enjay

Indeed. I judge whether a car is about to turn by its speed, brake lights and position in the lane much more than I do by its indicators.

That's the key part, isn't it. Often, I've come to a situation where the new rules give me priority, but I don't have the confidence the driver knows that so I've waited anyway. I would take no comfort from being able to say "but I was right" as I rolled off the car's bonnet. I'm also mindful when on my bike that the view of cyclists is low enough already, I don't want to worsen that by doing something which many people don't realise is now permitted.

As a uniform agreement isn't a legally binding document, what do you mean "valid"? If you just want proof they've signed it, then a scanned copy is perfectly valid. That's what we've done with the forms people sign when collecting their laptops they've bought. We don't get the students to sign uniform agreements, IT codes of conduct, etc. The admin involved in chasing it is immense, plus what do you do with the child who refuses to sign it? Give them a uniform pass? Not give them email? The parents agree to our standards/expectations/policies when they apply on behalf of the children.

Does anyone have any experience of MakeBlock mBot robot, or similar Bluetooth-paired kit? Our Computing Department have some, and we can get them working individually (Bluetooth dongle in the computer, a receiver built-in to the robot), but as soon as we put dongles in other computers or turn on more robots, they start going a bit squiffy (to use a technical term!), either not responding to instructions or responding incorrectly. You can upload code to them but we haven't bought any sensors for them, which means the code and operation is a bit dull, e.g. pre-defined steps and turns to navigate a maze or get to a specific bit of the room.

Fibre is possibly cheaper than what your elderly neighbours currently have, especially if they've been on the same service getting CPI+3% for years, so could you get them interested that way? Okay, they don't care and won't notice it is faster, but they might care it is cheaper.

Is this about the consistency of the product? Mrs Jay uses "shower creams" which are much thicker than the gels I typically buy. I changed brand recently to something thicker and found I use a lot less of it.

Thanks, that's useful to know, but the new place will likely be rented (to break the chain when buying/selling), so it might turn out the supplier could provide the service but the property owner wouldn't let us fit it.

SCCM. Never had a joy with exe files in SCCM.

Has anyone deployed MuseScore Hub? The main MuseScore app comes with an MSI which, other than needing previous versions uninstalled first, seems to go on okay, but MuseScore Hub has a .exe installer. I know Hub is separate and optional, but the HOD Music specifically wants Hub installing.

Do your neighbours have fibre yet? My parents are in a similar situation; when their neighbours' garden was dug up for fibre, they had an extra conduit and pull cord laid, meaning when my parents do switch over to fibre, there's no more digging involved.

We've cut back on our takeaways, and when we do still get them we're favouring the cheaper ones - the local chippie costs about £12 for the two of us, but £15 at the Chinese will get you portions so big they cover dinner the following night too! We sometimes do hybrid fish and chips, where we get nice oven fish from the supermarket then chip shop chips - much cheaper, and still feels like a treat.

It's the end of 2025, I believe. I really hope we've moved by then anyway!

We've currently got "old school" copper broadband and a landline phone we don't use. It would be cheaper to get fibre, but we're trying to move house so can't commit to a 12-month contract.

What I think we're spending doesn't match with what we're actually spending, so I think it's time for another deep-dive of our receipts, maybe I've just under-estimated how much our food shop has gone up.

Similar. We recorded onto DVD-RW (!) and then Sky+ to store seasons up so we could binge them, now we just stream everything. We've cancelled Sky and bought a Roku stick with NowTV every month, and NetFlix and Disney+ subscriptions on rotation (using Tesco Clubcard rewards for the Diney+), plus GCN+ for cycling stuff.

I said this above, but not for me. I can only buy the 72s in Waitrose, so the "Waitrose tax" means they're the same price as 48s in Tesco.

100% with you on that!

Technically yes, but unless I remove my direct address and have everyone contact me via the helpdesk, there will always be emails (one of our admins CCs every email to her manager, maybe I should do that with the helpdesk!). It was advice only, there was no change management. Agreed, except it isn't an email I'd have flagged for longer retention at the time, as I wouldn't have expected it to become useful again. Maybe I should start flag all of my emails for longer retention, which I'm sure is what many people are doing anyway.

I've just managed to get a colleague out of a little hole by referring to an email from 2021. It's not an email I'd have flagged for longer retention at the time, but it was useful now. This is why I'm a bit concerned about forced retention policies.

Now there's an interesting idea, a "completely unedited" category. I suspect that category would be won by phone photographers, certainly I can take photos with my Pixel 7 which I couldn't with my Canon EOS. To clarify, the EOS is probably capable, but I don't have the expertise to get all the settings in the right place, quick enough to photograph a moving target, and to time the shutter click just right (the Pixel records a short video if the subject moves, so you can fast forward/rewind a bit to select the exact frame you want, which is a god-send if photographing children or animals).

How are you guys restricting address book access? That could be useful for some of our accounts.

I disagree. Part of my role is to understand the technology, surrounding laws and implications of decisions, and advise SLT accordingly. What if SLT went "Internet filters are impacting learning, please turn them off" or "I'd like teachers to have choice of software they use, and easy access to all student documents, so please give everyone domain admin rights"? If SLT decide to do it anyway, get it in writing that you objected and move on, but in my role at least, I am expected to advise on policy and strategy.

So far, these comments have been about the risk of giving someone a school email address, so let's flip that and discuss the risks of them not having one. Will they be handling sensitive or confidential information? If so, one could argue it would be better to secure this behind a school email account, where you can be certain of access controls, etc. If the emails go to their external company address, who else has access now and after they leave the consultancy? Will they be saving files on an unencrypted hard drive or another company's OneDrive? If so, have you done a DPIA on that company having such information.

That's not just a Clubcard thing, you see it on lots of products which come in varying quantities. From memory, Jaffa cakes come in 3 different quantities, the middle one of which is the best value - but as the pack sizes are 12, 24 and 30 it is harder to do the maths and realise. You also see some product prices broken as price per unit while competitor products are shown as price per 100g, which again makes it hard to calculate which is actually better. Weetabix come in 12, 24, 48 and 72, but the value gets better as the pack size gets bigger, which is normal. My local Tesco doesn't sell the 72s, but Waitrose does. But... Waitrose is more expensive per pack (again, normal!), meaning the 48s in Tesco are actually better value than the 72s in Waitrose! I often take my phone shopping to use a list, I'm starting to think I might need to take a laptop and Excel instead!

Sounds like a question for the exam board. We were specifically told to use Bitlocker by one exam board. At a previous school, We used a memory stick which had physical buttons on it to enter a PIN and then unlock the drive (you had to plug it in within 10 seconds or it locked again), because the recipient was using a Mac and this was the only way we could find which didn't cost them money (cost us money, though, as the memory stick was crazy expensive!)