deanc

whats the point in a union that doesn't take action? I'm NEU the support staff section is the fastest growing at present.

book the car in for an MOT near where you live. the only time you are permitted to drive a car without a tax or MOT is if you are driving to and from an MOT test centre, there is no restriction on where that test centre can be. a friend drove a van from derby to blackpool in similar circumstances.

fairly certain it would be cheaper to buy a load of dust masks.

windows versions are like star trek films, every other one is good 9x - good ME - urgh XP - good Vista - urgh 7 - good 8 - urgh 10 - good

I think what is needed is a major rethink about what ICT courses are, at present ICT is a very basic introduction to how to use a computer. Often hampered by the ammount of time allocated to it because it is seen as easy. what most of the members on this board belive to be ICT is in fact covered by the computing qualifications, the reasons we tend not to teach these are quite simple: 1) the majority of teachers currently employed to teach ICT do not have the subject knowledge required to deliver these courses as they have moved into teaching ICT from other subjects (it tends to be business studies, but also know of a maths teacher and a music teacher that have moved into ICT), the reasons for this are quite simple ICT degrees have not existed long enough for people top have completed them and moved into teaching, the average age of a teacher in the UK is somewhere in the 40s-50s. 2)in an average secondary school the subject matter is totally irrelevant for most users of technology, does a receptionist need to know the fetch-decode-execute cycle. does a student that intends to be a builder, who may find basic word processing and spredsheets useful, need to understand the OSI model. if we are honest probably not. although not called so any more we operate comprehensive schools and provide education for all, whilst it might be possible to provide Computing as a option subject it is not really suitable for offering to all students. the final option is to look at the BTEC specification where ther is a lot more scope to deliver hands on technical based qualifications, and as CCNA and CompTia qualifications can be counted as part of these this may well fit the vision of what an EduGeek Free school should deliver.

I dont quite understand this, are they changing to a two week timetable (i.e A and B weeks) or are they just changing the timetable for a two week period, if it is the latter I can't belive that they teaching unions havnt had something to say about this, if its the former it wont have a huge impact as the lessons planned will simply be used at different times, I accept that there may be a bit more work to do for the first week but it will be payed off in the second week

in that case the heads at your schools are failing to do thier jobs properly, there are ways to get teachers out of schools. there are competency procedures and we are all expected to meet the teaching standards. it is really annoying from my point of view that I am towards the lowest paid end of the scale but seem to spend significantly more of my time working than other members of staff. it becomes apparent in the results though. luckily most of the "old school" are due for retirement soon!

the main complaint here seems to be that the uinions have fought for better pay and working conditoons for teachers and have got it. is that not the point of a trade union?

will you lot please keep out of my desk! mine: broken pens, random keys from old keyboards or that I have found that must have been stolen from somewhere else and pro plus

the problem with ICT qualifications is that they are incedibly fussy when it comes to the specific terms used. for example with OCR missing out one word could mean that marks are not awarded, also it is quite common for A-level students to miss the point of the question slightly and if it is a multi-part question getting the first part wrong could lead to the second part not being answered correctly as well. might be worth having a look at past mark schemes and papers, as with all exams there are only a certain number of questions that can be asked so look through and learn what the exam board are going to assess you on.

possibly worth checking with the IT staff as to what course they are running first, the OCR nationals specifically state that students must back-up thier work to removable medium, i.e USB/Floppy/Zip (the spec mentions it, nobody ever does)

when I signed up i was given something to print out and take with me. do I need to do something else?

We run Sunrays here and they provide most of what we need them to do. do not expect to be able to replace every single fat client room with thin clients as no solution will be able to do this especially with ICT courses now being more multimedia related in answer to your questions Not too sure on this one but if your going thin client then SGD is a brilliant add on, no more getting home and half way through sorting out stuff for the next day and realising that some important file is on the network. we have a nice customised initial login screen that simply provides a way for kids to enter thier username, they can also provide the option of allowing them to change the display resolution which could be useful for VI kids We can run most stuff, I have seen kids using iPlayer and music streaming sites seem to work(sometimes, i think, too well:p) we can run full classes on flash probably several at a time though would need to look at the timetable to be sure. if you are considering SunRays and SGD or thin client give then contact the guys at cutter, they support us and overall uptime is good, the big issue with thin client is that a failure of certain components has a more pronounced effect. i.e server falls over 10% of the machines in every room die with it.

if people anticipate that the lights are due to change and prepare themselves for doing so is this really a problem? one of the things that annoys me when driving is people that only look at the car in front of them not the stuff going on in front of that (riding a motorbike you get learn to look at everything) and so sit at the lights in neutral until the car has moved, then select a gear and eventually move meaning that fewer cars move in the green phase leading to more congestion. when i lived in leicester people seemd to know how to work traffic lights and at least the first three cars moved at almost the same time!

this is not a ofsted thing this is an immigration control thing because I had to do the same when I got a job in a supermarket a few years ago. however if a school have failed to take the relevant legal checks then it is feasable that Ofsted could place them in a category as a result. also it does not have to be a passport (I dont have one so cant show mine) Driving licence and birth certificate should cover you. (photo ID and proof of right to work). obviously if you are a non uk/EU/EEA/whatever citizen you would need to show that you have the relevant visa