beeswax

Before I head off for what will hopefully be a long relaxed extended weekend... From what I've seen and read, sports facilities are amongst the first items being built in new build schools. They can then open them to the public and have a revenue stream while the rest of the school is being built. The building(s) I work in are not fit for purpose. They need knocking down and replacing. I can't defend overcrowding in classrooms, poor ventilation, ill fitting windows and doors, toilets which but for the work the cleaners put in are desperately in need of renovation, failing electricity supplies, crumbling walls, damp and infestation, can you? What do you propose we do? I don't agree with the way the government has gone about raising the funding for this, and I worry about my future once tuped, but I sincerely believe that our school building needs replacing. I will have a very small say in what goes into the new building, and I expect I will be listened to politely before possibly being consigned to history. I am certainly not defending or justifying crap.

With a desire to maximise profits, schools in the shape of their sports facilities will be open to the public during holidays. Though it does beg the question of (IT)support during the holidays. In the case of our school teachers quite often run classes in the holidays, and certainly use the IT suites for things such as revision for forthcoming exams. I work in one of these quaint, built in the 1930's red brick buildings, and it's no picnic. It needs knocking down and replacing. The corridors weren't designed with the current number of pupils in mind, and when the original wiring went in they certainly didn't envisage computer suites. We had the ridiculous situation last year where we had almost reached capacity on the amount of electricity we were using, so that when the science department put their kettles on for morning break the building lost all power. I have heard of this happening. I appreciate that this is only for our consumption, but I would change the name of the town from Small Bland Buggerishire to something more suitable.

As the father of two girls (ok, 21 and 17 years old) I'm very aware of the 'social' pressures bearing down on them. The eldest is coming to the end of her third year studying medicine, and the youngest is in the lower sixth and wants to be a physicist, and like elsiegee40 she's doing Maths, Further Maths, Physics plus Chemistry. They're lucky in that they both have strong female role models in my wife and my two sisters. What I see this group doing is providing these role models for young women who aren't as lucky as my daughters, and I feel they can achieve this best by going down the route of forming a body of women and raising their profile. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some ironing to do.

site running slow this morning (24/05/08) clicked one link and a style sheet came up.

Interesting article in yesterday's Guardian.

I haven't got this up and running yet (summer job, I think), but it looks good. We're on 1.9

Just to update you on this, I eventually found the correct place, *htdocs config* which to modify. Which is now common sense, but at the time appeared tricky. Ta.

Sorry to have been away from this post so long. Can I get this clear in my head, are you advocating that I change a line of code in the httpd.conf file, and then rename .htaccess, as well as changing Indexes to -Indexes?

If you'll just step behind this screen and remove your clothes sir... There's your problem. A vending machine holds a heck of a lot of crisps compared to a packet.

I've Googled this for answers, and they tell me to either add *Options -Indexes* to the .htaccess file in the root of my site, or to add similar to my http.conf file. I've restarted the Apache server but I can still access various directories. I'm using the Apache2Triad package on a W2K3 server.

You're right deerwood. I shouldn't have said that we have the copyright (put it down to the strange weather we've been having lately, or pressure of work). My apologies for that mistake.

We had a demonstration of Espresso a couple of weeks ago, and I was given the clear impression that copyright in all the material was ours, and we could do with it as we pleased; cut and paste it in to our VLE, Powerpoints etc. Whether this extends to using the stuff once your lease has expired is a different matter. We are buying into a package whereby they provide us with Linux server (which is ours to keep) which serves the content to desktop and VLE. I think the order was sent off this week so I'll try and check the small print when I've time.

We recently had our (very good) Ofsted, but as far as the inspectors were concerned the IT techs don't exist (I know it's not in their remit) but with IT provision being such a vital component of education I think it's about time the standard of provision was included in inspections. I don't think any of us here would like it, but when you're in the mix it's sometimes difficult to take an overview of where you're going. It's been tried with the National Curriculum with varying degrees of success; the idea that there's a national standard which all schools must strive to achieve is good. At a local level a very good BSF bid will aim for that across an LEA. In a few years time secondary schools in our area (and across the country) will be undertaking the 14-19 Diplomas, and yet I look at the five schools in our group and see that they have four different VLE's between them. The primary feeder schools are going with yet another VLE. The whole thing's an uncoordinated mess in our LEA. I suspect that we're not alone. As for FITS Tony, I've still got the booklets from the Easter 2006 Edugeek conference, and I haven't quite given up trying to persuade SMT that we should attempt to negotiate our way to implementing this. However, it's taken thirty months to persuade them that we needed to get going with a VLE. I do sometimes feel that with stuff like this, something like BSF would bring some consistency of approach to the enterprise.

I took an image of my laptop then installed it (at the 3rd attempt). I haven't had too much time to play yet, but so far I haven't noticed too much difference, if any. It seems a little quicker, but that could be because I haven't been as pressured today.

When I started at my current school we had two chaps, John & Pete, who were self employed but worked solely for our school and a couple of others. John retired recently, but Pete carries on. I don't want to go down the managed services route too far, but they knew the school and you didn't have to waste time showing them around, and they did a good job, which Pete continues to provide.

Do you have Net Support? You can block individual websites from in there.

Channel 4 learning - online education resources and activities for schools While I was Googling for it, I also came across this which sounds positive.

It was a lady called Helen (didn't hear a surname) who came into school, though the person dealing with the ordering is called Carol. HTH.

It seems the deal they are offering includes a Linux server solely responsible for delivering ClipBank and subjects will be updated once a week. While we don't own the copyright it seems that all material can be used on our website, VLE or in pupils' work without having to ask Channel 4/Esspresso (who I think own the project now) for permission to use it in this way. @Sylv3r - We have some ClipBank Science cd roms which are widely used in that department, but from what I gather all that is in the past. @Oops_my_bad - I don't know the final price yet as there's some sort of discount sliding scale because we have had material from them (Science cd roms).

Terry Pratchett @ 60

Perhaps you should volunteer to sit on the interview panel the next time a vacancy arises for an IT technician. Can you please clarify just what you mean by small minded negative individuals? In which way are they negative? Can I give you an example from ten days ago? A printer had run out of toner and we were asked if we had a replacement. As each department is responsible for its own supplies, such as toner, we said they had to buy their own. Only pausing long enough to raise an encrusted buttock to pass wind, we asked them to buy toner from the manufacturer, as refilling the toner cartridge may cause damage to the printer. Despite this information the toner cartridge was refilled with the wrong toner and a three month old printer now appears to be useless. So we get bombarded with emails and telephone calls to sort out their printer. It's dead, deceased. Why should we waste time on people, who despite the warnings, chose to ignore our advice? I don't go into classrooms and tell teachers how to do their job. After all, you've had training in your specialty, but when I'm asked to help with something in Word, Excel, or any other piece of software which is part of the curriculum, I do it because I believe that pupils are our priority. Surprisingly, there are teachers in schools who are swinging the lead. They rely on others to pick up on their mistakes and correct them. I don't mind being called out to classrooms to sort out paper jams in printers, but when teachers send pupils to our office for glue, staples, or scissors, or I get a call from the library that there is an infestation of ants, I tend to draw the line. One job I was interested in, until I saw the job spec, specified that the successful candidate should also maintain the school minibus and see that it was topped up with oil. The post advertised was for an IT technician. Your technicians may be as bad as you describe them, but I very much doubt it. However, if they truly are as poor as you say, isn't it your department's responsibility to sort it? Where is the assessment, the target setting? What provision is there for CPD for your technical staff? From my experience my network manager and myself have had to fund our own training. When I approached the member of SMT responsible for providing funding for CPD for help with my degree (Education, Research & Technology) I was turned down. I'm funding it myself. One of the questions he posed was, "Why do you need to learn new technologies?" Like a lot of people on these forums, I already have a degree, but as I hope you're beginning to discover, a degree is not necessarily a sign of intelligence.

ICT / Technical Manager Scale 5, £18,907 to £20,736 pa Post Ref: ED190 Following our recent outstanding Ofsted inspection, we are seeking to appoint an ICT / Technical Manager to support the school in its use of ICT and digital technology in assessment, recording and developing student profiles. We are in the process of establishing a Virtual Learning Environment and you would be expected to become the school expert in this field. The successful applicant will also have responsibility for the computer network and contribute to staff training and e-safety and security throughout the school. Ravenscliffe High School and Sports College, Skircoat Green, Halifax HX3 0RZ Tel: 01422 358621 E-mail: [email protected]

I had to leave before the end of a demonstration of the above. Is anyone using it?

Just been informed of this new section at the home of Moodle

I'll be over there from the 31st October, so if you want any Yorkshire pudding or Pontefract cakes bringing over just slip me the wink.