mikeTP

We have a number of laptop trolleys in use at our primary school and I'm trying to come up with a system that allows easy access to the laptops so that they can do the job they were bought for but that also gives control over the physical security of the laptop itself. I have tried to get the teachers to count how many are in the trolley before they take the number they need (They are not always used as a full class set) and then to record how many they have taken together with their class name, their initials and the time they took them but this is proving tricky as there is a need for students (year 5 & 6 only) to access the trolley themselves sometimes. The result is that we keep checking the trollies at the end of the day and finding that some are missing. Often they are still in use somewhere on site but we have no idea where. We cannot be the first school to have this issue so I'd be interested to know if anyone has come up with a workable solution that allows easy access to the laptops for the classes but that retains a level of security over their whereabouts. I'm not looking to be too draconian about it but I do want to stop having to replace laptops! Thanks in anticipation

At Year 6 at the moment but we are looking at lowering that (we are a through school 3 - 18)

Thanks to everyone who posted. I'm trying to convince the Year Groups now that this is easier than they believe - but I think that may be a slow and painful process!

I'm looking for a solution to a problem we have when small children log in to Windows. Currently we have XP and are moving to Windows 7 this coming academic year. The computers in the labs have a menu with user names (Year1, Year2, etc.) allowing even the smallest children to click on their year group and log in easily. I can't find anything that offers this functionality for Windows 7 - I had hoped to use the Vista/Win 7 Home style list of users but this doesn't appear for a domain connected PC. Has anyone any idea how to create this or of any good software available that makes this possible in Windows 7? My apologies if anyone has already posted this but I couldn't find anything in a search.

I am being told by different Licensing providers different stories regarding Mac & Windows dual-boot licensing. We have a large quantity of Macbooks that dual boot Windows XP (soon to be 7) using boot-camp. One tells me that our Schools agreement covers the installation whilst the other tells me that I need a full license for the Windows installation as the Schools agreement only covers upgrades. I'm chasing an answer from Microsoft but any advice on this would be gratefully received.

Thank you to all who contributed - you've pretty much confirmed my own view of the situation but it is always worth checking other people's processes to see if it is just me being difficult or, as I'm often accused, too corporate.

At the school where I work we have a small war going on regarding provision of IT Support staff during lessons in computer labs. Without prejudicing the replies by stating my own position/viewpoint I'd be interested to know how other schools cater for this. Do you have a technician present in each and every IT lesson? Do you have one technician based in each lab to provide assistance but also responding to calls nearby? Do you respond to issues if they arise from a central support section? Do you have a different approach? Any and all replies gratefully received!

@matt40k - "Uninstalling SIMS infra is silly" wow - you really specialise in pompous don't you! If you'd read my post before launching into an attack you would have grasped the "last resort" part of it. As I hoped would be obvious the "brute force and ignorance" approach was the only way to correct the PC that would not re-install sims by any other method. Eradicating everything (Including a restart to remove latent memory issues) was absolutely the only way to re-install without re-imaging the PC. I felt it best to keep the user's downtime to the smallest amount possible so went with this. The poster's issue sounded remarkably similar. I would not copy a sims.ini from another machine using a different setup or satellite options - you seem to be clutching at straws here to justify yourself! I won't be posting on this thread again as I'm sure the original poster didn't expect this sort of playground rubbish so feel free to have the last word - I suspect your fragile ego needs it. You may want to think how you phrase your responses in future - I can't imagine other newcomers to the site will want to be involved in this sort of response when they attempt to help someone. Try a little less passing judgement and a bit more of "Here's another method you could try" - people might feel more like posting then.

@matt40k I'm a little surprised by your "So messy" comment, particularly as your method and mine are essentially the same. The only difference being I had to delete the c:\sims directory as simsinst skipped installing some files as it detected them as already being there and the install failed. I've appreciated the comments you've posted before as they're usually very constructive - I'll put this one down to being a rushed reply.

This may seem the least professional methd but it worked for me on a machine that had the same problem:- As Administrator Uninstall SIMS infrastructure (If available in list in control panel - it wasn't on mine!) Delete C:\sims folder Delete C:\program files\sims\sims.net folder Restart PC Run simsinst.exe from S:\setups folder (Or whatever drive you use) Copy sims.ini and connect.ini from working pc to the one you're working on Log in.............. I know this seems like a brute force & ignorance approach but you are only re-installing on a client PC so no data should be lost . As I say it worked on a PC for me so try it at your own risk as a last resort.

Yes - I've got a Capita subscription but its a difficult site to navigate or find information on. As you say there are a lot of good people on there though. I've not had time to become positive or negative about SIMS yet. I just need to make it work!

That is exactly the info I needed - Many thanks once again

Thanks for that - I've got a test server so I'll try it out on there first. Does this automatically create new role names associated with the new tiers?

Hi everyone I'm fairly new to this forum (And SIMS) and need help with amending the pastoral structure for my school in SIMS. The school want the pastoral roles to reflect the roles of "Key Stage Leader", "Year Group Leader", etc. but the only choices available are "Supervisor" and "Pastoral Leader". The SIMS manual tells me to navigate to Focus -School - Pastoral Structure - Group Roles to create new roles but I have no such option available. I've tried giving myself different access rights and SIMS roles (As detailed in the manual) but none of this makes a difference to the available menus. Can anyone help? I'm probably being incredibly dense here but I'm willing to risk appearing stupid if it gets me the answer I need. Any help would be greatly appreciated