jcollings

Is it not easier to have your machines set up so who logs on determines the restrictions in place on that machine. Here we are set up so staff or students can log on to any machine and how they can see things on that machine or use things is down to who they are (via scripts and GPO). That way it makes no difference if a student logs onto a staff computer.

That sounds interesting. Can you give an example of how that would work. e.g. what you'd have on the different screens?

We had a new cover manager in Sept who hadn't worked in schools or used T4 cover and she got to grips with Cover 7 in a very short time. She just seemed to read the book a bit and have a fiddle and is extremely good with it now. Personally I quite like it and she seems impressed and happy with it.

We use Job Manager to log all jobs on but staff can report by phone, email or any other way. I'm not sure I would like to go to a system where staff have to report faults online as many of our faults are the "I can't get onto the network" or "The internet is broken" - mostly user errors but it would prevent them logging electronically. In terms of "snotty" response - well I find that those people who ask in a civilised way for help, with a healthy professional respect get almost instant service - those that don't could well get a slightly slower service

The gallery can be useful to.

If you want regular well paid work to top up your wage I would seriously look at getting into teaching on community adult ed courses. I did that for many years when I was on a poor wage (and still do the odd bit now). Most colleges run a wide variety so I'm sure your skills would fit in somewhere. Many colleges also keep a register of part time lecturers or use an agency such as protocol. The pay is reasonably good (between about £18 & £25 an hour) and once you've taught a 10 week course it's often repeated so you can plan your stuff once and re-use it. To be honest I've often picked up private work from teaching those courses too. May be worth a look and it gives you some more options for the future.

We buy Kingston Data Travelers for use by staff and for sale to the students. I guess I have shifted around 400 or so over the last year and a bit and I don't think I've had 1 fail. We usually get an excellent price from Bluepoint Bluepoint

I think you need to be careful of sending any images via the post that can be classed as obscene - I think it breaks some law or other.

IMHO banning is a waste of time. What would your place do if a student brought in a p*rn mag? Personnally here we'd be looking at getting parents in etc.

I don't recall exactly - it wasn't cheap though.

There were several "issues" - happy to have a PM chat about it.

But by that reckoning everyone in school would have to wear them. Teacher carrying huge box of textbooks etc.

True - but most schools have a head and a bursar. All we really add to that is our Head of Curriculum IT or IT co-ordinator

Ideally it shouldn't be a question of who has more say - you really want a partnership. The way it works here is that we have a small IT group who meet monthly to discuss issues/strategy and once we have agreed the way forward I make it happen. So for example the school decided it wanted to run A level computing and that needs x,y,z resources - I then investigate how we can deliver that.

We used to use Shirelands! We don't anymore and I can't say I'm sorry!

Personally I would also add Frog to your list. It seemed like a really friendly and easy to use product when we evaluated it.

I use this onequota.zip

They get the same punishments as for any other misdemeanor which includes discipline slips, being put on report, lunctime detentions, after school detentions, letters home, parents called in etc.

I'm currently trying to work out what's the least amount of money I can live on. Anyone know of a really good budget calculator that doesn't miss anything out? What do other people think the minimum salary they can exist on is (including running a car etc) and NOT living at home which as I recall from many, many years ago was a bit of a bargin way back when.

This was my first laptop

Hey it could me writing something very similar! There are things here I enjoy but they are mostly the extra curricular things I do such as drama and outdoor activities. I am currently looking at pastoral manager type posts as schools move these head of year type roles away from teachers - this seems to be happening in many schools. The only trouble is they are paid so badly. Then again there is more to life than money.

I was just going to say I remember dealing with fake CC2 screens at the college I used to be IT manager at. The college used to take a dim view and suspend them for a week!

Except that the 2010 requirement is for real time data so you would have to have the scrip running & refreshing data constantly.

I know that you can set up reports (I have done similar here) but they are still nowhere near as easy to use as Nova T4. It is so quick to get say all my year 7 class lists off in one go etc. It would be good to see some of that quick reporting ported into SIMS.Net

The problem is you can still get some really useful & quick reports from Nova T4 that are unavailable as neatly in SIMS.net Our staff use it all the time to get quick set lists etc.