Disadvantaged children across England are set to receive laptops and tablets

[DrCheese]

I think it just worries me from a safeguarding point of view - If we're supporting them, but have no management access to them (& ability to set things up like filtering/restrictions) then who's fault is it if the student accesses dodgy content/is groomed whilst using the device? The parent would argue "But the school provided/supports it, it's their fault"

[mikeprice]

I believe they're going to be school owned devices, technically.

 

So until this is over and they're returned to the school, I would treat them as personal devices, then get them wiped and then managed after the fact.

 

If they are school owned devices then who is responsible for getting them returned to school at the end of Year 11 (i.e. in a year's time)

 

Presumably it will be up to finance or SMT

 

or maybe not

[psydii]

Central government isn't totally incompetent. I'm sure the menu of devices will all support OOB enterprise enrolment (DEP/AutoPilot/etc).

 

Also I wonder if schemes like LGfL's free Meraki licences (for subsribers to their services) will be scaled up to support this?

 

On safeguarding access at home: We have a very limited student scheme, and the terms make it clear that to receive a laptop, the carer takes responsibility for what the student accesses. We provide the computer, they provide the internet. Though I'm tempted to sign up for a eval of https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/microsoft-defender-atp/web-content-filtering if it looks like we're going to receive more than a handful of these devices.

 

I would expect that any state funded internet connection will be supported by at least ISP level consumer filtering, if not RBC like provisions. *squints again at LGfL*

[crc-ict]

The list is pretty exclusive. Yr 10 and 12 who are Vulnerable, recent Care Leavers or with a Social worker. That's not too many really.

 

Aren't these pupils already covered in the group that can still attend school anyway? Why the need for double provision?

[BKGarry]

Just waiting for the information to drop on this one,

[6Foot2]

I can only imagine the amount of support this is going to require. Even in our tech school we get quite a few parents/teachers asking how to do specific stuff and 99% of the time it's user error.

Agreed.

 

The majority of my time today has been dealing with password requests for Google Classroom (most of these users had recently been given their passwords)

 

The rest of my time (apart from a long meeting early this morning) was spent on misdirected queries (those that have come to me when they should have gone to other staff. Often the sender knew that I was not the right person to be asking but the request came to me nonetheless)

 

[sidewinder]

Semi True - If we don't have any management access to these devices I won't want to touch them with a barge pole, as at that point, they're basically Student owned devices, along with all the safeguarding risks that comes with.

We can't be expected to support home owned devices

 

But surely that's true for many pupils right now unless you have a 1-1 scheme - most are using their own or parents computers. We aren't being difficult and refusing to support them because it's not school owned equipment. It is a bit of a nightmare trying to decipher whether the issue is related to Google Classroom or their PC at home, but it's just the reality of things at the moment.

[psydii]

Our email is front and centre on the school website. We're 40% up on service desk tickets. Unsurprisingly we're 100% down on whiteboard problems. Almost all issues are fixed with a standard email with the instructions on accessing the home learning attached.

 

This attachment is available as a link above our email on the school website. We've also trained up the Form Tutors and the skeleton crew in the school office on this and related matters. The skeleton crew also know how to pivot a shared iPad or laptop to a 1:1 device and have discretion to issue them to students as they see fit. The skeleton crew are not made up from the IT team - we were considered too valuable to risk having on site since mid March.

 

As long as we go with a known device type under this scheme we've got a great pool of people to support them. Even though it is going to be a lot of work, it will be worth it to enable interactive learning for those kids who are stuck sharing a five year old Android phone between their entire family.

[LeMarchand]

At least we're not at this point

[ATTACH=CONFIG]57693[/ATTACH]

 

Yet!

 

I'm surprised that the Yanks have rail links to Busan.

[DrCheese]

But surely that's true for many pupils right now unless you have a 1-1 scheme - most are using their own or parents computers. We aren't being difficult and refusing to support them because it's not school owned equipment. It is a bit of a nightmare trying to decipher whether the issue is related to Google Classroom or their PC at home, but it's just the reality of things at the moment.

 

No no that's a bit different - People don't have the expectation that we *have* to help with their personal devices - We do of course assist staff/students accessing our systems where we can but ultimately we don't take responsibility for the management of the device, content stored, or anything that may occur on that device.

 

If we did a 1:1 scheme we'd naturally have these devices fully managed & filtered. The difference here is we may end up with the worst of both worlds. No management, but the expectation of support & responsibility on the school.

[mavhc]

Well, after data security the main job is making sure children can learn, and have to work out the most efficient way of doing that, the reason you have standard hw and images is up front cost and annoyances to save time in long term. If you can't have those then the other option is people wait longer for support

[DavR]

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/get-help-with-technology-for-remote-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19

 

Looks like we'll be ordering via an online portal on Wednesday...

 

Reading this second article, it looks like schools might not get very much say on the scheme:

 

Schools, parents and pupils will not be able to order the devices themselves.[/Quote]

 

LAs and MATs to order and distribute the kit, although "schools may be asked to help".

 

And as others have pointed out, it's limited to vulnerable secondary age students.

[Ditto]

You have to wonder if it would have been better for schools to have ring-fenced funding based on qualifying numbers of pupils to provide devices as the school sees best.

[DavR]

You have to wonder if it would have been better for schools to have ring-fenced funding based on qualifying numbers of pupils to provide devices as the school sees best.

 

Depends, I guess. If the school are going to be expected to be involved with management and support, then sure, definitely. If the LA/MAT are just going to send them out without school staff input, then best we keep well away from the thing and treat them as privately owned devices.

 

Always the way isn't it - you get top down dictats on things you'd like to have an input in, but when you do want government guidance, you get left with the problem to sort out yourself.

[Ditto]

For some of the MATs I am familiar with, it could work for them. For the LA I am familiar with, it would not be a good approach and indeed would clash with the academies in the county. As each school (possibly MAT sometimes) is managing the home schooling, I think it is better they should manage the tools used. Imagine a central distribution of subject matter books, let's say for a Quigley based curriculum, only to find out many schools in the county are using there own custom approach with their own choice of books. Maybe not quite a fair comparison, but hopefully you get the drift. In my county, there are more academies than state maintained schools, but the story and therefore best approach may be different for other counties.

[mikeprice]

Presumably any school that is asking for pupils to have xxx software on their device will have something somewhere (website???) allowing for it to be installed

 

so all that the LA (or MAT) has to do is provide a basic web capable device and the rest should fall into place

 

and suitable security etc etc etc

 

but at least if the LA provides the machine then any problems are not the school's fault

 

in theory

[DrCheese]

Presumably any school that is asking for pupils to have xxx software on their device will have something somewhere (website???) allowing for it to be installed

 

If they're Windows devices, hopefully we can get the autopilot ID so we can enroll them in intune right out the bat

If they're apple devices, DEP registered

Chromebooks - They just login with school ID anyway, just won't be enrolled in google console/managed mode (Forgive me, I don't have any!)

 

but at least if the LA provides the machine then any problems are not the school's fault

 

*chuckles*

[keyboards]

Just seen this thread, we've had a few emails on this last few days, people asking for devices

 

Is anybody clearer to working out what is actually going to happen? As I don't know what we're meant to do currently, buy the devices or something else

Edited April 21, 2020 by keyboards

[MkII]

We issued a few machines before we broke up after assessing needs. We'd pretty much worked through what we could spare. With this new directive the rest of the kit not in use is now fair game and we've started issuing more.

We are also thinking about giving the learners with zero home access isolated machine use in the key worker crèche.

Edited April 21, 2020 by MkII

[Meldrew]

Interestingly, there's now no date that information will be released - at least as far as I can see. Also it now says "schools, parents and pupils will not be able to order these devices themselves".

[clareq]

a Quigley based curriculum,

 

 

I have to ask - what's a Quigley based curriculum? I'll leave it to you to guess what the Q stands for in my username...

[keyboards]

I think some schools/staff are underestimating the cost of dongles and ongoing costs, say what 20-30 a month, looking at what 300 a year just in mobile data costs on going

[DavR]

I think some schools/staff are underestimating the cost of dongles and ongoing costs, say what 20-30 a month, looking at what 300 a year just in mobile data costs on going

 

Depends who they ultimately dump the bill on. Central government have announced the scheme, LA and MATs are delivering it, so it would seem very unfair for schools to be called to pay the bills.

 

Unfair, but not out of the realms of imagination.....

[fiza]

So this scheme has not gone live then?

 

If it has, has anyone got the link to the page to order from please?

[ICTDirect_Dave]

what's a Quigley based curriculum?

 

When I was at school back in Chesterfield, a Quigley-based curriculum was PE lessons with one Mr Quigley.

He got my surname (and by extension my nickname) wrong for the entirety of my time at Netherthorpe. I never had the heart to tell him.