Ketlane

Long term no boarding school is going to be able to provide enough PCs for a workstation for each student - and that's what'll be needed quite soon if you think of the way educational publishing is going, let aloneeducational software and the expectation of internet resources and electronic submission of work. So if the school can't provide as many workstations as beds, the way to go is outsourcing the cost to the parents - make the students use their own laptops. Recent experience suggests it's worth having, as suggested, a small room with a handful of desktops for (a) younger students who don't yet have their own laptops (b) emergencies and © collaborative projects

Forgot to say it already displays who made the last change - and the date/time of the change - to data relevant to the Admissions Register.

SchoolBase doesn't, but will do in the very near future. The change-log file becomes enormous pretty quickly, but having an audit trail is a occasionally very useful.

I'd forgotten all the minibus bureaucracy - had to handle it back before the present regulations under the old Minibus Act. Sent off for a copy on principle. Loved the defiition of overall length - the distance between two vertical planes at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle (OK so far) but excluding any snow plough, any telescopic fog lamp when extended, and any Post Office letter box not greater than (can't remember, I think it was 300mm). Made a point of checking our Scout Troop's Transit and found a serious lack of all three items.

Here is one report on the original case: Parents lose custody of girl for naming her Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii | Life and style | guardian.co.uk

I am coming to this thread from an independent school perspective - we know that all our parents, guardians etc have internet access. The release of info online has been widely supported by parents etc. It's save a shedload of effort on reports and so on; we've presented policies online to fit in with compliance while not making them open to the public. As yet we are both sending out paper copies and e-copies, although we are now meeting some market resistance where parents are refusing paper copies on environmental grounds. My forecast is that it'll be electronic only in 12 or at most 24 months. Where we have families abroad or on the move, online is better by far. Now we don't use SIMS and our system is pretty cost-efficient (SchoolBase) for online services - not sure how the finances work out for SIMS. But of you can avoid the cost of paper, copying/printing, envelopes and postage that's a huge saving (and the time and temper saved in not stuffing zillions of envelopes must be worth a lot too).

If you are in an independent school and use Frog, I'd appreciate a tiny bit of feedback on the product and implementation. Used by lots of teachers? used by few? used and liked by pupils? Thank you all for your help

Exciting stuff can happen if you decide to abandon/sell a car that doesn't work - you may have to pay import duty and all sorts of things! One really good place to get indepenent travel experience/advice is the Thorn Tree Thorn Tree travel forum - Lonely Planet .

WE use SchoolBase which would do all you are asking - and dead easily. I rate the ability to get stuff out of SchoolBase without needing to delve behind the scenes - some very non-tech minded staff get all sorts of data out without help. We have next year's enrolment already in the database (and could extend into the far future...)

I remember a LR ad from the distant past: farmer leaning on very elderly and tatty Series I LR, saying words to the effect of, "I don't need to buy a new Land Rover, this one still works."

We have a SMS system enabled (as part of our MIS SchoolBase) but have resolved to use it only for emergencies; most other communications come through email via the MIS. Just about all teachers are using it in one way or another to communicate with parents. Our sports staff use the email contact systems very heavily - they tend to report back on the previous fixture and then give directions, parking advice, whatever as well as a match preview. Parents' association use the system too for advertising their various events and organising them. We don't give them access to the system directly (data protection) but instead send stuff out for them. Hugely useful in the build-up to big school trips - updates on plans, whatever; and sending out a reminder the day before a trip does sometime make sure the children turn up with the right kit! We've also used email to inform parents of forthcoming road closures and diversions. House staff are increasingly in the habit of sending a weekly bulletin The inevitable detention letters can be automated.

Better to try small local company rather than mega-companies who have rigid procedures. Managed it once years ago - the way out was to buy insurance separately, which wasn't cheap but did work as the company agreed to the deal once details had been sorted. Might also try garages which have courtesy cars, which I guess will be insured for under-21 customers?

Memories of the old days of lack of quality control. Brand new Triumph 2000, the name TRIUMPH spelled out in separate chrome letters fitted to the bonnet - but in the order TRIUMHP.....

Similar experience with us. Big pressure from overseas parents and their children; also big pressure from families who have come from schools already offering Skype. Still really trialling things.

Got an email from Pearson yesterday: their subscription websites using Pegasus apparently won't work with IE9 without a tweak. Should be fixed (they say) by the autumn term.

One more thing that seems strange - can there really be 3000 email addresses in Antarctica to enter in this wonderful scam? ("drawn from twenty one thousand (21,000) E-mail addresses; three thousand (3,000) E-mail addresses from each continent")

Getting it wrong and copying beyond (or without) a licence can be very expensive. I've tried and failed to find the details of a school that was hit hard - pupil files and books checked for copyright material which had to be removed. And staff seem often to be unaware that material they create as part of their employment is not their copyright, but their employer's. With so many of these tihngs all you can do is be vigilant and ensure that the message is repeated time and again. Having the CLA information posted above the photocopiers helps.

We are small independent, about 400 pupils; using SchoolBase; I have done a bit of "due diligence" and I'm pretty convinced we are using the right system. PM me if you want detail

There are claims that there is someone called Chrystal Chantal Lear out there.... When I was at school the music teacher was Mr Singh and the catering mananger Mr Cook (but that opens up a whole new line of nominative determinism)

We are considering moving to a laptops for all approach among older pupils. Boarding school so can offer locked rooms for security of laptops and we are unlikely I think to suffer "professional" burglary as there are simply so many people around. But we have a fairly dispersed campus and kids tend to leave bags and books here and there to retrieve later in the day. We have a few now who happily leave laptops lying around while they have lunch! I looked at lockers for laptops - rather on the left-luggage principle than the laptop trolley or lapsafe we would use for a class set - at BETT and was shocked at the costs. Does anyone out there have a reasonably cost-effective solution? Or any ideas? Thanks a million

If you go for underground connections - from hard experience make sure that the installers make both ends of the conduits they bury completely rat-proof. For some reason our local rats think that fibre-optic stuff is as tasty as anything else in the known universe - we had two breaks before we had things totally protected!

Reading between the lines I guess yours is a UK-system international school - if so try SchoolBase - works well and like ISAMS is targeted at the independent market. Incidentally it does the census pretty easily, both for govt and for the ISC.

We have SchoolBase as our MIS; they bundle texting as part of the package, so only cost is per text sent. In my research we looked at Clarion Call because of its ability to send voice messages too - might be a trick that people would want to use; we decided it was a frill and expense we could do without. We expect to use it only in emergency - but it is far cheaper than sending a letter out! Our parents greatly appreciate emeil updates from staff about everything from sports fixtures to exams.

To begin with the main driver for our choice was service, rather than functionality - which may seem strange but reflected our experience at the time. What I'd say now is that accessibility online for parents and staff; communications in-built such as email and mailmerge have hugely improved our connections with parrents, staff and even pupils; having assessment data readily accessible and processable has led to much better guidance, target setting, analysis etc; a confidence that things "just work" and that on the whole there is no tech support issue; getting all sorts of timetable data out in all sorts of ways; medical and SEN info accessible for those who need it; recording and sharing of concerns and achievements that lie below the threshold of school rewards and sanctions; how's that for a start? I'd recommend that you get potential providers to give you some names of schools and then you go and see the products in action and get a warts-and-all view on site (try asking some passing teachers?). We'd be happy to host you here if you like - PM me.

The curious paradox, which I cannot face finding the sources for (nearly midnight as I type this), is that when the top rate of tax is reduced, very often the total amount of tax revenue increases. Presumably the very rich don't move abroad, the fairly rich spend less time and effort on avoiding tax and more on making money (which is taxed); and the just-about-OK find it more rewarding to do overtime/get another job/whatever so also generate more tax income. So: if you want the rich to pay more, tax them less!