I've ended up writing two daft books about being a school IT manager

[LeonardTwitty]

12 minutes ago, smurfomatic said:

Ordered both over the weekend, just been delivered. Straight to the top of my reading pile, once they're done I will get a review posted

Thanks smurfomatic.  I ordered author copies of the books they arrive Friday so I hope the covers are all good.  When I uploaded them it said they were all in proportion lol

[BKGarry]

I have purchased and received both books in paperback yesterday.

 

I preferred the consistent story telling of book two over the collection of incidents of book 1. I actually look forward to book 3

 

Also Darek/HAL is life. Darek/HAL are external 

[LeonardTwitty]

3 minutes ago, BKGarry said:

I have purchased and received both books in paperback yesterday.

 

I preferred the consistent story telling of book two over the collection of incidents of book 1. I actually look forward to book 3

Thank you for the feedback BKGarry, book 3 will be more like book 2, when I was writing book 2 I found myself picking up from some storyline that appeared from book 1 and just went with it.  I personally prefer book 2 over book one.  But also there are aspects of book 1 that mean you need to ready it before book 2 such as Mr Hartley and Mrs Brennen.  And the back story of me the narrator.

Edited August 14 by LeonardTwitty

[BKGarry]

I look forward to it

[MartinT]

I found myself nodding throughout book 1.  It's like a string of similar incidents I had but with the names changed!  You walked into a dysfunctional network, I walked into a school with an e-mail address and an old RM server with a bunch of useless old Macs.  There are many parallels.

 

Thanks for the laughs.  On to book 2.

[smurfomatic]

Just sat and read both books. I'm sure everyone here will find several points where they just nod and go "Yes, know that teacher". 

 

We've all encountered a printer like Hal, who'll only work when they want to. Offices in cupboards or - in my case - 8 years working in a corridor between the Art and DT classes.

 

The receptionists who really run the school, the caretaker always conveniently absent "looking at the boilers", the new Head with ideas reaching far beyond practicality and budgets! 

 

So many laughs, and a few tears remembering former colleagues. Thanks so much for writing them, can't wait for the next one!

[MartinT]

I shuddered every time the Head or SMT went to conferences.  They always returned with "We need Firefly..." or some other fad that time proved to be just that, a fad.  Yes, Firefly was one of the better ones but development fizzled out and Sharepoint killed it.

 

It was the effort involved, the total lack of budget, the expectation to "just make it work" which became soul destroying when you just knew, deep down, that this was not the software to save the school.

[MartinT]

I had to laugh out loud at the arrogant new teacher Mr Pemberton bringing his MacBook and expecting it to be connected to the network. I had exactly that same scenario a good few years ago.

Always astonished me how little Apple users understand their own devices. My response was negative, too. He ended up with a perfectly good Windows laptop and still tried to do his work on the MacBook. He then tried to get our help by issuing constant tickets about it. By that time, I knew he was a bit of an arse generally and shut the conversations down completely.

[LeonardTwitty]

Im so glad you have all enjoyed my books, and also so sorry you have encountered the same scenarios I have over the years!  But I think in a lot of ways these are what make us invaluable....its not our knowledge alone its our understanding of the processes, infrastructure and most of all the staff and pupils!!!

[LeonardTwitty]

On 16/08/2026 at 13:27, MartinT said:

I had to laugh out loud at the arrogant new teacher Mr Pemberton bringing his MacBook and expecting it to be connected to the network. I had exactly that same scenario a good few years ago.

Always astonished me how little Apple users understand their own devices. My response was negative, too. He ended up with a perfectly good Windows laptop and still tried to do his work on the MacBook. He then tried to get our help by issuing constant tickets about it. By that time, I knew he was a bit of an arse generally and shut the conversations down completely.

Yeah we have a new science teacher starting in September who already asked me on his walk around if he could bring his own device in, i told him out right no its school devices or nothing.

[LeonardTwitty]

Just a gentle reminder that if you have read the books could you pop your review onto amazon. If you don't like leaving reviews that's fine.  Regardless I am deeply appreciative of all your support.

[MartinT]

I didn't realise Mr Pemberton would reappear in greater detail in Book 2!  As for the BYOD fiasco, you have brought back memories I had buried deep down about the amount of support just the Sixth Form required for BYOD.  Not just implementing the authentication system so that our Smoothwall could continue logging their activities for safeguarding purposes, but the number of hand-me-downs from parents and older siblings.  Old Windows versions going back to XP, ancient iPads well out of warranty, Android tablets, Chromebooks, MacBooks out of support, and a notorious laptop running Linux that must have been a failed Daddy experiment.  Almost none were up to date, nothing had working anti-virus (lots of expired trials, though).  All were walking dangers to the network.  An utter support nightmare.  Sadly, our introduction was not revoked, we just had to live with it.

[BKGarry]

Ah the days of everyone much have a VLE, under BSF we were made to have Fronter, I spent years trying to get that manageable, Office Extensions and Web extensions for marking etc, was horrific. What happened was about 6 years of trying to get it working, I ended up taking over the network, after the Local Authority pulled the BSF MSP Contract, so I kind of gave the headteacher no option about me going in and dealing with it all (god am I still finding things now that I go What the Actual...) and I got Google Workspace setup, with Google Classroom and AD and Password synchronisation, and just sent out an all staff email. Within a month, all but one subject area has left Fronter in the dust and was using Google Classroom with minimal instructions etc and we have never looked back since.

As for BYOD, that has kinda died a death with the mobile phone restrictions etc, as most people here just do not have a full computer at home, unless they are a PC Gamer and I don't think they would be brining in a whole PC each day.
 

 

[Pottsey]

1 hour ago, BKGarry said:

Ah the days of everyone much have a VLE, under BSF we were made to have Fronter, I spent years trying to get that manageable, Office Extensions and Web extensions for marking etc, was horrific. What happened was about 6 years of trying to get it working, I ended up taking over the network, after the Local Authority pulled the BSF MSP Contract, so I kind of gave the headteacher no option about me going in and dealing with it all (god am I still finding things now that I go What the Actual...) and I got Google Workspace setup, with Google Classroom and AD and Password synchronisation, and just sent out an all staff email. Within a month, all but one subject area has left Fronter in the dust and was using Google Classroom with minimal instructions etc and we have never looked back since.

As for BYOD, that has kinda died a death with the mobile phone restrictions etc, as most people here just do not have a full computer at home, unless they are a PC Gamer and I don't think they would be brining in a whole PC each day.
 

 

Fronter that brings back memory's. Absolutely zero SEN support but mandatory forced on all local SEN schools. Not that is was much better for most primary or secondary schools.We never did manage to get Fronter into a manageable state. Was a giant waste of time and money.

[LeonardTwitty]

On 18/08/2026 at 08:23, BKGarry said:

Ah the days of everyone much have a VLE, under BSF we were made to have Fronter, I spent years trying to get that manageable, Office Extensions and Web extensions for marking etc, was horrific. What happened was about 6 years of trying to get it working, I ended up taking over the network, after the Local Authority pulled the BSF MSP Contract, so I kind of gave the headteacher no option about me going in and dealing with it all (god am I still finding things now that I go What the Actual...) and I got Google Workspace setup, with Google Classroom and AD and Password synchronisation, and just sent out an all staff email. Within a month, all but one subject area has left Fronter in the dust and was using Google Classroom with minimal instructions etc and we have never looked back since.

As for BYOD, that has kinda died a death with the mobile phone restrictions etc, as most people here just do not have a full computer at home, unless they are a PC Gamer and I don't think they would be brining in a whole PC each day.
 

 

Fronter.

 

I hadn't heard that word in years and I'd been doing rather well.

 

Six years of making the mandated thing work. Then you sent one email and everyone left inside a month. That is the whole argument, delivered free of charge, and nobody holding a budget has ever once heard it.

 

Still finding things now is the part I recognise most. You inherit a network and you spend a decade opening cupboards. Most contain nothing. One contains a switch undocumented since 2011 that is somehow holding up the east corridor.

 

You don't touch that one. You close the door and you say nothing.

 

Which subject area held out? There's always one. And it's never a department.

 

It's one bloke.

[BKGarry]

Actually was most of the science teachers that held out

[LeonardTwitty]

Just now, BKGarry said:

Actually was most of the science teachers that held out

Really? The Science teachers here are like kids with too much sugar in their body and a severe case of ADHD, and a little mix of magpie!!! Anything that is shiny and new and gives them their dopamine dose

[BKGarry]

To make it even more fun, the two subject areas that were the early adopters, like withing 2 days, and are still the best at using it DT/Engineering and PE/Sport

[MartinT]

When we finally got rid of Firefly, there were few tears shed as uptake had always been patchy.  The problem with all intranets is that they wither and die if they are not kept up to date and relevant.  You want them to become the source of all information but some departments just would not partake.  The result was inevitable, and it was a budget burner.

[ITini]

I have to say, I bought your books on Kindle and they are scarily accurate to my life in my school! they were a really great read and full of hilarious moments.  I hope more and more people read these books especially teachers so they can see exactly what we have to put up with haha.  I will definitely be recommending it to my friends and I hope everyone else does too.  Best of luck to you and cannot wait for the next book to come out.

[LeonardTwitty]

So I have a dilemma and opinions would be very much appreciated, so currently the royalties i make from these books is really low, im not prepared to raise the cost of them because it was never about getting rich, however because the paperback books are in colour it eats around 40% of the profits for each one. Now the dilemma is do i change the books to black and white or do you think it would destroy the books?  I need help because i would like to keep being able to write but funding the artwork etc is expensive.

[MartinT]

My opinion is that the illustrations are a minor part of the enjoyment of the books.  It would not bother me in the slightest if they were in monochrome.

[LeonardTwitty]

1 minute ago, MartinT said:

My opinion is that the illustrations are a minor part of the enjoyment of the books.  It would not bother me in the slightest if they were in monochrome.

Thank you Martin, I appreciate the help.

[smurfomatic]

I agree, you lose very little by making the illustrations B&W 

[LeonardTwitty]

I will have to delete the entire series and re create the entire thing to change them so probably will make the last one black and white instead.  But will look into it anyway to be sure.  Thanks both.