DrBeaker

We did that. The agreement put in place and signed by the pastoral, guardian and student specifically stated there was NO support from the school for this after handover. Guess what happened? The virus/malware-ridden devices (as the guardian had given the student the admin password we'd set on the machine) and damaged devices came back to us to look at as it "Was affecting teaching and learning". The only use that agreement was for - was in the loo.

How much IT support time is being spent on this one "very successful teacher". If they're that good, IMHO they won't stick around one school for very long and you'll be the one ending up supporting his scheme. Other staff's requests and issues aren't being dealt with as a result, or is this one staff member expecting the "white glove" treatment? What about safeguarding - how do you know that staff member isn't putting anything "questionable" on the laptops? Can the software be put into an RDS system? What happens if a laptop gets stolen, lost, damaged etc? Who's going to pay? The financial situation IT support can't do anything about I'm afraid, if we could maybe things would be different but that's another debate.

@blue_n_white Sometimes there are useless IT people - God knows I've worked with some of them over the years. But I've also worked with some fantastic people I haven't worked directly with in years, but would hire them without a shadow of a doubt if I had the chance. However those type of people I can count on one hand. Make sure the IT team have got the tools to do the job - honest to god, one job I was in they didn't even have a screwdriver! One place I left as I simply wasn't given the resources I needed to do my job! i said I need X, Y and Z. They'd say sure ... and months later I'd end up with B instead. I'm sure you get the picture. Keep us all updated.

Has he actually got any skills in delegating, prioritisation etc? Sometimes the obvious answer, isn't always so obvious. I didn't have those skills 5x years ago I was in another role I didn't need them - so you know what I did? I brought some management books, read them and continually improved my skills. I'm now in a role where I have the respect and understanding of SLT, teaching, support staff etc and what I can bring to the table. - that's not good enough really. Even a simple "Resolved" is better than nothing. Microsoft server training - Blimey! Do you have any vacancies? How about some customer service training for him and the team? A school with over 1700 students and 250 staff, a sixth form and a business centre.

That's pretty small then to be honest IMHO. One place I worked had about £60-70K a year and we had to push back PC replacements and upgrades back by about 2-3 years due to that. We had some 8-year old old AIO's that were literally dying. Any budget for staff training? IT techs not getting any training and being expected to know about new systems, software and hardware etc is pretty demoralising too you know and also a recipe for burnout for your less experienced staff - and that's from personal experience too. Be careful how you treat your IT staff too or you'll end up losing them too. Myself and another tech left within 9x months of each other at one place and that was combing 7x years of support and tribal knowledge?

Brilliant summary! Yes, Yes and Yes! SLA's also require the resources to be available to meet the SLA. E.g. In one place we had to share a laptop between 3x techs. So if the other tech is using it and I get a ticket that I need the laptop for - how does that work? In another place (not a school) we simply didn't have staff to be able to answer the phones (management resources problem IMHO) so how could the SLA ever be met and how could people be judged on it? Exactly as @AButters has said - one minute you could be doing something for a teacher but the next you might be called and asked to go help out with a visitor for guest wifi access etc. I'm in a similar situation now. Short version - The previous "Network Manager" left with no handover to me. Consensus seems there was no trust in his skills or his customer service. All I can do is try to improve things from now on and staff have already told me "I'm far better than the previous tech" BINGO! I've got 10x year old PCs with 5/6x year old DELL's being the newest kit. Login times in excess of 15-20x mins are a daily occurrence currently. I recommended to the SLT last year basically EVERYTHING needs to be replaced ASAP to get things moving again. I got stonewalled. Staff were moaning, complaining to me etc. What can I do? The budget is out of my hands. Agree on all points. I have myself have inherited what is quite frankly a big mess and years of neglect and lack of investment. No spares, no budget. It's not going to magically change overnight. Spares - how old is the equipment? Teachers reporting things - They need to report things so I can prove I need funding, extra resources etc. That's what's got me my new computers I'm deploying this week.

Unfortunately despite my skills I'm not an expert in every piece of software ever written. Do the users even know there's difference versions of the same software with added (or reduced) functionality? Who do they think trains us? The IT fairies? Yes! I would love the time to have "nothing to do". I've got 8x projects on my board I know need to be done, all in various stages from concept to execution. The only chance I get to work on these is during the school holidays. Daily stuff/BAU stuff takes up my time during the normal week. There's always some ideas to be working on, R&D etc and also self-training by catching up on developments in the IT world. For me that's when I get a shedload of work done, in peace! This week I've got new PC installs and builds, removal of the old PCs, upgrades and catching up on tickets/BAU jobs I couldn't do during term-time. For my my next available "free" time is Thursday next week! ITIL - Continual Service Improvement (CSI) Yep. There's always something that can be improved on. I've got "roadmap" of where we currently are from an IT perspective to where I want to be a few years time. Whether that happens due to resources, budget etc is a different thing however.

Admirable you've been able to do this. However what's going to happen the one-time this home-brew application fails (for whatever reason) and some safeguarding or other issue happens as a result of the system failure? e.g. student violence, intruder on premises etc? Call me cynical - but I think we know what's going to happen then dude and where SLT will point the blame - instead of being pointed at them for lack of funding.

I was promised SIMs training in one role as IT Tech for 5x years. It never materialised during those 5x years. We had no choice but to "learn on the job" even for the techie issues. There was a data manager who did all the data stuff though.

Have you got the version numbers or could you post a screenshot of the driver version etc here?

Surely that means it could be a NIC driver issue though? I've had similar with wifi drivers on some laptops and it turned out to be a dodgy wifi driver.

Hi elsiegee40 was my comment on the post removed? I commented as it was due to security i.e. having wifi access with everybody's VPN IMHO is a security risk and pertinent to the topic being discussed?

How have you narrowed it down to network performance issues? Is it a certain batch of PCs? Is it PCs in certain areas? Is it PCs connected to the same switches?/edge cab? When did the problem start to occur?

I had someone last week complain that they couldn't get their VPN to connect on the guest wireless. Well you know what - tough! We don't have to provide a guest wireless, if you want a guaranteed connection bring your own 4G hotspot then or get your own company to sort it out e.g. Can I complain that BMW wouldn't fix my Ford car?

I know we had some Epson projectors with some undocumented master codes/PIN locks etc that weren't included in the manuals either so you're not alone there.

Have you looked in the manual?

Is it not the friendly name or Computer Description like "Dave's Laptop" instead of the NetBIOS/Computer Hostname?

So no love of projectors and bulbs then?

I know this is an old thread but AFAIK still as of Feb 2019 this hasn't changed. This is the way I've been told to build machines and "reinstall" SIMs.

I've come across a few posts where somehow the serial number of the PC was cloned across as well? Weird!

I investigate what I need for a job/running costs versus for a project. Day-day running costs are requested via email and signed off on an invoice sorted out by Finance (there's more of them than there is IT and that's their job). Project costs - will tell you when I actually get them signed off!

Can I ask who asked you to look at this? And how do they think this comes into the remit of IT?

THAT is shocking.

And that is how the goodwill died, when support staff are treated like that. The amount of s:censored: we have to put it with during our working day is unbelievable and to be treated like that is the final straw. Used to do that but as it's not appreciated (and neither was I compensated for the use of my personal device in any way, shape or form) it's no more. It's a sad place the world is in now that people are "proud" of working more hours than they're paid for - the US 80+ week type of thing.

Would be interesting to know myself. I can understand the request - https://www.tes.com/news/hinds-tell-schools-spare-teachers-out-hours-emails and https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1012734/lidl-work-emails-blocked-overnight-business-hours https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38479439