Timetable

Hi All, We are currently trialing topmarks.ai to mark our mock exam papers for English and History. So far, so good, working pretty well. Just wondering if anyone else is using similar products as we are keen to find one for Science.

As a former user of Nova-T and now a current user of Timetabler (Keith Johnson version), i can say its not too steep a learning curve and Timetabler is slightly better than Nova-T. Yes there are features of both that outweigh the other, but on the whole I find Timetabler easier and once you get your head round how to build the blocking and splits, it schedules and points out issues/changes in an easier more visual way.

SC-900 Sorry for being late, too much on the last week of term.. could i possibly have the link. Thanks in advance.

Hi All, Has anyone received a request for information on mobile usage? Just seems a bit random. Below is what they require. Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am writing to request information regarding your school’s policy on the use of mobile phones by students on school premises. For the purposes of this Request, by ‘mobile phone’, we mean any wireless handheld device which allows users to transmit and receive voice, video, or other data. This definition also includes ‘smart phones’ which can perform many of the functions of a computer, often including a touchscreen interface; the ability to access the internet; the ability to download apps; and the ability to connect to other devices, such as a smart watch. Please provide the following information: 1. Is student possession and/or use of a mobile phone during the school day banned or partially banned? Please provide a copy of any relevant policy documents/guidance/codes of conduct. 2. Which of the following most closely matches your school’s policy on mobile phones for students: a) Not on school grounds. b) Collected or placed in locker at start of day. c) Not allowed to be used during day. d) Not allowed to be used, unless teacher allows. e) Only breaks and lunch, unless teacher allows. f) Only breaks and lunch. g) Can use any time. 3. How many mobile phones were confiscated from students during the Autumn Term 2023, and for how long, on average, were these phones confiscated for? If you have any records regarding phone confiscations for the Autum Term 2023, please provide a copy of these records. 4. Does your school’s policy on mobile phones for students also apply to other portable smart technology, such as smart watches? If there are separate policies for other portable smart technology, please provide a copy of any relevant documents/guidance/codes of conduct. Please do share a copy of any other relevant policies/documents relating to the matters in question. I kindly request you provide all information in a digital, written format, or provide links to available information. If you are unable to provide all of the information requested, please respond to as much as you can within the boundaries of the Act. Please respond within 20 working days as per the conditions of the Act. Please do not hesitate to contact me on this email address should any aspect of my request require clarification.

we have some details on there, then other details stored on the one drive

Hi, We have been using Sign in App for our visitor management and fire evacuation registers and its been pretty good. They are now looking to sell us their single central record addon. So, Just wondering if others use software to manage this or, like us, just have a OneDrive with all documents stored there. What kind of pricing too as I imagine they aren't too cheap. I have the webinar next week with a reseller of it so will know a little more then, but was just wondering about peoples solutions were to compare it against. The sales person said its an area of growth and said to share the booking form if anyone else is interested in finding out about it just ask for the link. Could just be another fad software like all the GDPR apps that came out. Suppose all will be revealed next week... haha.

Not much help to you, but, they did this a while back with our version of Smart 16. They turn off the license service for the version and you can't activate the license. We only had two staff who used it by that stage so just stopped using it. They don't offer any support apart from a nice invoice to upgrade, they did offer a bit of discount, but no backtracking.

Thank you so much for this. Its given me a starting point. Think i might just add it to eBay as a job lot with plenty photos. Something better than nothing and the equipment gathering dust when it could be put to use.

Yes, they are custom built. The firm used to build them for different industries and for themselves to do surveying work. Thanks for your info. I think I now know the way to go... bulk list and someone will get a bargain.

Thanks, that's a great help so i can at least look at listing them as possible DJI spares.

Hi All, I'm after advice/sale of some drones that were donated to the school. A local business donated them a few years ago as they were moving towards fixed wing drones and thought we might be able to utilise them. My knowledge of them is no existent and no-one here wants to take on they project so they are just collecting dust. They need controllers and battery packs so I think this has hampered progress with them. One has a broken legs issue, but it looks liek it was before we got it. there are a load of bits and bobs to go with them in a box too. So, We thought about selling them to purchase a parrot drone which look alot easier to work with, but don't know how much they are worth, or if anyone would want them or where to sell them even. Does anyone here have any ideas or information on them? To be honest it would just be good to get them to someone who'd use them. I've attached so photos of them and any information/advice would be grateful.

Fixed this... well I have a solution. Load in safemode, install the drivers, windows doesn't load at all. GO into the recover options and reset the machine using the local files. loads back up with all drivers installed and working... Crazy Machines...

Anyone found that installing the drivers manually, or from the script crashes windows? I have this working on some of them i did in the summer, but now it just won't work.

Hi All, Has anyone else noticed the extra filter on google searches for "show explicit content". (see attached image) As you can see in the image, we have safesearch enabled and the selection of this filter from the dropdown does indeed show the explicit content..... So, Is this something new, or have I missed a setting in the GPO for windows or Admin for Chromebook. Any help advice would be greatly appreciated. We use a Meraki MX100 so looking to see if it has any settings to close this gap in our filtering. Also checking if Sensocloud can close the gap.

Just wondering, has anyone had a complaint from parents to say that money has come out of their account? We have had a query, but I’ve checked mine and my partners, but we’ve had no money come out. Will be ringing schoolcomms ASAP tomorrow to check as it’s a good/believable parent. Then we’ll need to inform parents if it is taking money.

I managed to get through to them and they are getting onto it. We had a server go down yesterday so was soooo pleased to hear it wasn’t due to that. Would have been another very busy day if it was. Still no update from them though so it must be quite the headache for them.

Has anyone had an issue with schoolcomms last night? We have a lot of transactions going through that didn’t happen.

Yes, if they aren't logged in they can't. Those who are in at the moment can use them, but once they log off......

MY O365 is still up and running, should i expect it to stop soon....

Since we reimaged our machines in the summer (windows 10 2004) when a user logs in they cannot install the network printers. We use mandatory profiles and a login script to map the printers. This has worked well for years, but not now... If we reimage the machine, the first person to login can get the printers, they are mapped and print fine. When the second user logs in they don't get the printer and when you try to run the script the print just sits and it looks like its at the installing driver phase. I have also noticed that windows updates breaks on these machines after a user logs in, so I suspect if I fix that the printer install will fix itself. I have tried creating a new image (windows 20h2), I have tried creating a new mandatory profile, but we still get this. Has anybody any ideas as to why windows updates keeps breaking when a mandatory profile user logs in. Does anybody have their users setup differently from mandatory profiles? (we used roaming a couple of years ago and that just seemed to create a lot of problems with large roaming profiles). Any default profiles best practice guides that might flag what I am missing. Any advice would be brilliant as this has me stumped. I've been through various versions of GPO settings to no avail and almost come full circle this month and not sure what I have and haven't tried... It's just weird how it all worked before lockdown and then since return it has just stopped.

We have transferred from SIMS to BROMCOM during these testing times and i have to admit i am not sure if its actually been BETTER. We were due to go live on the first week of lockdown and were contacted by Bromcom and offered the chance to delay, which we declined, and i am pleased we did. The main bonus and one of the reasons we changed is the easy access to it from any location, and that has been brilliant for us. Saved us the hard job of talking staff through setting up VPN's or exporting great chunks of data to spreadsheets. The second benefit is staff have been able to explore the live system and get familiar with it at their own pace. The office staff have had time to learn their basic tasks without the extra pressures of the school day. Its helped myself as the IT manager get familiar and take time to iron out issues (not that there have been many) with the support team. All staff have been trained with videos for basics and live teams calls to less computer literate staff. Training in person might have been better, but it wasn't too much of a hindrance doing the videos for them, and now they have them for reference. The support has been brilliant too. I have to admit not being able to call up on the phone has been a miss (or is that just my laziness not wanting to type up a support request), but the online support has been quick and effective and if its been needed a teams call has been arranged quickly and the issues fixed. I think you can now log a call straight from the phone, but don't quote me on that, i have got used to starting the requests on the support website, and possibly have to admit its the bet way to do it..... So, we are now live and planning on the year end and ready to go into the new school year with a lot of confidence in the system. we've managed to tweak out behavior system in this time and think, shouldn't say that, but think we are where we want to be.

For us its been interesting as we went live the week of lockdown.... That was a blessing and a curse to be honest as it gave staff time to try and they are doing things at their own pace OFFSITE... but it was a bit of a challenge for training and trying to answer little questions coming in from various staff, often repeated. But i have to say its been far better, and staff are very impressed with it. Only the attendance officer has found it a negative, but maybe that's because shes having to enter quite a bit of data that she wouldn't, and i have to admit the whole school attendance screens are quicker to do on SIMS. I and still fully behind Bromcom and its been a massive improvement. the transition process has been a lot smoother and less stressful than i expected too.

Well we have our test system.... We got our details through on Friday, so a nice 4 day turn around, which is brilliant and its surprisign how much information gets transferred. Just going though some data checking now and some playing wit the system before the training to do it properly.

No problem, so far the demo to quote to ordering process has been brilliant. Our account manager has kept me informed at all stages and arranged quite a few demo's and a reference site we can go to if we want. I was informed i was passed to implementation yesterday afternoon, so will be able to respond with the time it takes. Most of our staff have fallen out of favour with SIMS so will be interesting how they receive this. Well at the moment our parents use the schoolgateway app which is very limited so it will be interesting for us too. SIMS hold you to the three months before contract ending, so keep an eye on that date. Ours like most schools was the 31st of December...

Its been an interesting read this post and i should have read it earlier as we are now in the process of moving from SIMS to Bromcom. Our reasons are that we don't really use the core of SIMS enough and were investing in add-ons. We have (soon had) CPOMS, EDUKEY, Schoolcomms, CMIS, Show my homework and were going to be looking at attendance and seating by satchel. This was crazy, buying all these add-ons as SIMS wasn't doing what we wanted in the first place. So, i went to BETT last year and looked at Schoolpod, Arbor, Bromcom, Progresso and iSAMS, ths was to get one MIS that covered all the task we needed in one place. All very good products, but Bromcom just seemed to tick all the boxes and the move from SIMS looked the easiest due to the familiarity. Due to not having all the add-ons it also works out cheaper for us too, which is always a bonus in this environment, although i suspect that saving wont be added back to my pot. We have now cancelled SIMS just before Christmas (again that 3 months notice has to be watched) and we are embarking on the move to Bromcom. SO far the staff have been excellent and they have kept me informed and worked with me to provide many demos to various different staff groups and to keep me informed are where we are at the moment. So, our journey is just beginning, exciting and i am sure erwardign with an MIS that does what we want within itself. If people want me to keep updating as we go through each process i am more than happy to. We go live after Easter with eveything except schoolmoney, that's waiting till the summer..