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We're Academising, and as part of that process we are replacing SIMS FMS. That's non-negotiable: we're a Special School and we have quite complex funding, which since the NFF has come in is prone to huge fluctuation. FMS is fundamentally running on a cash basis and we need accruals accounting so that we can offset the sudden spikes in cashflow and see the real changes in income more clearly. So, the question is - whether to throw the baby out with the bathwater? We make fairly limited use of other SIMS modules at present: the performance module, for instance, is useless to Specials. But some of them are useful and that functionality needs to be retained, or replaced. Do we keep the bits of SIMS we are using, or do we replace them when we replace the accounting module? What did other schools who chucked out SIMS bring in, and what came along with it?

Internet connection is about to change. Has historically been routed via the school next door (the one with the budget firewall; the internet access was set up when the schools were built together a few years ago and the county originally envisaged closer integration than has turned out to be possible). Currently I think they have changed ISP and put us over onto some temporary setup 'till we also move to a new ISP in about 4 weeks' time. Re: Wireless network - we'd need a second one, then. The thing I am currently connecting to is the internal wireless network. I agree it would be WAY better to be on a separate network. I'm not at all happy about people plugging stuff into the school network - it's one thing if it's just me, temporarily, but we also need a "solution", which this definitely is not.

lol, feel free to grump. I may have dripfed slightly. Sorry. It's a special school for severely disabled children, and as such has surprisingly low tech needs. You don't have an interactive whiteboard in a classroom where half the class can't see it and the other half are in wheelchairs. There's no ICT room. There's no ICT department. There isn't really an ICT syllabus. Outside of the SMT, there's no email. This is why they've managed OK so far. There's not a lot to manage. Obviously they can't afford a dedicated IT person; to use your analogy that would be like employing a full-time in-house decorator when in an average year, you just want to paint the shed door. They can't share an IT person yet either, because the big secondary next door is a Church school and there's some sort of Diocese budget firewall which has put a stop to pretty much all collaboration. The plan is for this Academy conversion to lead to future collaboration with other Special Schools - maybe a Special Academy Chain - and then we can look at getting a shared person who could also become a specialist in some of our weirder bits of kit. In the meantime, we have what looks like a very limited support contract with Viglen. If I ask for something outside of that I will need a clear understanding of what I am asking for: otherwise they will creatively interpret it as a request for the moon on a stick, and charge me accordingly.* If I know that classlink is "supposed" to let me bring an outside laptop in and access the internet via the school network, that's a start. Re: financial databases - oddly, that part is in pretty safe hands. I have run quite a few banking systems, and the only ones we broke, we broke on purpose. * I have no previous experience with Viglen. But I have support miles.

Hi all. OK, I am not a geek (as it should say at the bottom) so bear with me. I'm a parent governor in a small school with no geek. They are running Viglen Classlink. I have no clue what version, as yet. (I am currently scaring the pants off them by attempting a software audit) Viglen are about to rationalise/upgrade servers and upgrade Classlink so I assume that means they will go to version 11. They are also converting to Academy status. That is going to mean various people coming in and working in the school - including myself. As far as I can see, they (we) just need to be able to get wifi access to the internet to get email &c. I suppose printer access would be nice, but if it means any faffing around whatsoever, they (we) can email it to admin staff to print out. The Head seems to think it's just a matter of setting a user up on Classlink and then issuing a wireless key. This is not working for me*, and tbh I'm not sure it should. Of course, there seems to be no Classlink documentation so I can't work out if this sort of external access is covered. I can see that internet control is an optional module, and the school don't seem to have bought that. I'd give up and tether the phone - except the architects in their wisdom seem to have constructed the new building as some sort of enormous Faraday cage, and there's no mobile signal. Any views? Is this *supposed* to work on classlink? And, bearing in mind we have no geek and won't have one for at least a couple of years, if not, what is the simplest way of achieving this access? * fwiw, I can see other stuff on the network, and ping servers outside of the building, but the network is showing as "no internet access".

Hey up. Another female. Another non-geek. You are going to be overrun (albeit very, very slowly...) I'm a parent governor at a Special school. We have no geek. We are geekless. We manage (from what I can tell) by putting up with some truly rubbish software, because it is all via a single supplier so no arguments about who supports what thing, and by never updating *anything* if we can possibly help it. We're about to update a pile of stuff. I am off now to go look at profile settings and see how to put something along the lines of "I am not a geek, please be nice to me" at the bottom of all my posts... There may be a few of them.