Staff can't access personal email

[laserblazer]

County has installed smoothwall filters on the LEA broadband and this morning I'm getting inundated with calls from staff who can't access their personal webmail. I'm reluctant to bother the broadband team, as I expect they have a lot of proper things to sort out.

[witch]

The county, or smoothwall may have blocked all webmail -this is the default position for my LA and others

[nicholab]

How do they live with not allowing web mail if I did that my life would not be worth living.

[witch]

Dunno - but it is! They manage somehow

[3s-gtech]

It's blocked for us - why should they need personal email in school? Anything work related goes through school email, anything else should not be used during working hours IMO.

[laserblazer]

It's not all webmail, Orange and BT seems to be ok. I'm just telling staff to hold tight and make sure any work related stuff is sent to their school email address.

[andrewsmart]

Our grid block webmail as standard, and we're happy with that. Our AUP clearly says that the staff use the network for work-related purposes so they can't really claim that they need their webmail. If for any reason they do, then they have to come and see me, sit at my desk and I over-ride the filter so they access it in a supervised manner.

 

We have no complaints at all over this system here

[mb2k01]

We chose to block years ago when virused attachments to Hotmail led us to re-think our position.

We had a few complaints back then, and occasionally get the odd query now and again, but the sentance above from 3s-gtec is entirely correct and the same response I give.

[john]

Its very common place to block webmail, certainly for students its needed for safeguarding, so its easier to just block the lot IMHO. We do allow it at present but thats due to the poor old E-mail system we had but now that's gone I suspect we may well change this view perhaps after summer.

[GrumbleDook]

To be honest why would staff use their personal email during work time? Usually they would be doing it instead of using the provided work email for contacting folk, possibly sending possibly sensitive information out onto the internet before it comes back into the school. They should also consider that the removal of external email is in their interest. Ideally your school email should be filtered and retained for a period of time, allowing some protection for staff from allegations of unsuitable contact with students and vice versa.

[bossman]

@all:

 

Our staff only have access to our school e-mail system which is monitored as per AUP for staff, there should be no reason whatsoever of staff having or using any other e-mail service whilst at school for safeguarding purposes.

 

This has been like this since webman and myself took over the network and the staff appreciate that it is available 24/7 - 365 unlike the county's e-mail service which has been down today for at least 4 hours.

[pete]

To be honest why would staff use their personal email during work time?

Because they may wish to conduct non-school-related correspondance in their lunch break? Email a friend/relative/whatever? Check if their sofa will be delivered this evening or not? There's lots of legitimate reasons to use personal email at work that have nothing to do with leaking sensitive data or kiddy-fiddling.

 

I can do all of that from my phone, not everyone can.

[mb2k01]

Because they may wish to conduct non-school-related correspondance in their lunch break? Email a friend/relative/whatever? Check if their sofa will be delivered this evening or not? There's lots of legitimate reasons to use personal email at work that have nothing to do with leaking sensitive data or kiddy-fiddling.

 

I can do all of that from my phone, not everyone can.

 

It is largely down to each individual school and the rules set out in your AUP. I can see your point about wanting to allow access during breaks, but my personal view (which happens to be in line with my school too) is that people are here to either teach or learn, not spend time on personal activities. Resource are here to support teaching and learning, not for anything else. Security and safeguarding policies enforce the reason for blocking access, so together with the reason above there is no reason to adapt.

[Stuart_C]

To be honest why would staff use their personal email during work time? .

 

Because apparently..

"I use my [insert generic webmail] here for [some important school activity] (even though I am provided with a school E-mail account"

- Multiple un-named staff members

 

We do allow staff to access their webmail however I did point out when the oldweb filtering went wappy that I am only required to have the school one working. If the external one doesn't work then I may get round to looking at it but I'm not going to rush. It does depend on the school and I'd quite like to block it as some are as bad as the kids for being on it during work time.

[john]

Because apparently..

"I use my [insert generic webmail] here for [some important school activity] (even though I am provided with a school E-mail account"

- Multiple un-named staff members

 

We do allow staff to access their webmail however I did point out when the oldweb filtering went wappy that I am only required to have the school one working. If the external one doesn't work then I may get round to looking at it but I'm not going to rush. It does depend on the school and I'd quite like to block it as some are as bad as the kids for being on it during work time.

 

You will probably find that they are in breach of Local Authority policy's, ours is very clearly stipulated in it, and we will be re-emphasising it with the updated AUPs this summer, that all communication related to school matters must be from an officially provide and registered school E-mail, with each clearly stating who it is from, your role and establishment. Thus use of personal email is strictly forbidden for those needs.

[laserblazer]

We need to remember that a lot of staff are expected to work for at least a portion of their free time, doing playground duty, clubs etc, so getting to the bank or popping home is not feasible. Our SLT has no problem with staff using the system to check their emails, online banking etc., in their free time. We do have a problem with staff making a big fuss because they suddenly cannot access their webmail and we are not giving it priority!

[rh91uk]

We reviewed our posistion about 6 months ago, and after some particular staff refused to use the school email system (Exchange 03....at the time) we decided to block personal emails. Didn't recieve a good reception, but when SMT found out some staff were using their personal hotmail for school and personal....