jcollings

We have Vericool with biometric scanners in. It was all installed quickly and after a week or so our operators were up to speed. We evaluated Easytrace at the same time which looked very good to me too.

We have a couple of EXSi setups on HP DL140 G3 and it works really well.

But you also have the coast nearby - Walney Island, up the west coast and good old Morecambe Bay. That's the beauty of the area.

Coniston Hall campsite is fantastic. You'll find lots to do in the area even if you aren't walkers - canoeing, fishing, sailing, mountain biking (if you stay at Coniston you're pretty near Grizedale forest) Plenty of good pubs and places to eat in the area too.

Funny that 'cos we have a couple of rooms of RM Ones and they too suffer the least vandalism of any in the school. I do like 'em though but they are sooo expensive.

Well done matey.

Nothing to do with but : fish4 jobs - Job search and recruitment

It's a lot more than a few quid though. Unless the OP is very well paid in his current role he could do very nicely by becoming a teacher. There is also then an excellent career path open to him.

This may be of interest to you if you already have the entry requirements and you can find a school willing to buy into it Registered teacher programme - Employment-based teacher training - TDA Other than that you could do a degree part time with someone like Open University then you could work at the same time. After that you could do a 1 year PGCE. I think if you want to specialise in ICT then you'd need to become a secondary teacher. From what I understand primary teachers may have a specialism but will still teach across the whole curriculum. I've done a fair bit of ICT in primaries and loved it too. I thought about qualifying as I love the idea of teaching a range of things.

We bought a few cheap webcams and did some stop motion animation with year 5 using lego or plastacine models. Loads of fun!

But the result it gives is a decimal value e.g 7.5 stones not 7 stones 7 pounds which I think is the point he was making.

Our students used to be year of entry_surname_intial (e.g 07BloggsF) but we have stopped doing that now. We now use intials and admission number (eg FB005761). We did this as that is also their VLE username and email address with @schoolname. Staff are currently intial.surname but will be moving to firstname.surname in the near future.

I would agree that going on the CEOP training is well worth while. I'm E-Safety Officer here (by choice) and I have to say the CEOP Ambassadors course I went on was one of the most thought provoking/interesting/shocked bits of training I have done. I now run an awareness raising session for all year 7 parents and have implemented e-safety modules into our Citizenship teaching. Interesting work and adds another string to your bow. I also did a distance learning course at UCLAN (Child Safety on the Internet) which was again quite an interesting course.

But the hourly rate is nearer £8.50 gross. The £6.19 per hour for a lunchtime supervisor will still be subject to NI & Tax (assuming someone is working enough hours)

Same here. Perfect timing or what??!! NOT

Neither do I - I much prefer IT Manager

I guess it depends what you do but here I manage people/budgets/resources so I am a manager not an administrator.

I was just about to recommend you. We use your stuff via LP+ and it works very well.

Well if swine flu and bird flu mix there's every chance of that!

I would tend to agree - that seems like a reasonable hierarchy to me.

I guess no more than many others on here - I've just managed to get it recognised formaly. But things like audio visual, performing arts, cctv, phones, cashless catering, SIMS (including the use and development in school rather than just technically), VLE (again rolling it out in terms of teaching and learning rather than just at a technical level), a number of feeder schools IT systems and developments, e-safety officer (also includes delivering sessions via citizenship lessons and parental sessions) etc. For me lots of these jobs fall outside the title Network Manager and fit more comfortably in a wider remit (IT Manger) although I also currently have the TLR equivalent for being Director of E Learning too! I must stress I'm not saying I do more than many, many people on here - all I am saying (in answer to the OP's question) is that I think the title network manager doesn't cut it if you do lots of stuff outside the network job and SLT need to recognise that and give people appropriate titles and more importantly appropriate pay. It seems too often schools are giving people a title which attracts a grading that is much lower than they should be paid for the actual role they do. As I said - I'm lucky here that I do get the correct title and grading for my post. I know many are not so fortunate.

I have the title ICT Technical Manager here. I see IT Manager, Systems Manager and Network Manager used in ads all over the place. When we were kicking titles around many years back we settled on that as opposed to Network Manager because I manage more than a network (as do many others here). IMHO my title feels more all encompassing and the Head here shared that view. I'm not sure it matters in the long term as long as pay isn't governed by the title. Again I'm pretty lucky here as I get paid very well and there is little notice taken of county figures etc.

It's interesting that you say that. I have noticed this too although in the last few months I have noticed a lot of organisations are now starting to put degree or equivalent experience. How you judge that I'm not sure but hopefully those of us without degrees but lots of experience would qualify!

9 years in this school. Before that a number of FE colleges and a special school. Overall 22 years in educational IT - where did the time go! I only got into it after spending a few years doing electronics/IT for a company making aircraft and weapons equipment and thinking what a really rubbish industry I was in and that I must be able to make better and more positive use of my skills.

I would prefer the person who had the best people skills and who came across as the best fit for my team on the day. I always maintain that as long as someone has the right attitude I can train them how to do technical stuff. If someone's people skills are rubbish it is much harder to teach people those skills. I have worked with highly technical and skilled people who have been rubbish with the customers. I have also worked with much less technical people who's manner has made the customers love them even if it takes them a little longer to solve a problem.