fire

[kevin_lane]

do you know of a system where if their was a fire in a school. that a register will be printed of in a matter of seconds.

[kmount]

I have been down this road before and it's not a fun one I'm afraid ...

 

To be entirely honest with you, I don't feel that its adequate to rely upon the MIS to print off a register for a fire drill because what if the fire is in the server room and thus this becomes impossible.

 

Conversely, printing one off each morning + afternoon and then binning them if not used is an environmental nightmare

 

Sorry !!

[timbo343]

Print all registers out after morning and afternoon registration.

[Sirbendy]

We asked for a "panic button" in CMiS to do it, coupled with a stupidly rapid laser printer.

[HarryMonkey]

Or, print a list of all absentees. Will use less paper and be quicker to print.

[kevin_lane]

well we was thinking of putting a laptop in on recption so that it would always download of all the registers at each lesson time. but the thing is if their was a fire in the server room then the data would be able to be accessed due to the fire some one said if we had an adequete fire distinqisures like they do in a data cente but one that is effective and does not cost alot...any ideas

[kmount]

We asked for a "panic button" in CMiS to do it, coupled with a stupidly rapid laser printer.

 

Won't help unless your server, networking kit and wires have some kind of whole new level tolerance of fire to give you enough time.

[EvLPhenom]

Print all registers out after morning and afternoon registration.

 

We use the same system, if there would be a fire or fire drill then they just grab all the registers and hand them out to form tutors when everyone is at the assembly points.

 

Anyone who is late in gets signed in by a member of the admin team and is then entered onto the registers.

 

This seems the most efficient way at the minute.

[sidewinder]

We just bought an incredibly quick laser printer for the school office.

 

Though as stated, that would be useless if the servers were on fire

 

What about some sort of script that would export/copy them locally to a laptop each morning/afternoon? That could be connected to a printer via USB and could print out at will

[penfold]

Agree with sidewinder. Create a script to copy/export the data you need. Set it up as a scheduled task to run after Morning/Afternoon registers have been taken. Have this done on a laptop, (or even a USB stick) and ensure you have a laptop to take out to do the register with.

 

In my last place the paper copies of the registers were taken out by someone in the office when the fire alarm went. You could just change this so it was electronic instead.

[kevin_lane]

yea we thought of that might be an idea but u still have the problem if their was a fire in the server room

[plexer]

Our mis is off site so a laptop with mobile internet access would give access to it.

 

Ben

[theriver]

well we was thinking of putting a laptop in on recption so that it would always download of all the registers at each lesson time. but the thing is if their was a fire in the server room then the data would be able to be accessed due to the fire some one said if we had an adequete fire distinqisures like they do in a data cente but one that is effective and does not cost alot...any ideas

 

Hi.

 

If fire is somewhere along the electrical supply you're done for - remember it's not just the servers that have to be powered, but all the components inbetween.

 

Laptops = difficult to read outdoors in bright sunlight. Difficult to read outdoors in pouring rain :-)

 

Also, your health and safety person will (should!) go mental at the suggestion that somone should, rather than evacuate immediately, log in, download some files, print them out.

 

AND, while I am on a roll (sorry!) the laptop and printer suddely become mission critical equipment, with all that entails. And we know how reliable laptops and printers are :-)

[HarryMonkey]

yea we thought of that might be an idea but u still have the problem if their was a fire in the server room

 

You would also have a problem if all the paper registers in the front office caught fire. You would have a similar problem if the printer caught fire.

 

You can't cover all eventualities. All you can do is to make every effort to provide a facility to check the register.

 

Incidentally, do you also take registers after school and require all staff to sign in and out of school each day?

 

That is often a weak point in many school's fire procedure. If the fire occurs after school or during a holiday, do you know exactly who is on site, who has gone home, and who couldn't be bothered to sign in/out?

[matt40k]

We have the students line up in form groups. Each tutor has a register for there class. Normally head count works quite well but it helps to have a list of names for those teachers who don't know there class. Just remember to leave some room for new comers

[AngryTechnician]

We have some emergency equipment for this sort of thing in our cricket pavilion (next to the assembly point) which routinely backs up data from the main network via an outdoor line-of-site wireless link.

[kevin_lane]

.

 

Incidentally, do you also take registers after school and require all staff to sign in and out of school each day?

That is often a weak point in many school's fire procedure. If the fire occurs after school or during a holiday, do you know exactly who is on site, who has gone home, and who couldn't be bothered to sign in/out?

 

 

im not sure if we do have a register of who staff who is in and out of the school each day. in the hols we do have to sign in and out..i know its hard covering this topic as their is so much that could happen

 

Also, your health and safety person will (should!) go mental at the suggestion that somone should, rather than evacuate immediately, log in, download some files, print them out.

 

 

we are having a review of the whole fire thing and im just trying to come up with some ideas. but one memeber of staff did say that it sound like a good idea i dont know i know some people may differe the only other thing is just to keep printing of reports after each lesson but thats alot of paper

[kmount]

We have some emergency equipment for this sort of thing in our cricket pavilion (next to the assembly point) which routinely backs up data from the main network via an outdoor line-of-site wireless link.

 

Properly secured I trust?

 

We're also in the throws of reviewing our current policy and whilst yes, it is best endeavours, it really does pay to meet as many situations as possible.

[button_ripple]

We have Vericool School Reception here, but registers are taken on paper. The reception screen is mainly for staff/visitors and late pupils to sign in/out on.

 

The administration side of vericool is all on the server (other end of the building) and only 1 other computer is linked to it. The person who uses this computer arrives at 9:30 and leaves at 2:30, what happens if a fire occurs during the other school hours??? No one else has training!

 

The printer in reception is very slow going at 4 ppm (as vericool prints in colour!) not to mention that it takes a long time to load the software and even longer to run the fire report.

 

The school do have a backup plan, if vericool doesn't work (can't imagine why!! ) which is to put a slip in all of the registers before giving them out which asks:

 

1. Do you have any visitors in school today?

2. Are they with you now?

3. As far as you are aware have any pupils gone home today?

4. Do you have any other pupils from somewhere else in the school with you?

 

After purchasing Vericool, I brought up the point, what if "staff member" isn't here to print off vericool report, What happens if the server isn't working/on fire, what happens if the link between rooms is on fire, what happens if printer jams, runs out of paper/toner, what happens if person get caught in fire after waiting for print outs?

 

There reply was: "We may have to rethink a few things"

[michael2k6]

At the school i used to work at, we had 2100 kids and it was deemed sensible that the kids would stay in the lessons they were in and line up like that rather than regrouping in that mornings form groups. The teachers would know who was in their class at the time, as would the kids. They simply report back anyone missing. The fire cheif agreed this was a better and more reliable way than relying on technology and endangering lives be keeping people in the building to print things off.

[K.C.Leblanc]

We share a campus with the neighbouring school. We also have an additional campus, making the use of tutor group based registers impossble.

 

Instead teachers are responsible for making sure all the students they were teaching at the time are pressent after evacuation. They are also responsible for reporting their room as 'cleared'.

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6nGjxO_Bfac

 

I stay in my office and email the emergency services.

Edited November 19, 2008 by K.C.Leblanc

[Midget]

you could always scrap the lot and go with bromcom

[AngryTechnician]

Properly secured I trust?

 

Just as secure as the rest of the network (by which I mean "very").

[kmount]

I wasn't trying to be pedantic, just wanted to check... Scary things do happen!

[BatchFile]

I used to work for a certain company whose name begins with C, supporting and training on MIS software beginning with S, including Attendance. (before I came back to work in a school again, but that's another story!)

 

The advice we were always given to pass on when this question came up was that if there were potentially more than 30 people in a building then a list of who they are was not required as the fire brigade would search the entire site anyway, so the fact that registers were not readily available for fire drills was not in fact a problem. I make no claim as to whether this is in fact true, but it may be worth checking out with your local fire service as you may be worrying over nothing.

 

HOWEVER I can well see that for peace of mind of those involved it may well be beneficial to have a list of who should be in school and given the above, any of the suggestions already mentioned would fit the bill. In our case we print off who's absent at 10.00 (or thereabouts) when registration closes and then use ready printed, laminated, reg group lists to call the register when the fire bell rings. Our school is not large (NOR ~400), so the chances are that with a reg group list the form tutor will remember who wasn't in anyway, but it's confirmed by the absence list.