Disadvantaged children across England are set to receive laptops and tablets

[enjay]

Hi,

 

I think im correct in thinking this but as we are a fully Chrome school my windows knowledge is not what It was a few years ago! :-( When the DfE Intune licence expires will the devices still be usable? im assuming the auto updates will no longer work so the device may not update itself? ie windows / defender?

 

Im assuming the restrictions on admin rights will just stay in place? We don't have many of the Windows devices out but enough to require an understanding of.

 

With the Cisco filtering im guessing it isn't running through a proxy or something that no longer exits that prevents access to the internet? Im assuming it will just be fully unlocked?

 

Thanks for any advice people :-)

 

My understanding is:

 

- admin restrictions remain, so users can't install software

- patches won't install

- filtering will stop

[kennysarmy]

Anyone else receive a sales pitch email from a company trying to take on the contract for the mifi devices? The wording is quite clever, it makes it seem like I have to contact this particular company.

 

Trashed it

[Arthur]

Anyone else receive a sales pitch email from a company trying to take on the contract for the mifi devices? The wording is quite clever, it makes it seem like I have to contact this particular company.

 

Good afternoon,

 

I'm looking to speak to the person who dealt with allocating the laptops and internet connections supplied by the department for education last year.

 

I need to organise the continuation of our sim contracts for Mifi Devices which are currently in place with yourselves. These are used by children who have no internet access, with safeguarded Tech in place.

 

The original contract ends on July 31st so all SIMS will be turned off on that date. The contract was with The Department for Education and now it's up to yourselves to decide if you wish to continue with the service.

 

We have a range of bespoke solutions available, all of which offer the same coverage and online protection as the current deals so will make the transition easy.

 

We would like to arrange a meeting/call with our colleague Dean, to discuss, in detail, your options moving forward. Please let me know a date and time that is suitable for yourself.

 

Yep! Quite expensive too.

 

• All SIMs begin each month on the 1GB tariff
  
• Any SIM that exceeds 1GB, will automatically be placed on the most appropriate tariff from the list of tariffs below, based on how much the user used in the month.
  
• Alerts and Automatic Bars can be set, at any limit.
  
• Additional steps can be added, if required.
  

Pricing Jumps (monthly price includes the content filtering) –

 

+----------------+------------------------------------+
| [b]Data Allowance[/b] | [b]Tariff Rental (per SIM, per Month)[/b] |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 1GB            | £6.50                              |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 3GB            | £8.75                              |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 5GB            | £11.50                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 7GB            | £14.75                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 10GB           | £20.75                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 12GB           | £23.15                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 15GB           | £27.50                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 18GB           | £33.75                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 20GB           | £36.50                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+

[gmonks]

Yep! Quite expensive too.

 

 

 

+----------------+------------------------------------+
| [b]Data Allowance[/b] | [b]Tariff Rental (per SIM, per Month)[/b] |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 1GB            | £6.50                              |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 3GB            | £8.75                              |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 5GB            | £11.50                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 7GB            | £14.75                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 10GB           | £20.75                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 12GB           | £23.15                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 15GB           | £27.50                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 18GB           | £33.75                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+
| 20GB           | £36.50                             |
+----------------+------------------------------------+

At these prices, it'd be cheaper for the schools to take out a year contract with some phone companies!

[StevieM]

I need to organise the continuation of our sim contracts for Mifi Devices which are currently in place with yourselves.

 

(my emphasis)

Has anyone checked whether the existing government contracts are with this (as yet unnamed) company? If they're not, then I think they need to be reported to Trading Standards promptly, and schools need to be actively alerted.

[DrCheese]

I'm not in the least bit fussed about keeping our 4g dongles going past the date, we only needed to give out 3 in the end, all of which are back now. Probably doesn't help that we got a load arrive just after we all came back from the 2021 lockdown. Good job DFE.

 

 

I could briefly see the entire LEA's usage of these devices & most were unused- I think someone may have made a lot of money out of these...

[jackbates]

(my emphasis)

Has anyone checked whether the existing government contracts are with this (as yet unnamed) company? If they're not, then I think they need to be reported to Trading Standards promptly, and schools need to be actively alerted.

 

Hello everyone,

 

I just thought I’d offer a bit more information on this. I work for the company referred to in this message (Abzorb by the way)! We are, indeed, the DfE’s delivery partner for the Roaming SIMs with Content Filtering and are currently supporting around 80,000 users of the service. Hopefully you don’t mind the engagement – we were actually contacted by a number of Local Authorities in June, who were concerned the service was ending and did not have a suitable provision in place. Given how straightforward it is for us to continue the provision for any of the users of the service (existing SIMs would continue to work and no need to touch SIMs or Routers), we thought it would make sense to make use of our telemarketing resource to contact all Local Authorities and Academy Trusts, to find out if they wanted to keep the service beyond its expiry. The team has been working hard to make contact and arrange online sessions with our Public Sector team, to explain the options for continuing the service beyond the 31^st August. For clarity, there is absolutely no obligation to continue taking the service, there is no minimum quantity (regardless of how many SIMs you were using as part of the DfE service), there is absolutely no downtime or end-user interaction involved with the extension and the SIMs come with the all costs attributed to NetSweeper content-filtering platform, portal, helpdesk and management included.

 

Some of you may also be aware that we are supplying a truly unlimited data simcard heavily discounted at £14.75 per month, for organisations that don't require multi network roaming Simcards with the NetSweeper content filtering.

 

I appreciate some of you haven’t heard of us, but we support hundreds of telecommunications service providers, with our integrations with mobile and fixed line operators (most of which, you will probably have heard of!). Directly, and via our network of reseller partners, we manage over 1 million mobile connections throughout the country. Here’s some information the DfE added to their web site regarding Abzorb being awarded the contract: https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/the-department-for-education-dfes-get-help-with-technology-programme.

 

If you need any more info on this, either DM me or email [email protected].

 

Hope that info is useful! Have a great day!

[newpersn]

Does anyone know who we log faulty laptops with now? Is it still with the DFE or is it now with the manufacture? (We got 2 Geobooks with issues)

[saggu]

We were told to contact the manufacturer.

[newpersn]

Can I ask who told you?

[Rob_D]

Does anyone know where I can find out what web content was blocked on the DfE secured laptops with Cisco Umbrella? (One of our students has claimed they used to be able to access Facebook and Instgram before put our own web-filtering on the laptop)

[Garacesh]

Does anyone know where I can find out what web content was blocked on the DfE secured laptops with Cisco Umbrella? (One of our students has claimed they used to be able to access Facebook and Instgram before put our own web-filtering on the laptop)

 

Instagram was 100% available

We had to send one back out again so I jumped on to it to remove all files/web history/etc and the previous user had enough instagram urls in their history for me to confidently say it was available.

 

Can't speak for facebook though.

[mikeprice]

Just been to Tesco and met one of the teachers from my last school

 

Due to being in a deprived area and lots of kids on FSM they got loads of iPads and Chromebooks as part of the government scheme

 

As they no longer have an IT Tech and have 1 visit every 2 weeks from the new Academy they have been put into - they are still in their boxes piled up in a corridor

never been opened

 

 

As they are back in school the teachers have asked if they can be used in class

 

Nope - too difficult can't be done

 

sigh

[Ditto]

Just been to Tesco and met one of the teachers from my last school

 

Due to being in a deprived area and lots of kids on FSM they got loads of iPads and Chromebooks as part of the government scheme

 

As they no longer have an IT Tech and have 1 visit every 2 weeks from the new Academy they have been put into - they are still in their boxes piled up in a corridor

never been opened

 

 

As they are back in school the teachers have asked if they can be used in class

 

Nope - too difficult can't be done

 

sigh

This is wrong on almost ever level. Would love someone to raise this with governors and head, or even report to Ofsted. This is a massive failure and the responsibility may well sit with the Academy trust. It is a waste of public money, but more importantly the kids are missing out on the chance of a better education. It's one of the few things that actually makes me quite angry.

[PrimaryNetMan]

Just been to Tesco and met one of the teachers from my last school

Due to being in a deprived area and lots of kids on FSM they got loads of iPads and Chromebooks as part of the government scheme

As they no longer have an IT Tech and have 1 visit every 2 weeks from the new Academy they have been put into - they are still in their boxes piled up in a corridor

never been opened

As they are back in school the teachers have asked if they can be used in class

Nope - too difficult can't be done

sigh

 

This has to be some kind of joke? The Chromebooks could have been deployed by anyone in school as long as the user had permissions to enrol devices. Unpack > Asset Tag > Enrol > Give to family.

 

As for to difficult to be to be repurposed for class use, also rubbish. Yes you'll need some kind of storage / charging unit, but you would need that anyway if you were purchasing class devices. Over 100 Chromebooks sent out during lockdown and all of these are being repurposed for school use come September (no lockdown permitting)

[Norphy]

This has to be some kind of joke? The Chromebooks could have been deployed by anyone in school as long as the user had permissions to enrol devices. Unpack > Asset Tag > Enrol > Give to family.

 

As for to difficult to be to be repurposed for class use, also rubbish. Yes you'll need some kind of storage / charging unit, but you would need that anyway if you were purchasing class devices. Over 100 Chromebooks sent out during lockdown and all of these are being repurposed for school use come September (no lockdown permitting)

 

Things are easy when/if you know what you’re doing. Setting up a ChromeBook might be easy for you, but it sounds like Mike’s old school doesn’t have anyone who knows where there any key is.

 

It’s inexcusable that they haven’t got someone in to do this for them, but just because you know how to do something doesn’t mean anyone else does.

[PrimaryNetMan]

Valid point.

 

Agree with @Ditto though the pandemic so many disadvantaged children missed out on remote learning to lack of devices from Gov and delays. The MAT should have been making sure these were up and running and if they school were unable to due to lack of knowledge (nothing wrong with that) they should have step in and provided that support.

[mikeprice]

You have nailed the point above

 

 

Apart from me and the DH there was precious little IT knowledge or experience in the school

 

They were Primary teacher and TAs - IT expertise was not a major requirement

One of the major reasons for the previous Head hiring me was to help the other teachers work out how to teach ICT and Computing

 

and to try to get stuff actually working

 

They seriously needed to spend some money and get people in to sort it out

I have little experience with Apple - and none with Chrome books

but my overal knowledge of how stuff works would have got me though - that and EduGeek of course

 

But they didn;t

or - more accurately - SMT didn;t - and the DH who had some IT knowledge seemed to disappear soon after I left - dunno why

 

basically all the normal 'IT doesn;t matter' concept

 

actually - I'm really mad about it but have kinda suppressed it all

 

I feel that if I had been there still then I could have made a differnence over the pandemic

 

but I wasn't

and no-one else did anything - including those whose job it was to get it sorted!!!

[enjay]

This definitely highlights the state of some schools' IT support. Many schools, especially primaries, have someone who comes in for an afternoon a fortnight and they have to do everything, there simply isn't the time for these schools to set up 100+ devices for home use, or even to repurpose them for internal use.

 

We gave our students curriculum laptops which were scheduled for replacement anyway so are in effect spare, and are now swapping them out with DfE ones. One primary we work with gave out loads of their laptops and iPads as soon as lockdown started, so when the DfE ones arrived, they set them up for in-class use since the students had at-home devices by then.

[Garacesh]

This definitely highlights the state of some schools' IT support. Many schools, especially primaries, have someone who comes in for an afternoon a fortnight and they have to do everything, there simply isn't the time for these schools to set up 100+ devices for home use, or even to repurpose them for internal use.

I feel like this is where Chromebooks are king, and it's good that the DfE did give those as an option.

If only it were so simple, though. The problem is that you then need someone to admin the tenancy and whatnot, so as much as the OOB setup is painless, there's still a lot of work to do behind the scenes.

[Primus]

I feel like this is where Chromebooks are king, and it's good that the DfE did give those as an option.

If only it were so simple, though. The problem is that you then need someone to admin the tenancy and whatnot, so as much as the OOB setup is painless, there's still a lot of work to do behind the scenes.

 

This is true but I'm sure the DfE also provided funding for setting up M365 or Google Workspace if you didn't currently have students enrolled in one or the other.

[Rob_D]

I feel like this is where Chromebooks are king, and it's good that the DfE did give those as an option.

If only it were so simple, though. The problem is that you then need someone to admin the tenancy and whatnot, so as much as the OOB setup is painless, there's still a lot of work to do behind the scenes.

 

To be fair, we ordered the pre-configured windows devices and didn't even bother unboxing them before they went out. (Of course now we've got to reset them all to use our own management solution)

[Garacesh]

To be fair, we ordered the pre-configured windows devices and didn't even bother unboxing them before they went out. (Of course now we've got to reset them all to use our own management solution)

 

Oh yes, very much the same here.

I'm more referring to the issue now where the filtering is being shut down and we're looking at reprovisioning them.

[Tefters]

What's the official line on providing management/filtering solutions on off-site devices?

 

Our SLT for years have denied remote filtering due to cost so we just issue out blank laptops with waiver letters saying that it's the parents responsibility to manage what the child searches on the device outside of school.

 

As a parent myself I agree with this approach as it's unreasonable to ask the school to provide everything and the child more than likely has a mobile phone which the parent should also monitor *giggle*.

Obviously we lock down the device to a user profile so they can't install applications.

 

In terms of repurposing the DofE laptops, we got 200 odd to reset which is going to take months to do when we actually find the time!

[Rob_D]

What's the official line on providing management/filtering solutions on off-site devices?

Our SLT for years have denied remote filtering due to cost so we just issue out blank laptops with waiver letters saying that it's the parents responsibility to manage what the child searches on the device outside of school.

As a parent myself I agree with this approach as it's unreasonable to ask the school to provide everything and the child more than likely has a mobile phone which the parent should also monitor *giggle*.

Obviously we lock down the device to a user profile so they can't install applications.

In terms of repurposing the DofE laptops, we got 200 odd to reset which is going to take months to do when we actually find the time!

 

When this was discussed during the first lockdown (it might even be in this thread somewhere), the consensus was "your device, your responsibility" when it comes to safeguarding. If the kid does something silly using school equipment then the school could be at fault.

However if you SLT are okay with it, I don't see why you can't pass responsibility down to the parents as long as you have signed documentation saying the parents understand and will do their part (the normal CYA stuff).