synaesthesia

As has been said, you can't forget, lose or easily damage a fingerprint - it's a matter of convenience over anything else. For a typical UK school the basis of asking for fingerprint for cashless catering as an example is convenience and cost. With less cards to replace in the case of RFID, it costs less financially and in time reprogramming. In the case of PIN codes, it costs less in time for resetting/reminding. Time and money are both valuable in schools now more than ever with less staff to run all of this, whether that's IT/reception staff resetting or handing out these details or canteen staff having to put several hundred children through a system in half an hour. We make it clear we prefer the use of fingerprints for this reason - sometimes some people's fingers don't register so we express a preference to try their thumb instead, but there is the option for a PIN if all else fails, or they don't have permission or have other reasons against doing so. We won't discriminate against it's use, and wouldn't dream of telling those with pins to the back of the queue - that's just immoral. Facial recognition though - yes realistically it's little more invasive than fingerprint but does seem particularly over the top! TLDR: We generally have a good basis for processing biometric data in this fashion, and would be a large, countrywide upheaval if someone says OI! SCHOOLS! NOOOOO! . Simply, don't take the mick

Yeah, looking at the same - we have 3 (one for each of our sites although on one network and one for general app shares). With 10gb uplinks and SSD storage it seems a little wasteful so will be dropping the 3rd.

Groan. Glad I handed them my notice a couple of weeks ago. Will miss the decent internet speeds but I couldn't put up with the crap any more. Pulling teeth would be paradise compared to speaking to their support to find out why stuff isn't working yet again, or why my bill has gone up £10 a month yet half the channels we watch have disappeared.

Considering it - ideally I want another OnePlus device but they seem to hold their value even better than Crapple phones so even decent refurbs are a little out of reach. (my OP3 is struggling a little now mostly due to crap replacement screen). I've been looking at the Mi 9 but voices in my head keep saying NOOOOOO.

Just the on screen message for urgent bits, and even then we don't use it for anything much than "Oi, do your registers, it's your job you pleb" or "Something's gone wrong, sorry!"

All I can bring to this conversation is this.

These sort of policies can be questionable and often get overturned when they realise what they're missing out on. "Oh, but we used to manage without tannoys and mobiles..." - and yes, we also didn't have to worry about lockdown drills etc. Forgot to say - we use Impero to push messages out to whoever needs them and also have Netsupport Notify for lockdown type scenarios.

Don't forget that printing all that would be expensive in both time and resource and you need to charge accordingly. Frankly if someone is using a SAR for data in 2020 they should expect it in digital format, but unfortunately the same sort of people that still work on telegram and fax also insist you make it accessible for all (well, fewer realistically) by providing paper copy if requested.

ESXi is a little less resource hungry but not by much, but that depends how you're running Hyper-V. HV on a Core version of windows (no desktop) uses very little compared to HV on a full desktop experience windows server. Of course both hypervisors do need some processor, RAM and storage to run, and again ESXi has a smaller footprint on all. My personal preference is ESXi as it appears a little more cost effective and is quite a lot more customisable (you can edit a lot more on the guest operating systems), otherwise there's actually very little between them. Before diving in, I'd suggest having a play with both and going with your own preference.

Not even close to filling our 120s, even with adobe CS5, solidworks and sibelius in some cases - profiles aren't stored locally anyway and very rarely a need to do that these days!

Pricing is so marginal on them it's rare to see more than a few pence differences from either our friendly local box shifters or Ebuyer - the latter quite often comes in cheaper.

Maybe - having worked with around 50 primaries in central UK, never seen that. Obviously likely to vary between schools, LAs etc. If it's something done across Wales or your LA it'll be worth bringing up with them as a feature request stating that, they're always happy to accommodate

That would appear to be quite a niche requirement, I think I'd suggest having that as a club/extra curricular.

Yeah, we're particularly interested in one set for now as a backup link in case of fiber failure between sites. https://www.msdist.co.uk/mikrotik/wireless/wireless-wire-dish Just trying to find some solid, real-world information regarding vegetation as despite being on top of 3 storey buildings, there's a large conifer type tree in line of sight.

Unfortunately in this day and age, it will be the rare few that don't call home and even rarer for companies, no matter on their size or moral standing, to not keep a few things back. I mean, it's not as if FIFA, the FIA, any country's goverment or pretty much ANY corporation on the planet isn't filling us with lies is it? (Just a few random examples there, as we all know how trustworthy these all are.) Cisco's moral compass is rather like Jack Sparrow's, if you get my meaning.

Looks like I need to do rather more reading! I recall that bit being rather more black and white last year!

Not really; multimeter and a paperclip is all you ever need which would do more than the cheap (under £100 testers) would be capable of as they can't correctly simulate load for proper testing. Once it passes the paperclip test then stick it in a test board and run something on it for a few minutes.

Until that age, a parent is legally allowed to act entirely as a proxy for their child. No communication should ever be sent to a pupil that shouldn't be seen by a parent anyway, that's just a matter of common sense and if that same account allows access to other systems (remote access, shared areas, onedrive, sharepoint etc etc) then the same applies - if parents shouldn't see it, neither should the pupil and you have an unrelated problem to attend to. Then after that age, it boils down to explicit consent from the child.

Correct. As soon as they hit 13 it's their right to that data privacy. They can give permission for their parents to access in that way, and they can also change their password and not give those details and you wouldn't be able to force otherwise.

The batteries last easily (would be worried even if they didn't last for a 2 hour exam) and levels are checked before starting. We have had one that wasn't checked though which indeed died, but it took under a minute to whip out another laptop and log on - EWP automatically saves every 60 seconds so very little, if any work lost. No trailing cables - that's a thought that we've pondered and one we'd not like to visit! I shall point out we're lucky to be able to have this facility - this time last year we had 2 maybe 3 requirements for word processor assistance in exams and could cover that, and we didn't have any laptop trolleys or mobile devices whatsoever and it's by pure chance that we converted an ICT suite to a classroom with a decent amount of laptops this year. I suspected when the lists came through for those that needed assistance we'd have had to fork out.

We have a few laptops set aside yes but generally use a laptop trolley as we now typically have 20-30 required.

Standard laptops, pre-allocated exam accounts locked down with no internet etc and Examwritepad. Works wonders.

I didn't imply anything either. Just quoting from one of my current favourite games Bonus points to anyone that recognises it!

You can only give them what you have - if they suspect something is missing the burden of proof is on them, but of course you do need to cover your back and make sure you've done all you can. Let them know the search terms you've provided and why it would be unreasonable to go further (i.e. just on a first name if it's something like Dave)

Hah. When's the stew ready, Pearson?