msi_school

There is not a simple computer based answer to on call. When you want on an call member of staff you want them now and you want to know they have received your message and are on the way. This is very similar to calling the emergency services, you ring 999 and speak to a dispatcher who calls the emergency services and dispatches them. we use a phone for this in both cases because everyone on the call knows the other parties have heard and understood the call. Most successful systems in school copy this system albeit without a dispatcher just an on call team with radios although I have seen dispatchers in some large schools with discipline issues. I know it can be an issue to have the on call team carry their radios and answer them but at least the caller knows that they have not received the message and can try another member of staff or communication method. Notification systems like netsupport notify or email work great for one to many communications where you can not call everyone individually and the rest of the school locking down or evacuating will alert the people whos have there PC off or are just not paying attention, but you can not guarantee the message will get through and you don't know about the failures.

It also get suspicious if you install it on a server OS

I have found that entering keys via the cli is much more effective than using the gui, I have no idea why as it is just a reg key but as my first boss used to say sometimes you don't ask the question because within the answer lies madness

I use a Edgerouter X which I have set up following Mike Pott's guide. This is a more complex set up with one port for WAN, two for trusted devices one for untrusted devices and one which is a seperate internet connection, I don't have a USG so I have no first hand experience but its spec sheet says it can do VLANS. I went for the edgerouter because its was cheaper.

I could not possibly make any comments on Huntingdon having worked in Hull and Hereford. We are a SIMS school and most of the staff have never seen anything else, whilst I have managed to get everyone excited about a new MIS we are still having wobbles because it isn't SIMS. The data manager and the deputy head (curriculum) would like to see the software in action and speak to their opposite numbers about the pros and cons, I thought after study leave starts would make every ones timetables a little easier to work round. Thanks

We gave up at a previous school and went to pin numbers printed as a barcode in each pupil's diary.

@mte A day out in Huntingdon sounds great, could we do something after Easter once the Y11 and 13's are on study leave? Thanks Mike

For an easy file level restore I use volume shadow copy for previous versions, its quick and easy to set up and does not require management, I have also used a NAS and a robocopy script for quick and dirty backups of pupil data to give me peace of mind during coursework crunches and the like. For real back ups I like Veeam it makes both restoring a single file and an entire VM easy.

Our DPO is a big fan of simple rules such as no USB access excluding on PC in the IT office. We tried this for half a term but it became with lots of people requiring read access to external devices such as downloading photos, voice recorders in MFL and external visitors. We now have USB set to read only across the site except the one machine in IT which can write, this seems to be working well.

We are contemplating a change of MIS from SIMS and at the moment Bromcom looks like the desired option. Our data manager would like to see it inaction and speak to some of her peers who use this system would anyone be able to host her on a visit please? Mike

Get a couple of cheap switches and use one for each VLAN it is not an elegant solution but it is much cheaper than VLAN aware switches

Thanks for the recommendation I am going to have a look. I would still like to send staff on a one day course because I always find the same issue with learning at work. It is too hard to ring fence time for this in the day whilst working in a support environment whereas a day on a course is insulated from the helpdesk ticket queue and people just wanting a minute of your time.

I have not found one but a one day intro to Powershell would be very useful for my apprentices and junior techs if anyone knows of one

I found setting some admin staff up with multiple monitors suddenly made the teaching staff "need" dual monitors

It is "reasonable" to assume that a member of staff agrees to the school policies or will raise a complaint in a "reasonable" amount of time in the same way it is "reasonable" to issue contract changes and assume the member staff agrees if they don't disagree in a "reasonable" amount of time. It is not "reasonable" to assume that a member of staff will keep themselves up to date with the policies without being made aware they have been changed and there is even precedent that a member of staff may "reasonably" forget parts of policies if they are not "regularly" reminded of the terms. It is also not "reasonable" to have a click through AUP that looks like and EULA but you don't need all the terms just the bullet points, if you give the location of the whole document. I had to do a lot of research on this at a previous job before I could add a click through AUP, I have put some terms in quotes above because I am using the legal definition of the term not the human one. TLDR your employer can assume you agree to policies but they have to tell you when they change.

I am on the fence about this, staff are supposed to be professionals and able to schedule themselves, however this can cause excessive stress and because a pressure point in the relationship between staff and leadership. But no one has answered the question is there an easy way to record late night email traffic? Mike

The wonderfully names Fruity cables do custom outdoor cables with IP rated connectors if required

I was once told that my checking with the PAT testers in a morning what computer kit was a waste of everyone's time and I was to leave them alone. The following afternoon the whole world went mad as the testers just pulled the power leads out of the back of the servers.

I have used this in the past https://www.diladele.com/index.html the virtual appliance makes installation simple, set up is ok, management is as good as smoothwall but it's not free. and no one can pronounce it

You will have three separate networks segregated by ACLs on the gateway. 1st network every thing attached to the sky router DCHPed by the sky router 2nd network every thing in LAN one on the Unfi gate way DHCPed by the gateway 3rd network every thing in LAN two on the Unifi gateway DHCPed byt he gateway You can use the sky router for WiFi but it will not be able to communicate with the other 2 networks

This and anyone who does not run the check is considered the prime suspect for the damage

Get a Edgerouter X ~£50 or Unifi security gateway ~£100 and set up a two network solution via the setup wizard you will be doubled NATed if your sky router will not do modem mode but this is a security plus.

Comment

That's a I need to have a look at the filtering then. I get this This site can’t be reached The webpage at https://ultron.freezone.co.uk:2083/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address. ERR_TUNNEL_CONNECTION_FAILED

I am trying to unblock our webpage's cPannel here https://ultron.freezone.co.uk:2083/ on our smoothwall but I can't make it work can anyone get to this page via a smoothwall? Mike