jmak

The are plenty of third party providers - I used one about 10 years ago recommended on here, but I never had to claim so can't tell you anything about them. However, I agree with DrBeaker - just take the hit. The cost seems very reasonable to me.

We had WiFi "two-way radios" when we moved in to our new building. Everything was chosen by the main contractor - we could say what function was required, they chose the method/product to deliver it. The WiFi system lasted about a month before we decided it wasn't safe for a critical system and it was replaced by property radios. We did compromise a bit. Security and first aiders have radios. Facilities staff (cleaners, stores,) have mobile phones with Teams installed.

Sounds like a useful addition the the Gemini Notebook features I mentioned in the thread about deploying AI platforms on schools. A year ago you could create quizzes, but they were limited to 20 questions. Still useful as they were based on your study materials, not random stuff found on the internet. The knowledge gap assessment and progress tracking take it up another few levels for students. As staff, it was the first AI product that was a step change for me - it offered something I didn't have before. I uploaded lots of policy and professional standards documents. The mind map feature showed how the spaghetti of policies all links together and also create accurate summaries of policies where they overlapped and highlights of where they contradict. The fact it was works with source material you know is relevant makes it more useful and less likely to hallucinate - every statement it makes is linked back to the original source so you can check it.

Also not a school, but I'd advocate getting away from staff signing up to free accounts and using them for work. The school should have a policy prohibiting it - and regularly remind staff. You all know this already, but for the record school days should only be entered on platforms whose privacy policies you've vetted. I'm possibly being unfair, but my experience of Copilot was so poor compared to any of the free products, it was causing half the problems by driving users to free ChatGPT accounts. Check what you can get for free or low cost from Google as a school. Gemini is pretty decent and Gemini Notebook (previously Notebook LM) is really good. We decided Claude was enough of an improvement that we set up a Team subscription and users who can justify it to their manager will be given a seat. It's paid for by the users cost centre - it's not (yet) part of basic IT provision. I think the difference between the platforms for day to day activities is small, although I prefer the style of writing Claude uses in responses and draft documents (technical documentation I only care about content and clarity; I wouldn't use the output unedited for documents to be shared widely), but we selected it on the preference of our coders. They ran various tests and at the time we selected it, it was significantly ahead of the others. I think now it's closer.

XMA experience very mixed. Softcat - awesome. We have a strict and formal list of approved suppliers and getting someone new is significant effort and takes over a month. Softcat is already on the list and they seem to be able to get _anything_ ICT Direct - I haven't bought for a while, but prices and customer service are great. Also agree on Kenable cables. For general stuff, we use https://www.banneruk.com/supplies-services-office-supplies/

I mentioned that ladders became pretty much pointless due to the requirement for three points of contact when I was on my working at height training course. That's when I found out (according to my trainer) that two feet and a belly counts!

Microsoft's own guidance is now that security updates should be installed within three days, so weekly sounds better than monthly.

I didn't have to win that argument - our 40 year old boiler packed up and the radiator and pipework needed replacing because they were equally old and it was 8mm microbore, but.... The heat pump installation including 20 new radiators, all plumbing and electrical work was done in 5 days (team of four plumbers). It was chaos for a week, but then over. I've evangelised about our ashp on here before and it was a great improvement on our oil fired CH, but I'd do something different if I was starting now. I wouldn't install a system that doesn't also cool my house. The model of ashp I have has a different spec in Australia and can run in cooling mode, but the UK variant doesn't. Otherwise I'd be swapping out some radiators for these: https://theheatpumps.co.uk/products/chilled-water-fan-coil-units.html Alternatively I'd be seriously looking at air-to-air to completely replace my wet heating system.

You want to put a whole year group in detention at the same time 😲 What did they do!? /sarcasm

I have: Goretex with zip-in fleece for all occasions Goretex with zip-in fleece for all occasions with additional ventilation from where OH's cats expressed their views on being captured and put in cat carrier Goretex with zip-in fleece for all occasions with additional ventilation from when I fell off my bike Hi-viz Goretex inherited from someone who carried it on a DofE expedition as hi-viz was mandatory, but they were too cool to wear it.

Three of us received it simultaneously during dinner. We all grabbed our phones and tapped on it, at which point it disappeared before any of us read it. It's not stored anywhere on my phone (Pixel 9, Android 17). I did discover that you can access messages at gov.uk/alerts but the only one published there at the time was in Welsh. I'm not convinced the subject justified it. "There's a fire five miles away; be ready to evacuate" seems like a good reason to alert everyone. "It's come to our attention that the population is so stupid they need to be told not to set the whole place on fire" seems like ultimately a bigger problem, but less immediately urgent. Related: do people put their phones on silent or turn them off during concerts/theatre/cinema?

This is my draft user guide Passkey_Setup_Guide.pdf

Most people use laptops and for the last four years I've specified fingerprint readers and most of the new ones have Windows Hello capable cameras, so for convenience I think most people will have a passkey on their main device. I have one on my phone in the MS Authenticator app which I find works well. The user experience with a hardware token on the machine you're logged in on is much better than even simple passwords. I'm sure it'll be broken at some point but I think they're a genuine upgrade for users and admins.

I'm aiming to push our users towards passkeys as quickly as we can. We've had multiple successful phishing attacks despite authenticator based MFA. Issues for us (not a school): 1) A mostly universal solution for an alternative second factor when they lose/change/forget/drown their phone 2) An option for people who want to login to desktop computers that they haven't used before, e.g. presenting at a venue that has a PC as part of the hosts AV setup. There's a third internal issue for us: the team that runs the tenancy is not the team that runs active directory. I haven't yet persuaded them to talk to each other and run the command that will allow it as authentication for logins to domain PCs.

If you have OVS or should be free. You have to place an order and "buy" licences, but it should be zero cost.