To Ban Or Not To Ban this is the question

[NBC_Sys_C-ord]

I am not sure if this is like this in any other school but here we have some teachers who believe that it's down to the IT Techs to ban student from the computers for playing, not sitting in their seat, etc.

Now I am all for punishment but what one teacher requests another un-requests for example, jonny was in ICT lesson and played games all lesson please ban for 1 week, Same day request from business "please unban jonny as its stopping him for doing his course work".....Ahhhh what do others do.

 

Also are there any rules about removing teaching aids from the students e.g. banning them from the internet.

Edited February 27, 2008 by ZeroHour

[timbo343]

We kinda have the same policy but.... us administrators dont ban them unless they are looking at porn or have mp3s in their userarea. Your situation to me sounds like a teacher problem and the teachers need to know this. How can you see what the kids are doing (ie not sat in their chairs) in lessons when you are sat in your office.

Yeah we also have the banning internet, they get that first and then an instant ban from the network.

[MkII]

We have to inform our line manager before we ban, so it's him that makes the decision, and is prepared for any fallout (parents etc). That process then makes it so a descision sticks, and is not at any other persons whim.

[pinemarten]

this is a behaviour/class control matter, so should be dealt with by members of teaching staff, not a technician, IMO.

 

action then taken as a result (ban etc) should be relayed through the technician's line manager, and then carried out by said technician .

 

any queries,refer to line manager!

[CyberNerd]

We only ban on Teachers say-so, unless its very serious when we do it anyway, for games etc its more effective to block the site and then kill the browser.

 

If student has had their account or email/internet access disabled we don't re-enable when teachers ask - it must be done through head of year. This way we can be sure that the child has been spoken to/punished appropriately.

[NBC_Sys_C-ord]

:idea: What punishments would any one suggest other than banning.

[alan-d]

We don't ban anyone unless it is in writing and countersigned by a member of SMT, preferably the Head.

[danIT]

Do you have to have your MSI packages aprooved aswel, who runs your network and computer systems?

[bossman]

We have a department called PLO (short for pupil link office) and they deal primarily with all behavioural problems throughout the school. All we do is document the incident i.e proxy logs, screen capture and pass it on to this department. We also have an AUP which the kids and Staff members have all agreed to and has the full backing from the SLT, Governors, Parents and the Teaching Staffs unions.

 

The implementation from the PLO office is very good they deal with any computer misuse straight away. The positive actions which are taken by the PLO on any of the young people depend on the severity of the misuse and this ranges from one day exclusion to a permanant ban for the individual from using a computer.

[SpuffMonkey]

We have a similar situation to what you describe - so I ban on teacher's request, but if another teacher wants them unbanned, they have to get the banning teacher's permission. This slowed down the messing about considerably.

[alan-d]

Do you have to have your MSI packages aprooved aswel, who runs your network and computer systems?

 

We run all aspects of the network but banning users can have an an effect on T&L, hence the reason we get higher authority to decide. We can report the facts etc but it's not up to us to decide the punishment for misuse. That's what teachers are paid for

[MkII]

Punishment: Letter home to the parent/s is what we do here - very effective!

[bossman]

May I remind you all that there is no such word in the schools dictionary as "punishment" it has been PCd by the educational bigwigs who now class it as "positive actions"

 

not trying to teach granny to suck eggs just inform.

[alan-d]

May I remind you all that there is no such word in the schools dictionary as "punishment" it has been PCd by the educational bigwigs who now class it as "positive actions"

 

not trying to teach granny to suck eggs just inform.

 

'Common sense' isn't in a school dictionary either but it doesn't mean we can't insist on it

[daveyboy]

We have a slightly different solution.

 

Caught by securus go to HOY - then onwards up the chain. 3 Strike rule etc, etc. Serious cases are given to Pastoral, with ICT related (ie hidden proxy sites etc) to Director of ICT.

 

Now, I do have the power to ban - but not for periods of time. The objective is to get them to come into the office to see us for a 'little chat'. Normally for things like MP3s, excessive pictures in their H/Dirs etc, etc. We then record names etc - 3 strike rule gets them onto the

 

'ICT Job Board'

 

They have to pick a task, Or they can opt for 'Random Teacher'.

 

Works well for us.

[Lee_K_81]

We tend to block websites real-time, in the first instance this meant our techies were remotely watching kids a lot, but as the field of games available got smaller there is less going on.

 

I know certain teachers turn a blind eye to games, but we have tried to implement a policy of WE dont allow games on OUR machines. Then you dont have to worry about what one teacher allows and another doesnt. We have a very good ICT co-ordinator who backs us on this which helps.

 

We tend to use our discression to block pupils internet, e.g. persistent gaming will earn a ban. Attempting to download something like limewire or other P2P will earn instant internet ban. Porn will earn instant disabling of account, mainly so they cant delete it or try and hide it.

 

For a pupil to be re-enabled we ask for permission off their year tutor, ICT co-ordinator or SMT, on the understanding that anything else will earn another ban. We dont want to hinder teaching and learning, but at the same time we want to protect our network.

[Face-Man]

We have a similar "acceptable use policy" to Lee_k_81. it in writing in the staff handbook and is tied into the school behavour management policy. This means that a teacher can not allow games as this against the policy that they must warn the student to correct their behavour and that they have to provide us with a writern (or email) requst for ban based on offense. If it is a serious matter it is refered to the head of year who should know the pupils situation and so deal with the parents directly. All we do is act upon request based on set ICT "punishments" for set offenses. Should another memeber of staff come and say can you allow "john access they have coursework to do" We point them to the staff handbook and say the ban will be finished on ..... We resently had a student banned from the computers for 6 months because his parents would not come in to talk about his misuse of the computers.

 

My advice

 

Get a policy

get everything in writing

Stick to it

[derer1]

All of these approaches do rather rely on SMT actually being willing to implement policy, that kind of thing.

 

If you are in the situation where your SMT just want a quiet life, you are rather stuffed

[steele_uk]

Sorry to drag this up again, but we are just reflecting on the past year of having had the power to ban and actively banning students.

 

Personally i used the removal of internet access only when a student committed a serious offence, which would have been actively trying to circumvent the proxies, or actively searching for Porn/Unsuitable material.

 

Other staff used the removal of Internet as a general punichment. I would have requests to ban students from the internet for 'he kept going onto email' - 'he wouldn't stay on task' etc.

 

This bothered me, because staff are re-inforcing a message that the internet is purely a recreational place. It also meant that if a student had difficulty with one subject area and strayed off task he was restricted in other area's where he may be an A star pupil.

 

We are now looking at a bloxx solution. We will trial blocking all music sites and game sites in lesson time. We want to block email about from the last 10 minutes of a lesson. We will relax the filtering after school and at lunch times.

The opportunities to offend should be far fewer. We will also create a simple white list of approved sites that students move into for a two week period if they still manage to find a way to abuse their Internet access. This whites list would deny them the access to any games/music at any time during the school day.

 

What i hope is that i never have to completely take away the Internet as a resource. A Misbehaving student simply moves into a more controlled area.

I hope to give this a year and see how the sitaution develops.

[Disease]

I take away pupils internet access all the time, if they are not on task and we see they are not on task we just remove it, simple as that. For serious offences like attempted hacking, bypassing proxies or using another users password to get on the internet while banned, they get their account removed for a week.

 

Playing games not staying on task - Removal of Internet for a week.

 

Serious matters - Removal of pc access for 1 week +

 

Internet and PC useage in our school is a priviledge and not a right.

[donutcat]

We have a catch all rule that states "school computers for school work" everywhere at all times. This lets us as IT disable accounts to force them to come and chat about it, and usually we get them to waste a break time cleaning, on the grounds that they have wasted our time. Anything more serious is either ban from computer by us, or requested by another member of staff, and we similarly will not remove a ban until the original teacher is satisfied.

We do not use banning of the internet only, as quite rightly pointed out earlier this is a valuable teaching tool, and can impact on other subjects, so it's blanket ban or no ban. We tend not to set times on the bans, only that they happen until the situation is resolved.

[Disease]

We do not use banning of the internet only, as quite rightly pointed out earlier this is a valuable teaching tool, and can impact on other subjects, so it's blanket ban or no ban.

 

I don't undestand that, surely banning completely impacts teaching and learning more than just removing internet.

 

The reason we introduced the removal of internet for more mundane breaches was so that the pupils could still work in the ict rooms and access network resources and intranet resources. This enables them to continue to work and lessens the impact of the ban.

[steele_uk]

I take away pupils internet access all the time, if they are not on task and we see they are not on task we just remove it, simple as that. For serious offences like attempted hacking, bypassing proxies or using another users password to get on the internet while banned, they get their account removed for a week.

 

Playing games not staying on task - Removal of Internet for a week.

 

Serious matters - Removal of pc access for 1 week +

 

Internet and PC useage in our school is a priviledge and not a right.

 

This is pretty much the approach we took last year.

With hindsight we felt we needed a more flexible approach. I do not see the removal of the internet as a 'fits all punishment'.

 

Would you agree with removal of intenet for dropping litter in an ICT classroom for example?

 

Earlier it was mentioned that teachers are requesting Internet Bans because the student could not keep still in their seat!

 

I feel classroom control is the root of most of the issues, and i fail to see why teachers with good classoom control have their lesson plan disrupted by restricted students as a result of them previously being in the classroom with a Teacher/TA with poor classroom control skills.

[donutcat]

Banning completely forces the issue to be dealt with immediately, rather than the student being able to skulk in the classroom doing nothing, or using excuses. The teaching staff are aware of the bans and will send students to see us in these circumstance. It is far easier for teachers to prepare a not on computer lesson alternative, than a no internet. In our experience this has worked, although it depends on the teachers, and SLTs defence of the technical department.

Most of the classes are carried out with no internet as we operate a pessimistic blocking strategy so rooms are by default without internet. I don't know if that would skew the effectiveness of an internet ban.

In terms of students off task, it is always difficult for use to determine if the teacher is aware of it and simply using it as a method of keeping a disruptive student contained while they teach the rest of the class, and certainly there have been cases in lessons when we have stepped in remotely and stopped misuse of the computer only to escelate the disruption of the classroom. I guess we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.

[greenfieldsupport]

we use censornet, we decided allow the staff to log in and ban the students themselves but they HAVE to unban them at the end of the lesson as unless a serious offence is caused, blocking a student messes up other teachers lesson plans.

 

we also block people for porn and endagering themselves etc. also parents can request to have their student NEVER allowed on the internet.

 

also by block i dont mean block, i mean put them on a whitelist where they carnt do anything execept revise history etc. so they still have some internet access.

 

This works quite well i feel