to the parents etc. SLT didn't care. Very disheartening.

Edited July 3, 2019 by DrBeaker

[MkII]

No cctv?

[ricki]

CCTV and charging departments and parents have sorted this for me in several schools

[TechMonkey]

Less than £150 for an IP camera would work out more cost effective than keep replacing the broken kit. I've found making the staff using the room responsible helps as really this is a classroom management issue.

 

Go to your management as you will need top cover for any solution put into place. CCTV will get the teachers back up as they will instantly say it is to monitor them. You could start charging the departments, spreading across multiple if you can't pin point when the damage happened and explain that as no one reported it then it has to be split. That will get the teaching staff starting to check and report breakages at the beginning of the lesson. But this will still need to be enforced and signed off by Management.

 

If you have the time you could do a bit of detective work, and track back through who logged on to the PC, ask them if they noticed anything off about the PC or ignore those that logged on for a very, very short time and narrow it down.

[sarge]

your best bet is to run out of money in your budget. When teachers learn that the room is unusable because of colleges lack of supervision they might start doing what they get paid for. If windows/doors/chairs were getting wrecked something would get done. Sorry teachers think IT equipment is free. Its total lack of responsibility , all the while patting themselves on the back that causes most people to get out of education. Gt you IT managed by an ouside firm & the issue goes away, as everything cost dosh.

[noelmm]

We've started charging departments for any replacements now, hopefully that will have an impact here.

[Lonix]

Departments aren't taking responsibility because the suites are shared resources.

 

I would never believe it.

 

All I'll say is good luck...

 

We tried checks before and after lessons - in the end this wasn't manageable because it requires MY team to do it.

Billing departments - until staff fight back because it's being used by multiple depts

Billing parents when students are rarely caught

Each teacher must report the problems which narrows down which staff are responsible - to still fight back that it wasn't them

Replacing only during holidays - to then get shot when they struggled with a full class

Leadership have got involved by reminding staff

HT got involved by reminding staff

HODs reminded their departments

 

All the above effectively got scrapped or just wasted time. We still spending around £5000 a year on damages.

 

Nothing changed. Until the teachers take full responsibility to what happens in that classroom, you are fighting a losing battle. The work load isn't what angers me, it's the money I'm wasting that could go towards a couple of IWBs, a bunch of projectors or new PCs.

[strawberry]

Do one of two things.

1. Fix everything, document your time and the money this costs. Check the room 3 times a day and ensure everything is replaced before the next visit. This is the cost of keeping lessons running the best you can.

2. Fix nothing. The frugal method, let people see what damage is done and how that affects T+L.

 

Don't do anything inbetween. It clouds the issue.

[mikes]

Nothing you can do about it in my experience, we ended up buying crates of cheapo input devices. Our classrooms now tend to have 50% more mice and keyboards in them than their are computers. Kids love moving around keyboards and mice for some reason

[sarge]

Tried the lot, only SLT can sort this mess out. Some do & some don't care. I agree with Strawberry & Lonix . The money wasted in education/LA is unreal compared to the real world .

[CalmBlueOcean]

I said about this in another thread, with us getting through a shocking amount of keyboards and mice this year - on average almost one replacement mouse per active desktop since January!

 

I've given up in the worst ICT suite now, which is not tied to any department and used for all sorts of lessons. Trying the 'frugal' approach mentioned above. I haven't replaced anything since the start of this half-term when it was fully working. Probably about 10 working machines out of 30 now. No one has said anything... yet. I might get it in the neck from the Principal soon though, even though I've warned about the situation multiple times. Throw money at it seems to be the general attitude.

[sarge]

I am getting a "real job" out of education

[strawberry]

Probably about 10 working machines out of 30 now. No one has said anything... yet. .

 

And this is the crux of the problem, no one has mentioned it because it's not having an affect on T+L. The room is being destroyed because teachers are taking kids in there without intention of T+L.

[bobsmith]

In my last school we certainly faced this issue - however the solution was solely provided by us in IT support.

 

Every now and then all the rooms were restored to perfect working order - you wouldn't believe how cheap you can get mice and keyboards for if you buy in bulk.

 

There's an element of broken window syndrome to all of this - I certainly found a room that looked neat and clean would suffer much less damage than a room we abandoned.

 

We cable tied keyboards and mice cables to the back of the chassis and even screwed the monitors in place with mdf brackets we had made by our DT department - all of this did a lot to stop the random swapping of screens and peripherals.

 

In my current place none of these steps are taken - but the level of vandalism is close to zero. The difference is simply ethos - this place has one and the last place didn't. there's no punishment or chasing up of staff/students here - they just look after the equipment better.

[sarge]

Ethos of Teachers ?

[bobsmith]

Ethos of the whole school - but we're a Catholic school so that helps a bit.

[LeMarchand]

Ethos of the whole school - but we're a Catholic school so that helps a bit.

 

NSFW language.

 

 

?

[keyboards]

A good IT teacher who takes responblity for the suite they use even when they aren't teaching in it are worth their weight in gold. The IT Teacher if his room is used by someone else and he finds it a less than great state emails out and sort of sets the tone. Sadly coming from him it carries far more gravitas than an email from that goes straight in delete that says "please monitor students when teaching in IT rooms

[DrBeaker]

A good IT teacher who takes responblity for the suite they use even when they aren't teaching in it are worth their weight in gold. The IT Teacher if his room is used by someone else and he finds it a less than great state emails out and sort of sets the tone. Sadly coming from him it carries far more gravitas than an email from that goes straight in delete that says "please monitor students when teaching in IT rooms

 

Money ends up being wasted if we keep fixing the issue, students suffer if we don't, heads moan to us, another 6x people moan to us etc. I spent 5x years in one role chasing this with the teachers, IT manager, SLT members etc and nothing was ever done. It was like it was simply accepted. Not good enough in my book.

 

I've had it today - a call down to an IT suite that last week I went through, connected network cables back to the sockets, switched ON computers that had been switched off etc. Everything bar 3x were working (those due to actual technical issues)

 

Today - at least 3-4x lots of double sockets for some reason unplugged from the network sockets. Another 6x PC switched off at the mains socket. So of course they're not going to work! But it "just happened by itself" yeah right. Sorry but I'm not going to respect you if you don't respect the room and the kit.

[PotNoodleTech]

Nothing you can do, it's a classroom management issue. Take it to SLT. If they refuse to fix it then don't worry just keep buying more keyboards and mice.