On-boarding for new pupils

[SayLHP]

Hi all,

 

I’ve had a bit of a clash with a new teacher over new accounts for the new year 7 pupils.

 

Previously we’ve always created their PC logins right at the start of the academic year, once they’re on-boarded in our MIS, their Minecraft & Adobe accounts are created by a scheduled task and then their credentials are shared with the form tutors to distribute.

 

This usually means everything is done within the first week of term, however the new teacher has complained to their head of department that they could not complete their first lesson on the PCs on the very first day back.

 

How do you do on-boarding for new cohort?

[pete]

We create them in advance via Salamander (other middleware options such as Ruler is available). Y7 accounts are created once the record is sufficiently complete in SIMS (though I do have to remind admin staff to set their status to "admitted") and incoming Y12 accounts get created a week before they're needed.

 

Same for new staff - created a week before their official start date.

 

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Y7 students for September are typically in SIMS and correct before the end of the summer term (maybe a few missing UPNs from the more slack primary schools). This did take some nudging from IT, moving to electronic student record forms (for parents to complete) and initial bribery using chocolate and ice cream, but now it's just part of the procedure.

 

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You may get some pushback of "but what if the student doesn't attend?" variety. It's trivial to delete students who don't turn up and shouldn't be a blocker.

Edited September 4, 2023 by pete

[SayLHP]

I’ve got all the year 7 cohort created and file storage set up, when do you distribute them out?

[chris11256]

I'll preface this by saying that were a sixth form and so don't know who'll definitely be coming until GCSE results day. But once the dust has settled, usually around the Tuesday after, they're transferred over from the admissions system into our MIS. Once they're moved to current students salamander generates the accounts. The Assistant Head Pastoral then send them out via mail merge as part of a welcome to the school email confirming their first day arrival, form room and such.

[pete]

Y7 logins are handed to the appropriate teacher the day before the students arrive (which is Wednesday for us). Some years there's a dedicated "fill the IT rooms with Y7 pupils and get them logged in" lesson, other times it's done in their first IT lesson.

 

New Y12 students pick up their credentials from the admin office along with everything else (the admin office is in the sixth form common room).

Edited September 4, 2023 by pete

[3s-gtech]

Hi all,

 

I’ve had a bit of a clash with a new teacher over new accounts for the new year 7 pupils.

 

Do you have one of those neck rewinding tools? Theirs sounds like it’s on full extension, which is perilous in a new job.

[jthompson]

Staff and students' accounts are all provisioned automatically as soon as they appear in the MIS. Passwords initialised to their DOB, which is my top tip for simplifying onboarding.

Deprovisioning is similarly automated.

 

List of new intake usernames is shared with ICT teachers ready for onboarding in their first lessons. The list can be filtered by class, so that it can be shown on the board.

 

All the other staff are advised to surface in the email directory the email address of any other new starters that they might get in their class. That combined with DOB passwords means nobody has to leave the room or call IT.

 

For sixth form, it usually takes a week at the start of term for admissions/leavers decisions to settle down.

[jthompson]

Meant to add that our automated provisioning is a custom setup that combines Wonde API, Apps Script, AppSheet and PowerShell.

 

When your MIS (SIMS) has no API that you can use, a little bit of Apps Script talking to Wonde goes a long way!

[SayLHP]

Thankfully I have their windows a/c and emails ready. It’s just their HWB accounts aren’t created until Wednesday and I was asked to hold them into everything was done so I don’t have to drip feed login credentials to tutors.

 

In previous years accounts were always handed out at the end of the first week.

 

I just wasn’t made aware that they wanted everything on the first day.

[jthompson]

Looking back a few years, it didn't really matter that accounts weren't available during the first week, but there are so many more online platforms being used now which are based on SSO or some kind of sync.

[Guest Guest]

Ours are created over the summer via PowerShell, and this year were sent out before the kids were even back

[mavhc]

My SIMS2ad script gets all current and future students, if they don't exist creates a user for them, Azure AD Connect syncs to MS, GADS syncs to Google, and a web page accessible to staff shows the students' usernames and their default passwords

[River]

All new pupil accounts created by Salamander in first week of holidays. Send login details out in last week of holidays, there is usually some change in who is/isn't coming after the exam results but having it all done early saves many headaches!