Assign and communicate passwords to Year 7 Intake

[David44]

We previously had 1to1 devices so we would assign passwords to Year 7 students based on the serial number of their assigned device. This worked surprisingly well. We are moving away from 1to1 devices so that is no longer an option. Previously we used a password based on the students date of birth, this was more problematic due to some students not understanding how to format their date of birth however verbose the instructions were (the password was simply SchoolDDMM). There was also an issue of students knowing other students initial passwords if they happened to know the date of birth of a one of their cohort and a possible GDPR issue of sharing DOB with external providers where it wouldn't otherwise be necessary.

 

What are you going to do in September? Is there a magically way for the whole intake to know their own password but not be able to work out the password of others?

[Frodo_Baggins]

Not perfect by any means but we use Salamander and have a pre-defined password formula for new starters SchoolCode-DOB (set to pre-expire.)

Students are given details in their first ICT lesson or in previous years a special "Homework Logging in" lesson.

 

Passwords are given to ICT teachers who cover how our systems work and the students reset their password and make a note in their planners (not great I know.)

Want to look at Azure SSPR in the near future to make it easier if they don't know their password

[dmj]

Our IT (teaching) department ran introduction sessions to year7 as a first lesson, they'd just print out the randomly generated passwords and hand them to the students.

the lesson would cover the rules, AUP as well as how to log in.

There was always some difficulty timetabling these lessons in with a large cohort.

[Olliedawg]

Not perfect by any means but we use Salamander and have a pre-defined password formula for new starters SchoolCode-DOB (set to pre-expire.)

Students are given details in their first ICT lesson or in previous years a special "Homework Logging in" lesson.

 

Passwords are given to ICT teachers who cover how our systems work and the students reset their password and make a note in their planners (not great I know.)

Want to look at Azure SSPR in the near future to make it easier if they don't know their password

 

Exactly how we do things. Works well but as you say not the best way to go about it security wise.

[foofighterjim]

Our IT (teaching) department ran introduction sessions to year7 as a first lesson, they'd just print out the randomly generated passwords and hand them to the students.

the lesson would cover the rules, AUP as well as how to log in.

There was always some difficulty timetabling these lessons in with a large cohort.

 

This is what we did in my previous school, however we ran the sessions as we were better placed to deal with issues such as incorrect MIS information and changing usernames / passwords based on said incorrect information. It was also reassuring seeing first hand that that every student had SSO working and had logged in. Before this we would sometimes get to the end of September and then have a handful of students claim that they had never logged in or that X, Y or Z had never worked on their account.

[dmj]

This is what we did in my previous school, however we ran the sessions as we were better placed to deal with issues such as incorrect MIS information and changing usernames / passwords based on said incorrect information. It was also reassuring seeing first hand that that every student had SSO working and had logged in. Before this we would sometimes get to the end of September and then have a handful of students claim that they had never logged in or that X, Y or Z had never worked on their account.

 

I think it's best to have teaching and support staff involved. We'd always be on hand in the introductory lessons to solve those issues.