localzuk

I run a VeryPC workstation with an i7, 16GB RAM and SSD. It runs 3 monitors off that. Will be in place probably for 3-5 years. Cost us about £1000. Makes a huge difference when someone comes down to ask for something and I can do it near instantly as I don't have to wait for software to open up etc...

I've had no negative feedback from anyone - we've installed CleverLCD (4 of them 7 years ago) and SMART (about 12 of them) touchscreens, some of the older models and some of the new MX ones. The teachers love them - the clarity of the image far surpasses that of projectors.

To be honest, for this use case? I'd go iPad as well. I don't like buying them but they have a use and this is it really. iPad 9.7" 32GB with 4g is about £350 ex VAT, so not terrible.

Shouldn't be paying more than about £22.80 per unit for Kingston 240GB units, if buying individually. Buying in bulk, I'd be expecting £21 at most.

Should... Maybe. Are? No. I don't know of *any* MIS that offers this capability. Not everything has to be managed with technology. Organisational restrictions and policies also count.

We have CCTV in ICT suites, and we buy decent quality keyboards and mice now. They seem to last a lot longer. Beyond that? We don't really get much hassle with them.

We ended up switching back to 2012 R2 as it worked. We run as RDP via gateway/web gateway. We don't use RemoteApp. As shown in the error messages, it is pulsar.exe that is faulting.

8th June? I suspect they mean July...

This has indeed been the final nail in the coffin - our COO and Admin manager have said that this basically means we cannot trust the integrity of SIMS .Net any more. So, we're now setting ourselves a date of Sept 2020 to move off it. We've had enough.

Yeah, those print costs are pretty high. We pay half that per sheet. It all hinges on the amount of printing you do - stick it into a spreadsheet and compare the TCO over the 3 years when compared with a normal contract under one of the framework agreements. Remember also, the machines being used are EOL, so they are likely pre-used. The company is just grabbing some extra value out of machines they've had back in I'd guess.

@DODICT - you make it sound like changing MIS is something you can do quickly and easily... Maybe in a small school? But for us, across a Trust? Not so easy.

Confirmed by our SIMS team. Though they haven't been told since when this problem could have existed, and therefore how long we could have been messing up our data... I think this is the final nail in the coffin for SIMS with me. I'll be pushing hard to change supplier from now on.

Emailed our SIMS support team to check this, as it isn't showing my account on the SIMS support site.

The GDPR thing may be a non-issue - when this new company bought the assets of MISCO, they probably bought the customer data too - this is most often the case. Else there'd be no reason to buy a company any more.

What sort of traceroute are you seeing? Our connection goes Client -> Core -> Our internal firewall/filter -> Exa's router in our cab -> r2.lon-the.exa.net.uk -> Google (4 hops with them, google1.lonap.net being the first, so I'm guessing Exa have peering set up directly with Google). 7ms ping on a gigabit link.

With your long ping times, what traceroute are you seeing?

I dunno, I bought a 24" Hitachi TV back in something like 2007 or 2008. Worked great for me

If you want cheap, you can get Vestel ones for £1200 (Vestel are the same company that makes Sharp white goods in the EU, Luxor, and Toshiba TVs in Europe, oh and some Hitachi stuff in Europe is actually Vestel). We generally go for SMART MX265's though. Last ones we got were £1850 for the 65".

I would hate to live in your world @Achandler, where police officers can act on a whim to demand private information from only tangentially related organisations without any court orders. Use of terms like warrant, subpoena, court order are all laymans terms that most people understand. Naming them by their specific names is often unnecessary when getting across the general point - a court has to be involved to demand information from organisations. I'll give you an example policy put in place by JISC (as an ISP they get a bunch of requests) - https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/networking-computers-and-the-law/disclosure-of-information-to-law-enforcement. One is mandatory - ie. PACE Production Order, and one is a determination by the organisation (via Schedule 2 Part 1 Section 2(1), but it is not compulsory. In this specific case, an incident involving someone who happens to go to the school having data requested about them from educational behaviour records and school reports just screams "what?!". This is why my original point was - pass this to your DPO and legal team. Let them make that determination, as it wasn't described as a mandatory demand in the OP.

Just to clarify also, when I say warrant - I am actually referring to a "PACE Production Order", which is issued by a judge.

@GrumbleDook - any thoughts?

Put it this way - random police officer turns up and says "I want to see the school records of XYZ pupil please, its for a court case". What do you have to prove that the data is being requested for legitimate police purposes? You have nothing except them being a police officer. That's why the police have procedures, the CPS do too, for getting information pertinent to a court case. The word of a police officer is just not enough to hand over personal data these days. It ensures that every stage of the process is legal and correct. Another consideration - random police officer asks for this info, outside proper channels, it brings up the possibility that it can't actually be used as evidence because it didn't follow those rules.

You seem quite keen on forms to fill in. Yes, there is one, its called a warrant request - and the police should be filling one in, obtaining a warrant, and then presenting that warrant to the school. The issue is that the data is NOTHING to do with the court, the police or anyone else. They do not have automatic right to just demand random private data from random organisations. That's why we have warrants, subpoenas and court orders. SAR is specifically written into primary legislation, so answering that is a legal obligation. Same with FOI. Random requests from the CPS or police are not. Data Protection law protects individuals and organisations from random requests for data. If something is legally required, then the legal system has mechanisms for getting that. Police rocking up and asking for information because someone goes to your school is not legally required. There's no legislation for it. So the school MUST look at why they would legally be able to handle it over. You have not provided adequate justification in my view.

Public task has to have something backing it up. A general "oh its a court case" isn't sufficient to support that determination. If something is required for a court case, then they must have a warrant to support it. The test for public interest is that the data is being processed "in the exercise of official duty". Schools do not have an official duty to enforce the law or aid the justice system. The people who decide if information must be handed to the police are those who issue warrants - that's the point of them. You definitely could not argue that you have a legitimate interest! It is not in the legitimate interest of an educational institution to hand out information whenever there is a court case involving someone who happens to go to your school. Remember, this case does not directly involve the school - the incident happened outside school.

That is a good question. The thought process as always is whether you as a school have a lawful basis for handing over that information. Without a court order/warrant, I'm not entirely sure you do. If the incident had happened in school, and it was part of the investigation into that incident then I suspect it may be different, but as it was out of school and the only link to you is that they go to your school, then I can't really fit the request in with any of the lawful basis' to hand it over - you probably don't have the consent of the parents or children, it isn't a contractual necessity, it isn't a legal obligation (as no warrant), it isn't a vital interest, at an extreme stretch you could say public interest (as justice is a public interest), and it isn't a legitimate interest of a school. To be honest, this should be pushed to your school's DPO and legal support.