steve

Warwickshire - can't find anything about it taking part in BSF. It has taken part in an "e-Learning Community Project, known as We-Learn, one of four DfES ICT PFI Pathfinder projects" Lanarkshire - being north of the border, doesn't come under the BSF scheme. Only the English education system is being developed / destroyed? under BSF.

Over the last 12 months I've been helping our LA choose a managed system for our schools to choose to opt-in if they so chose. I agree that a managed solution for a large number of schools is the preferred route, as many primaries and some secondaries don't have the expertise in house. However I don't agree with: Having looked at all 10 approved learning platforms and some others I can't agree with that. Pretty much all techies I have met have been students at some point in their life. Personnal having spent over 7 years working in education I believe I have education skill needed to understand the needs of teachers too (if the teachers actually know what the need themselves) Having met many of these "top educationalists" over the last few years, I don't share your opinion of them. I've seen lots of managed systems never being used or abandoned after teaching staff who have driven the use it have left too. Its easy to make these wide sweeping remarks, but bare in mind there is good and bad to be found in both approaches.

We customise the toolbars in all Office apps how the ICT staff want them to appear using the normal method of right click on toolbar - customize - commands tab - drag off and on commands wanted. Once we have a setup we like, we use the Office Profile Wizard (proflwiz.exe) to take a snap shot of the setup. Then proflwiz.exe is scripted to run on login on the PC's Pretty sure that this works on office 200 xp and 2003. Office Profile Wizard details here

We have 2 approaches on this. Papercut prevents duplicate prints within a time period specified by us. This can any number or seconds, also it can be different on each printer. Another trick we had before Papercut was to change the print icon on the toolbars in Office. Remove the print command from the toolbar and replace it with the Print... command. This forces the user to specify the print settings each time they press the print icon.

The first 6 waves can be seen here: http://www.bsf.gov.uk/projects/# I think waves 7 and beyond don't start to get funding until 2010/2012 so add 3-5 years on top of that for consultation and building phases. We're in wave 7+ so I'm hoping it'll be at least 2012 before any TUPE here.

So last Friday the ICT Mark inspector paid us a visit. I say us, he never even came near the tech support office. I've read the report (we got another logo) and it fails to mention ICT support at all. Plenty about leadership of ICT development and curriculum. Is there a big conspiracy to down play all support staff roles in preparation for BSF when all facilities management is all outsourced?

OK, its on the wiki now with a few contract values on there too. Feel free to add any other LAs when they award contracts. All this reading about BSF is quiet depressing, the number of docs I've read inferring we are all amateurs and what's needed is a quality managed system

The three little animals who construct a dwelling, but are not necessarily affiliated with the construction industry. Their dwellings are destroyed by a larger animal, who exerts increasingly large airstreams upon them. This however isn’t an act of [please insert your deity here]

Another Zero Sized Reply here within YHGfL. Going straight to the forums works though.

I was think that myself last night in bed Any other info we want to include? I thought along the lines of: Value of ICT contract Start date of contract Wave of BSF Was ICT a separate tender? Link to supplier / Link to news of award Any more? I'll start a wiki tonight .....

So are we all having fun using YHGfL?

The forums have been relaunched recently. These social groups are new though.

Being the geek I am, I've spent all evening trying to find out who's been awarded a BSF contract for a managed ICT contract. These are the ones I've found so far: Bradford SUN? Bristol City of Northgate Information Solutions Gateshead Morse Greenwich VT Education and Skills Hackney RM Islington RM Knowsley RM Lambeth RM Lancashire Redstone Communications Leeds RM Leicester Northgate Information Solutions Lewisham VT Education and Skills Manchester Ramesys Limited Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle LA with Dell Sheffield Civica Solihull RM South Tyneside Morse Stoke-on-Trent RM Sunderland RM Waltham Forest Ramesys Limited Westminster Ramesys Limited Now this is where you can all help - do you work in one of these LAs? Have I got the contract winner correct? Do you work in a different LA that has awarded a contract? If you have any more info, send it to me in a PM - I'll update my list and keep the edugeek faithful up to date.

The BSF figure is £1450 per pupil over 5 years. £12.1m for Sunderland - £290/pupil/year The LAs are free to spend more if the wish from their own budgets.

OK so this got me thinking ..... So only 8 schools are going to benefit from this first wave contract. A little research shows that the total on roll in these schools currently stands at about 7909 plus 434 post 16 student - total of 8342 Which means sahmeepee your calculations are pretty good Based on current number of pupils on role = £383/pupil/year Sunderland gov doc here. Less pupils in the future too! Gold plated IWB pens for everyone?

£16 million for 15,000 students = 1067 per pupil over 5 years = £213.33 per pupil per year. (I know I haven't counted staff needs etc. but these should average out on a per pupil basis) Hows this stack up against what schools spend now? We've spent about £1.5 million over 7 years for 1800 pupils = Less than 120 per pupil per year. Now our system isn't perfect but its pretty damn good and it wouldn't take almost doubling our budget to more than match whatever RM is offering. What about others how much do you spend per pupil per year?

I tried it too but with no success. Given enough time / effort it may be possible, but as capita won't test on it, future updates may become an issue.

You can customise the thread display to have the latest post at the top if that's what you prefer. User CP - Edit Options - Thread Display Options - Thread Display Mode I fell the site needs a front page, while the main attraction of the site are the forums, I see the wiki, chat and media sections becoming an important resource. However I agree the front page may need some tweaking in terms of content. I also hope to see the secondus references and the forum notice disappear soon as I feel they may be confusing to new users. (Under no illusion, these things take time especially when done voluntarily) In the interests of balance, two things I believe are a big improvement are: A far more professional appearance Far superior forum search facilities Keep up the excellent work

We had the blessing of the kids all being turned away yesterday for the first day back. The heating had packed up and the electric was going to go off to fix it. Staff however had to stay as we could relocate ourselves to the two blocks with heating. Back to normal service today though.

If possible the best practice advice is to install Exchange on on member server not a domain controller.

Having visited Random-electrical-equipment-that-people-ask-me-about Woman, there wasn't anything wrong with her after all. It was just Typical-user-who-doesn't-think-for-himself-and-calls-before-trying-the-basics man, up to his dastardly tricks once again!

Overall I agree with the honours system, however there is room for improvement: Honours should be given to people at the end of their careers. It should be a judgement of their lifetimes contribution to society. Far fewer nominations should come from the civil services. Another problem is that the media is obsessed with celebrity and scandal, so they only report the sports / singers / actors / politicians getting awards. I suppose its down to us - anyone can make a nomination, so if you know someone worthy, get those applications in.

Will we by any chance be able to play with one of these on the edugeek stand at BETT? I'd prefer to talk to friends with knowledge than some sales drone.

It's 'Average user who thinks anything but Microsoft isn't worth bothering with' at the door. What's that - if its not Microsoft the world doesn't care? Well that's another crisis averted, the world is safe from the evil Linux once more :-) I'm off to go fix random electrical equipment that people ask me about ......

Have any windows updates been applied? I'm sure you will have rebooted the server since last Friday :-)