Primus

It surprises me they're allowed to be an Edugeek sponsor given how poor the service has been over an extended period.

Not necessarily!

Run everything virtually. I wouldn't use replication I'd establish a cluster either with some shared storage or with S2D.

They'll be along soon to tell you only a small amount of customers were affected and they provide the very best service possible.

UNICABBY UNI32H 32 BAY - we use these across multiple schools and they're great.

My understanding is that it doesn't have to run on the same server instance but that it cannot be used for anything that isn't SCCM related.

I've got a DC running 2022 with no issues so far...

As I said before I appreciate it can be a lot of work, but there are many good reasons why sites have moved to HTTPS for everything - saying the log ins are handled securely is missing the point. This site should be a model of good practice - the move to get everything onto HTTPS is not exactly new. Please can we have a timescale provided now?

I've seen that from multiple competitors and I'm yet to find a school that's managed a 1 year renewal.

But, on the flip side, if you're a company and you're missing out on business because schools are not following the correct procurement processes and they're potentially breaking the law what do you do? You can't just sit back and watch as your company suffers. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. I'm not a massive fan of Bromcom for other reasons but I can't see that they would take this action lightly.

Sure, PM me.

Yes we've recently migrated one of our schools to Arbor and the rest go live at Chrstimas. Our main school migrated from SIMS but our other schools are a mix of SIMS, Bromcom and RM Integris.

Sorry I misread your original post, I thought you'd got them to agree to a 1 year contract.

I'd also say, as someone who's been through this process with one school already and is currently managing the process across the rest of the schools in the trust, it's more than worth it!

Have you got that in writing?

Sadly, as I understand it right now, their only options are to move before April 1st and give notice of this before December 31st or stick with SIMS on a 3 year deal.

Has anyone managed to get a 1 year contract rather than 3 - I've noticed several companies saying they've heard schools have but I don't know of any that have.

We're in the NE - feel free to PM.

Your SIMS licence is perpetual, you're paying for software assurance - patches and support potentially. Once you leave you can continue using SIMS but you obviously don't get patches or support - this is not illegal.

I thought everyone was on the same renewals - you have to give notice by December 31st and the new contract starts on April 1st?

Unfortunately on this I think the Government were in a no-win situation. I very much agree that care home staff and NHS staff should be vaccinated - Mav makes a good point about medical staff not trusting science being crazy. If you want to work with vulnerable people then there are standards and having the vaccine seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable one. Remembering that people who cannot have the vaccine on genuine medical grounds are exempt from this, it only affects the people who have made a conscious decision to effectively lose their job - they had enough warning! Sadly there are way too many people out there who are really into their crazy conspiracy theories.

No sorry, we as a MAT have made a policy decision, if you're using our connection you simply will not be using a VPN, certainly not in any sanctioned way, we will do our level best to prevent any VPN usage as far as possible. All use of our connection follows age appropriate filtering but in 2021 if you're not SSL intercepting then you're not effectively filtering IMO. You may think from my comments on this that I am a "blocker" not just in terms of Internet access but in terms of principle, nothing could be further from the truth.

Ofsted are very good at documenting their requirements but there is a whole cottage industry around "what Ofsted really mean" - much of it contributed to by Ofsted inspectors themselves sadly. The School Inspection Handbook only says this: access to wifi, if it exists, so that inspectors can connect to the internet It says nothing about special SSIDs, special filtering, connecting to VPNs etc. We have never ever done any of what you have suggested and I've been part of Ofsted inspections resulting in both "Outstanding" and "Good" on multiple occasions in multiple schools.

I have already pointed out the risks to giving them different access to any other guest.

Ok, is there written guidance on what Ofsted expect to be provided with?