3rdknight

Here's a thought ... anyone used folder redirection to redirect each pupil's My Documents folder to a separate network folder? Could be done at an OU level, so only affects pupils, plus then teachers can view all pupils' folders at the same time (if they're structured into class/year parent folders etc.). Really want to make this idiot proof (well, reception child proof anyway) so that each pupil doesn't have to think about where to save their work.

Thanks for all your contributions - even those who couldn't resist bringing secondary schools into the discussion! It's clear that most of you consider complex password for infant children unnecessary and undesirable, and I can see your point. My problem (and I'm acutely aware of it) is that I have worked in the financial services industry for (way) too long and am used to a completely risk-adverse culture whereby you normally need DNA samples to log on I accept that the school environment does not require such strong security measures, although I am still slightly concerned around data protection. Being able to log on to the school's network so easily is a gift for anyone attempting to gain access to school records etc.. I know it's a "closed network" to the extent that there are inherently physical access controls (locks on the doors!) in place, but it still niggles ... guess I'll just have to get over it Re keeping the children's work secure ... my understanding is that now that ICT is becoming a core primary education subject, there is increasing emphasis on monitoring and assessing the child's progress in ICT, which means being able to keep a "portfolio" of work as the child progresses through the school. Therefore, other children saving their work in the wrong folder etc. and confused ownership will become a real issue, if it isn't already. Certainly, at my school, my ICT Coordinator is already pulling her hair out because she knows some children's work has got mixed up. Anyway, thanks again all for your comments ... keep them coming!

Well, at least we're not alone then! Many thanks for your reply elsiegee40. It's been a while since I've buried myself in Windows Server (I've been dabbling in AIX for the last couple of years) and I've not had a chance to bring myself up to speed with the new features of W2K8 ... different password policies per OU is a definite plus and since I'm intending to put W2K8 on the new server anyway, this is fantastic news - thank you! (Note to self, read up on other new features of W2K8 that I've missed out on!) We've updated our AUPs too with strict policies on password security so I guess this helps too. I'm still left with the niggling issue though of whether user IDs and passwords of A01, A02 etc. are the best answer ... any other set-ups out there?

Apologies up front if this is the wrong forum but it seems as good as any! I am a Governor for my local primary school and, since I work in the IT industry (having done support, engineering and design), for my sins I have ended up acting as some form of pseudo-ICT adviser for the school. My predecessor (who also worked in IT but as a programmer/technical writer), despite best intentions, has left the school with a far from desirable set-up and I am now trying to help sort out the various issues that they are now encountering. The main issue they have is that their single, curriculum "server" is really a desktop PC with Windows Server 2003 installed on it, acting as a DC. It doesn't have RAID, isn't being backed up (in any meaningful sense that would facilitate a restore) and the whole user account/profile/home drive set-up is a disaster area. Suffice to say, they are now looking to put in a new "proper" server and sorting this mess out, which brings me on to the point of this post and my request for help/guidance. For reasons unknown, when they set up the existing server and domain, they decided to give every pupil (bearing in mind that this is a primary school so we are talking children aged 4 to 11) their own logon. To make things easy (or a nightmare, depending on your point of view), each logon's password is the same as the logon ID itself. The logon IDs are of the form A01, A02, A03 etc. with each year group having a different letter prefix. Supposedly, each child was meant to keep the same ID as they moved up the years/classes, although some children thought they changed letters when they moved up a year so have now started logging on with IDs belonging to children in the year above etc. etc. ... see what I mean about mess?! Anyway, recently I have been involved in bringing their e-safety policy up to scratch (well, writing it from scratch really) and I started looking at passwords. If it was just staff logging on to the network then I'd be looking for decent password complexity rules, account lockout attempts and forcing password changes every 30 days or so. However, since the children have these simple logon IDs and passwords, we can't do that. There's no way that a 4 year old child is going to be able to remember a 6 character password containing a lower case character, an upper case character and a number, and change it to something different every 30 days! They have enough trouble remembering their 3 character logon!! So, what does everyone else do? How do you balance network security (which demands a decent password policy) against having passwords that the younger children can remember? Do most people just have generic class logons that everyone shares? The school is keen that each child has a dedicated "area" (be it a folder, shared drive or whatever) in which they can save their work so how can that be achieved with shared logons without running the risk of children in the same class overwriting each other's work? Plus, I hate generic logons anyway as they represent a security risk and you lose traceability! Apologies for the long post ... any advice/guidance/previous experience would be greatly appreciated. Regards, 3rdknight

Clearing the browser cache worked, cheers. Sorry, should have thought of that myself! Thanks for the prompt replies and help though.

Vista + IE8, fully patched.

Already did that ... you're looking at my second attempt. Same thing happened both times. I used Filezilla to copy everything up and no files failed ... could it be a permissions issue on a specific folder?

I must be missing something here ... what I see is (hopefully) attached. How do I get it to look even vaguely like your demo site?! Sorry if this is really basic stuff ... I have looked through other posts but couldn't see anybody else asking the same thing!

Have been looking around for a good CMS for my kids' primary school website and had been playing with Joomla when I came across what looks like the answer to my prayers, EduGeek! Have downloaded the latest package and followed the installation instructions to the letter but when I go to the main site, there are no menus and it's just a few paragraphs of text and a few images ... the whole structure (as per the demo site) seems missing. I can browse directly to the administrator logon page (no menus remember) and get to the back end ... all the modules seem to be there and published/enabled, as do all the menus, so I'm at a loss as to why the main site doesn't seem to render properly. Am I missing something obvious here? Any help would be much appreciated as I really think this Joomla package could be just what I'm looking for. Many thanks in advance, 3rdknight P.S. You can see what my site looks like at stmarys.pkkdesign.co.uk (not the school's website obviously, but a subdomain playpen area on my own company's webspace). P.P.S. Before you ask, the installation went absolutely fine - no errors, nothing!