GREED

Sorry, I like the man in a funny way, in the way you like grumpy old man who shouts at kids across the road, but I place him into the same category of people who will find a special dark corner of hell, as Sepp Blatter.

Will sign up when I get home later in the week!

Agreed, it is a very silly premise. I understand the aims of what they are trying to achieve, but all this would do would lead to more fraud of the new variety as this comes about. What there should be is more naming and shaming and shopping of online illegal activities. Note that it is illegal activities, not for the expression of free speech that falls within the legal boundaries of UK law, which is where this ends up crossing the line.

Surely this is the utopia of where all VLEs want to get to. Some have the MIS integration, some look pretty, some are easy to use, some integrate with all apps under the sun. It is a balance between getting the important functions that require it to work and having a solution that will enable you to get the end product you want. While staff buy in is key, having something complex that does all the above AND be so easy for staff to use they will just pick it up and run is a tall order... otherwise it would have been done. I think there has to be an expectation to have to learn how to use and operate any new system.

But it is your equipment...

So long as you are complying with other rules about the retention of records meeting the criteria (mostly SEN and CP). It is likely that you are using the same physical record for staff as the student, when the staff member was added to SIMS a role was applied to the previous record rather than creating a whole new record. A perfectly valid action of the system. If you want to get rid of the student portion, you wold need to create a new staff record. Whether it is the same physical record or a role linking 2 records I don't know, but once applied you are using the one and same for all intent and purpose.

Then you have done your bit. They need to be accommodating. Sounds like they have only prepared for the usual situation of needing fibre convertors. Not helpful

Just playing devils advocate, if they cannot tap into your existing equipment, what is the alternative? Put in a whole new fibre run and what not? Is that not quite a bit excessive

Soooo so close to being offered Aspen ah those were the days! There is a lot to be said for the sheer simplicity for end users such as yourself and the reduction in costs and effort at your end, even if there is a cumulative increase at the LA level... Just because x solution is more efficient at one end, if this does not impact on the users on the ground, or worse impacts in a negative way (more maintenance, or maintenance at all, just as an example, etc), obviously a concern and consideration when procurement comes around. Well, I know for a fact it was in Hampshire's case.

Tax payers money hard at work... can you feeeeeel the money oozing

Fair enough. Thanks for the link. Be interesting to know the stats for the planes out of the sky crashes given now three (4 including today) high profile crashes in as many months... not to be morbid or anything

Agree with the odd on items 1 2 and 3. But then.. WHAT! where did that stay come from? I will assume a plane crash in this case, as is usually the case, is where a crash is anything from hitting a bird while stationary on the runway to full blown nose dive... how many survive what generally is the big fall out of the sky and fireball type plane crash? Also, the bigger the vehicle the less control over your own fate you have ;-)

Good luck getting schools staff to adopt that change...

Like the ferry went down around South Korea? I think walking sounds a much safer option all round! Or swimming

Like a prison? :-D

What about when there is a power cut? What if no one is logged into SIMS, then this is just like sending an email or text message - Non-real-time. Does your school not have a procedure in place for this?

Just to throw my usual antagonistic views in here: 'Better' is so often a subjective term. Better for one school or customer might not be on the same scale as another, or not noticed by another, or detrimental to another. Progress on consumer products replacing existing ones should be driven by customer demand (I'm not suggesting anyone in this thread or outside is not customer responsive). Pioneering is something very different and risk/reward is always tipping. But making a change for change sake or 'because that is what x department or government wants to see' or 'this is what the NHS does' are not valid reasons. The exception comes when 'the government TELLS you this is what is going to happen'... DX anyone? :-D

Talk to them maybe? Likely have a word with Evolve as it will be down to them. Perhaps have a chat with a data integrator (or get them to), if they not done so already.

Bromcom response received, thanks @Bromcom-PR This will go live on the site tomorrow (Tuesday 22 July) at 9am.

Media message ;-) I'll definitely leave now I'm not helping!

Letter home? :-D I'll get me coat ;-)

Annoyed I have joined this party so late, most of my best antagonistic lines have already been mentioned. I had a rather interesting article through the post (yes, post!) From the OU talking about the dichotomy between Security and Privacy, and how traditionally there needs to be compromise between one to improve the other... its a piece of crap both in the way it is written as well as the conclusions that actually one does not oppose the other... I will dig it out and post it... somewhat relevant.

Yes perhaps we should agree to disagree on the shortcomings of a fire evacuation and get back to the OP! :-D Interesting debate though (and stayed friendly for once!).

Some shared folder of some description. Not Dropbox but that type of facility. used for description only! Yes there are lots of if and buts. The list should be for the day so one knows who is in and who is not. It rather pointless having the class roster, as what you most need to know is who is in and who is not. You need the daily absentee list for sure. so then you are into the scenario of printing each day = huge waste. Consider schools where absenteeism is a huge issue. We have established that while the fire brigade will ignore the list, it is still useful to them to identify numbers and possible locations of missing students. This is taken from Spartek research. If there is a fire and they sweep and find no one, come out and the HT says you are still missing a child, yes they might be in town, they might also still be trapped somewhere... need I go on?

Something perhaps like a scheduled report that puts the output to a Dropbox or similar, to which a tablet is always synced with. Aside from that device failing, a risk, there is no reliance on any other tech. In addition, the only expense is a tablet which I will assume most schools have some sort of mobile device to use with this (heck, have a few SLT staff's mobiles available!). In the last school I worked in we spent a good deal of time putting DR procedures in places like a dedicated laptop, 3G Internet dongle etc etc not specific to fire but generally (and many other procedures besides). All to minimise chances of danger to staff as well as reliability to get at key information.