smurfomatic

We use the room booking facility on our MIS (Engage), I set up "rooms" for each minibus (and Chromebook trolleys too) so that it's easier for everyone to use, and not another system to keep track of!

On working over the summer... Site is supposedly closed from now to the 17th August. There should be no-one there unless absolutely essential. In our admin meeting this morning, we were told though the site will be open on 17th August we will still be expected to work from home where possible.

Compare with Vietnam too - zero deaths with a higher (and more densely packed) population

For staff it's [email protected] For pupils we use year of leaving (based on them staying for thier whole school life here) followed by first two letters of first name and last name @ different.domain e.g. a pupil due to leave this year, called John Smith, would be [email protected] This allows us to identify who it is without revealing their name. In five years of running this, we've only had two "conflicts" where pupils would have had the same email - so added third letter of first name to solve this.

We have invited aeach year group in for one afternoon this week (Years 3 to 6, including the Y6 children not attending a "bubble") and we have Years 7 and 8 in next week, which is our last week of term.

"We're a world leader in string, we have allocated everyone more than enough string to get them through the crisis." Six months later, 1% of the population receive an envelope with 10cm of string and a bill for £3,000

Government issue string, £10 per metre. Only available in 50 metre lengths so I hope you don't want to travel too far.

What, no Flash?

Worth buying SIMS for the name and the current customer base, then start from scratch on a new product behind the scenes?

......

I raised the Hangouts/Meet separation with Google earlier this week, as it's supposed to allow us to disable Hangouts in Gmail without affecting Meet. I tried this and disabling Hangout still caused problems, so re-enabled it. Possibly user error in some cases. The one who is losing recordings has now had it twice - with the same class each time, other classes recording fine. It's annoying that he won't respond in more than one word replies, or share his "Meet recordings" folder with me. Will check to see if they're up to date, worth a try as I can't think of anything else that can cause this!

Thanks @Bev, this seems to be happening on PCs rather than the app, which is all the more puzzling!

We've been having significant issues over the last few days with Classroom and Meet. Staff and students having trouble connecting to Meet calls (morning staff meeting today was farcical, the Head left the call to try and sort out the issue and couldn't get back in!), freezing, blank images instead of camera feeds etc. Also one teacher had a Meet recording vanish from their Google Drive and others having issues marking and retunrning work on Classroom. I know Google updated some things on Monday so can only assume this it the source of the problems - had no issues last week. Is anyone else having the same problem(s)?

A friend told me to get a hold of my obsession with my small number of woodworking clamps, despite the fact I don't drink, smoke or go to parties. I told him it's my only vice.

And...we're now worse off than before. Grandmother had her test to ensure she's okay to leave hospital for the care home - and it was positive. That's four tests, two positive and two negative, and not showing any symptoms at any point. In less than two weeks in hospital she has been on three different wards, and is now moving onto a fourth. Won't be retested for at least seven days, so the care home place has gone too. Mum and her sisters are at their wits end with all of this, constant phone calls back and forth to try and sort things out - hospitals, care homes, plus dealing with utilities, council tax, banks etc. for her house as well.

Also, some good news in the family, eventually... My maternal grandmother (just turned 84, has asthma, diabetes and Parkinson's amongst other health issues) was due to go into a care home on Monday. The pre-admission COVID test was positive, which meant a no-go for the home. As she wasnt symptomatic she couldn't go into hospital, but she was admitted on Monday evening for other reasons. Mum and two of her sisters have been caring for her alongside working full time, and can't cope (hence the care home). Initial admission test for COVID was negative, as well as the follow up, so she's in the clear! Staying in hospital for the meantime as the care home now doesn't have a place, and the "children" have said they can't care for her at home. Hopefully there will be a place at the care home soon, as they have a few people in who are just on respite. Mum was also tested and is clear - so she's back at work tomorrow after a week off!

Apparently we have 18 Year 6 students returning on Wednesday, with Nursery to Year 1 back on Monday. I was asked about using the ICT room, said that if they used every other computer they would be fine - giving 9 in total. So obviously it has been decided to use the school hall for one bubble and the foyer area outside a set of classrooms for another - neither room has any desks. this means a lot of moving around furniture, equipment (including two Chromebook trolleys) that will have to be done by the ony two maintenance staff that aren't furloughed. Still, I was explicitly told to be off site unless absolutely necessary, and normally I'd lend a hand doing this kind of thing (though I'd perhaps point out that the building with one of the Chromebook trolleys in has six empty classrooms, as well as a drama studio and music room that could be used - saving the need to move stuff around)

Is there a policy that has some setting like "if not connected to WSUS server for x days, update directly"? This would be very useful for the future!

Our server is set to cache files and we don't have VPNs set up so staff are having to update manually. I asked all staff with laptops to go into settings, update & security, and click on the "check online for updates from Microsoft update" link. Foolish of me to expect any of them to (a) read this, (b) try to do it and © click on the right thing. Only replies I got were from people clicking "check for updates" (which comes up with an error as they're not connected to the server)

There were more out on my street today then in previous weeks. More fireworks etc. too. Joined late as I lost track of time!

Just had an email from the Head, after discussions with governors regarding health and safety, uncertainty as to whether government advice will change etc. it has been decided that we won't reopen until 8th June at the earliest for the "allowed" year groups.

My brother has said he has the "CoronaCough ™" but no temperature or any other symptoms. He's been working from home (but was recently furloughed), along with his wife (primary school teacher) and their 5 year old & 2 1/2 year old kids. We will have to wait and see if any of the others get symptoms.

Back in the good old days, when family were allowed to visit, my sister would ask me to put the kettle on. So I'd switch it on, but not make her a cuppa - that's not what she'd asked for! Got her annoyed every time...

Money wasted? On a government IT project? Surely not...

We did this a few years back, so had the luxury (!) of time. I took the existing "Staff Share" network drive, moved out all files that hadn't been accessed in over a year, then gave everyone a term to let me know if anything was missing. All files still archived so easy to retrieve if needed. Then I copied over everything I could onto a Google shared drive. The only things that had to remain on our server was password protected Excel spreadsheets (which won't upload to Google Drive) and past exam papers which had strict rules on where they can be stored. The initial upload had streamlined the folder structure down to five main folders - Academic, Admin, Inspection, Pastoral and Policies. Obviously it didn't stay that neat for long! We now have a miriad of other shared drives, set up by staff and only including those who need access.