Primary schools: Foundation pupils logins

[Little-Miss]

What do you guys give to the little ones? Here they use their admission number and then their first name with a captial, which i think is a pain but oh well what do i know!

 

But i dont think the littles ones are going to remember all that, so how do you do it at your place?

[Potato-Peeler]

Intake year e.g. 09 first so many letters of last name then first initial

09smithj

[sparkeh]

We use a generic login for FS that is easy for all the kids to use and remember. Just tap in FS and hit enter (no password).

 

I can't really see the need for FS kids to have their own login, they get one when they enter year 1.

[achedgy]

Most of the primary schools i look after just use a class user and all the kids login as that. For foundation stage i try to make it as simple as possible as it is normally the staff who do the logging on.A couple of schools have individual users for all the kids but watching them login is painful!

[bloxy]

surname and first initial for most of my schools, one has a generic logon for all pupils but I like all the kids to get used to having their own.

[LeMarchand]

Name/Password both Intake YY. That way it stays with them through the school. As they "move up" they create their own subfolders in the year group folder.

[steveg]

We use class logons for years R, 1 and 2, and then they have thier own username and password from year 3 onwards - which is first name and first 2 letters of surname. Passwords are 4 or more characters long.

 

We dont let any pupils change thier own passwords, and issue a list of usernames and passwords to staff.

 

Steve

[elsiegee40]

We have kids from the age of 3 months, but they don't really start using the computers until the age of 3.

 

The Pre-Schoolers use a generic logon which their teachers/assistants logon for them.

 

In reception they get their own logon which is nnforename; e.g. 09seb - nn is the year they start in Reception. I then use their forename - abbreviating according to the forename's complexity and how the child is generally known at school.

 

Duplicate forenames are dealt with by using the first letter of their surname, e.g. 09lilyp... our class sizes are quite small and this system has only once failed me so far. I ended up with alexrh and alexri.

 

It is amazing how quickly they learn to logon. The first few lessons are taken up with logging on (NetOps takes care of the shutdown!), but by half term most of them can do it unaided.

Edited July 20, 2009 by elsiegee40

[K.C.Leblanc]

The SWGfL arranged a network manager's meeting for Gloucestershire network managers. One topic discussed was having standardised usernames so students kept the same username throughout the their school career (I think the idea was originaly a BSF idea).

 

One network manger suggested that we could use UPNs as log ins. Now if you can find me a class of 5 year old who could all remember thier UPNs I'll cook you a terradactyl egg omelet.

[SimpleSi]

Autologin all computers (username pupil) and then I've a simple AutoIt script that maps P: to a shared folder for each class.

 

Same effect as 7 separate class logins but easier to look after

 

regards

 

Simon

[Michael]

One network manger suggested that we could use UPNs as log ins.

 

I can't believe that was even considered a 'proposal'. Aren't they 12 digits long?

 

I usually recommend a single generic logon for reception, nursery and year 1. Year 2 onwards have they own logon - usually the year they joined, first letter of their first name and their surname. So from September 2009, Jo Bloggs would be 09jbloggs

[stevenlong1985]

I'm having the same problems im doing years 3 to 6

I'm having LastnameFirstname and for a password a 4 digit number 0001, 0002

 

I would have done like Jsmith01 but being in a asian area there a loads with the same last name and loads of same first initial and in the same year, nightmare that why im having full names, they havent gotta to worry about the Capitials in their name just a 4 digit number to remember.

 

for reception to year 2 im gonna have them a generic username/ password, as the kids cant spell their names yet.

 

good luck

[elsiegee40]

UPNs aren't quite so daft as they sound.

 

They start with the LA number - so 886 in Kent - that could be dropped

Then there's the 4 digit school code -

 

After that comes the number for the pupil... I bet most would be unique on the last 4 or 5 digits.

 

The other way to do it is to assign each child with a unique number within their year group - so three digits would cover secondary entry and two would cover most primaries.

 

You could then go for a logon made up of year-group identifier - unique number

 

The year group identifier could be as short as 1 letter A for current year 6, B for Year 5, down to G for Reception

 

The 2010 Reception class could have H and you can just move on down the alphabet

 

Potentially you could then have 3 or 4 character logons: A01, A02... or A001, A002..

 

It would also be worth chatting to your school librarian about the identifier used for their library cards (if they use them) - as this might make a good logon... or even the lunch card number!

 

As we have no lunch cards, I'm the Librarian and I don't have a computerised Library system for my 6000 books - the last suggestion wouldn't work in my school

[Little-Miss]

I quite like Sysmans Shapes and Colours idea, leaving the password blank. I know they start using the ICT here "properly" (for lack of a better word) in year 2. So may do the same for year 1 too.

[pete]

UPNs aren't quite so daft as they sound.

 

They start with the LA number - so 886 in Kent - that could be dropped

Then there's the 4 digit school code -

 

After that comes the number for the pupil... I bet most would be unique on the last 4 or 5 digits.

 

How are you going to handle kids who transfer from outside the county?

[elsiegee40]

How are you going to handle kids who transfer from outside the county?

 

I didn't say I'd thought it through entirely... even so I reckon that in most schools last 5 digits, particularly if prefixed with a year group letter would give you the uniqueness required.

 

In primaries, which is where the problem was originally posed, smaller numbers and the fact that kids start school in their own county makes this even more likely to work.

 

Actually, I don't like UPN for small primary kids - many have only just learned to count to 10; I was just throwing some ideas in

[Little-Miss]

well, the rest of the school use their unique admission number (minus the 00) so if they cant remember 4 numbers i think they're doomed!

[lionsl2005]

Most of the primary schools i look after just use a class user and all the kids login as that. For foundation stage i try to make it as simple as possible as it is normally the staff who do the logging on.A couple of schools have individual users for all the kids but watching them login is painful!

 

we do have same class logon as calss name and password is the first letter of the class name

eg u name :- park

p word :- p

 

simple

 

foundation people teachers do login

user name - teacher

passsword - teacher

[Boon72]

the primary schools i look after use either of the following

 

n for nursery

y1 etc

 

or

 

class1

 

with either blank passwords or a repeat of the logon name

[leco]

class1

 

passwords or a repeat of the logon name

 

Our neighbouring infant school use that convention. Here in the Junior school the classes have Country names - one logon for each class with folders for each pupil. Passwords have been fairly simple up to now, I'm thinking of making them a little more complex this year, with some capitals and numbers. Classes keep their passwords throughout the school so they are reasonably good at remembering them. Teachers find it hard as they have to get used to a new class password each year poor things.

[Chillibear]

Just thinking out loud... does anyone use either biometrics (fingerprint, etc) or perhaps an RFID token or something for primary? I guess tokens may be a bit apt to be lost, but fingerprints could be pretty easy. Never used them in anger, so couldn't say how robust the system would be.

[witch]

the primary schools i look after use either of the following

 

n for nursery

y1 etc

 

or

 

class1

 

with either blank passwords or a repeat of the logon name

 

The primary school I look after does too..I suggested individual log-ons for years 5 and 6 but they didn't want them.

Very different in my other school, which is a middle school (yrs 5 -8). All children have their own log-on - consisting of year of entry, surname and first 3 letters of first name - eg 09smithjam.

[LeMarchand]

Just thinking out loud... does anyone use either biometrics (fingerprint, etc) or perhaps an RFID token or something for primary? I guess tokens may be a bit apt to be lost, but fingerprints could be pretty easy. Never used them in anger, so couldn't say how robust the system would be.

 

One of my schools tried using fingerprints on the children's laptops, but it didn't work well. Some of the kids were too young to have sufficiently defined prints, and many didn't have the coordination necessary to swipe their finger at the right pressure. Within a couple of weeks, pretty much all of them were back to passwords.

 

At that particular school they got to choose their own password, so they were generally single-word (low security) ones. Some of the "clues" are great:

 

"My Name" (this is printed on the lid!), "favourite colour" (90% of time pink for girls, blue for boys) or (next to football club badge) "favourite team".

 

I'm guessing biometric readers aren't cheap, either.

[button_ripple]

We use class usernames with no passwords, but we want to change it just to fs as the foundation classnames are very long (ducklings, hedgehogs, willow).