PotNoodleTech

It's been proven that having passwords forcibly change too often actually creates a higher risk of security issues as people end up just adding a digit onto their existing password or writing them down on post it notes etc as mentioned above. Might want to reconsider changing the 30 day to 60 or 90 to be honest.

There are not many "hands off" IT managers in schools. Might be different in colleges/universities.

It's a difficult one. For the MSP they want to give out as little admin access as possible to satisfy cyber security etc. From your point of view you need as much access as possible so you can do your job! Otherwise you basically end up being a first line support phone answerer which is not good for us get involved types (which most of us on here are). Sadly this is getting more and more common. I can see the "IT Manager" role ceasing to exist in many schools over the next 10 years.

This is what I use on my studio monitors and hifi. 2.5mm on monitors and 6mm on hifi because bigger is always better, right? Looks like the van damme mic cables are even cheaper!

The irony is threads like this make bromcom look like Capita/ESS which is probbaly the biggst insult you can levy to an MIS provider.

Alexa is an absoloute minefield of data protection etc. If they made a version designed for business or education then it would be better but they don't so what you get is a home version with no admin controls that will literally eavesdrop on every conversation it can hear which is a massive data breech waiting to happen. Realistically only Office365 Copilot and Google Gemini are the only ones giuarunteed to be safe, as they've been vetted and adjusted for educational establisments to comply with our data protection regs etc.

Just to clarify you can buy half decent stuff off amazon - all of the cables in my hifi are off amazon and my system sounds better than the entire bristol hifi show - but theyre quality cables like van damme studio blue and neutrik XLR connectors etc etc. I've always been a studio kinda guy and they use van damme cables not japanese samurai cables enclosed in a wooden box with pearl weights and bamboo cable lifters as per the audiphile snake oil lunacy mentiond above. Maybe I shoudnt have said "£2 cable" more like £12 to £22

Careful your starting to sound like an audiophile 😛

We were told this: "The changes made under The Data Use and Access Act 2025 (DUAA) offer organisations the opportunity to do things differently, rather than needing to make specific changes to comply with the law. The changes will be phased in between June 2025 and June 2026. Not all of the changes will relate to schools. We will inform schools of any changes when they come into force and will explain how to maintain compliance." I.e. no need to panic

Fair enough but I don't see why bodge with a soldering iron when you can buy a £2 cable from amazon that's not a bodge? Also makes troubleshooting easier for non audio engineers as you don't get the "what the heck is this cable wired up like this for" like this entire post is based on rather than "oh this cables broke I need a 3.5mm to dual phono like everyone else in the world uses for £2 from amazon free next day delivery happy days"

This is exactly my point but so many people don't seem to get it. Oh well! All I know is often, when other teachers come from other schools they're like "holy cow this is awesome I hate my 11 inch laptop that they force us to use" My teachers don't have bad backs bad necks or bad eyes.

It's a non issue here but I have been runnig decent kit with SSDs/NVME now for years so they're used to sub 60 second logins 1 second to open chrome and all their stuff comes up etc.

We've moved away long ago from propriatary PC whiteboard apps to using the in built tools on google and office365 and a couple of extra chrome apps off the play storte here and there. Each whiteboard has it's own buiult in touchg controls independant of the device pligged into it. Bare in mind we've been a google school since 2014.

Doubt it. Given that each phono connector only has one ground and one signal. For stereo it would need one ground and two signals which is why usually you have physically seperate cable for each channel signal coming out of the headphone plug. I am sure the OP will get to the bottom of it.

TBH - I never said they couldnt have laptops - just that hot desking laptops in classrooms is bad compared to permanent hard wired teacher pcs with 100% uptime no batteries to charge no plugs to bend/break nothing to forget. New Teacher PCs here in every room and office with an 86" board and 2 x 27" screens, and then as you say is needed, chromebooks for the staff to take home and work. They love it. It's technically superior, and cheaper per 7 year lifecycle.

I don't know - if the server was left connected to the internet then it's posssible ESS could have disabled it remotely whoch reduces your chances significantly.

That actually looks like a bodge cable where only one channel (e.g. right hand) is being sent to both left and right. So technically that cable is mono not stereo. If you need a what I call a 3.5mm headphone (or 5.25mm headphone) to dual phono - ther are millions of them on amazon theyre ten a penny.

If you've got legacy decade or more old GPOs there could be all sorts of bodgery in them from the past reg keys permission things or scripts running etc etc. Start with a clean GPO, add drive maps and some basic permissions eg. control panel etc and then see how it performs.

Congratulations on taking a step back in terms of usability and reliability. I've only ever seen hot desk/hot swap laptops have a negative effect on teaching and learning not a positive one. Oh and more expensive to boot. Makes total sense!

Try Techbuyer Europe I sold off a load of old Procurve and Unifi stuff to them a couple of years ago and gor decent money!

Sadly due to copyrighty intelectual property legal stuff - when you moved from SIMS to Arbor you surrendered the right to access SIMS on that day. Your gonna need some REALLY good lawyers to get anywhere with fighting that. Is the SIMS server in your server room or is it sims connected online?

1:1 chromebooks so all USB C here. Sadly they are not as resiliant as the good old big dell round barrel connectors we used to use back in the old days. That's 20 years of progress for you! A physically worse weaker connector and you WILL LIKE IT OR ELSE.

Welcome. For me- the 10% off ticker that keeps popping up even after you've closed in 10 times is enough to put me off browsing any further.

Yeh we've nocked on the head all of that kind of "CD" software from like 2005. It's too risky nowadays. Bout time some staff moved on to some more modern teaching resources!

Wow that one is under the radar I bet no one in my school knows about it!!