GrumbleDook

The PAS had been around for a while, was heavily promoted to LAs by Becta, and was always there with a view that something would be needed long term. It has subsequently been put into a British Standard and you may want to check with your insurance company to see whether they insist that if a standard is available then it should be adhered to. If that is the case you *have* to use a company that agrees they comply with the standard and can give evidence against how they have been audited to demonstrate this.

For Wordpress users there is also a plug-in for this. https://wordpress.org/plugins/gnu-terry-pratchett/

Ok ... this is where you get a person with legal credentials to deal with it because of the following 1) Any 3rd party who may have the same permission / ability to process your data as that held by your schools staff need to be treated as if they are *at least* school staff, and have a corresponding contract. 2) Their data protection obligations *have* to be, at least, as high as yours when it comes to processing data. It may be that it has to be higher (i.e. they take even more technical or organisational controls to cover this than you do.) 3) Any contract where you are giving a company access to your systems (which means they have access to your data) *has* to have a section about data processing and data protection. 4) If an external party is a sub-contractor (which they effectively are) then you are sharing data with an outside source and this should be included in your Privacy Notice (the replacement for the Fair Processing Notice). At this point, go and talk to your LA legal and finance teams who will help you out with this. If you are no longer part of an LA (or never where) then you need to go to whoever your school gets legal and contractual advice from. The above points should be a starting point for questions you want to ask the company involved. If you *really* want to have a think about it ... go and have a look at how things like this are dealt with in your MIS contract ... it is usually covered *extremely* well ... and should give you an idea about how complex and legal it can be.

I went into DW MUD for the first time in a while at the weekend. It is a sad place in there at the moment. I haven't ventured into IRC yet ... just chatting with AFP friends via email and FaceBook instead. Just been digging out photos from CCDE as well. From lspace.org

Yep, Hattie's stuff is very interesting and intriguing. The best summary of what it means though I think is from Tom Sherrington. Homework: What does the Hattie research actually say? | headguruteacher Basically, it can make a difference, but it depends on what is set, how well structured it is and how well supported it is. Homework set poorly and too open ended is a bad thing, homework that repeats what has been learnt but done under the sight and support of parents is a good thing.

Some of the homework schools give out to Years R and 1 are also things to help parents get into the rhythm of helping their children with schoolwork. This will be around reading, formation of letter, phonics, etc ... it is to also help the parents understand about the education their child is getting. And the worst people in the world for teachers to deal with are others in the education system!

Strongly disagree with this. Whilst there are exceptions, the research shows that how well you learn at school sets you up for the rest of your life. Whilst there are countless opportunities to learn, they are not always accessible to everyone. Struggle to read when a child and that will set you back for the rest of your life. As much as many of us hark back to when we could go off with a few friends and catch a bus to the countryside, play all day with no adult supervision and creep back home as the sun was setting ... that doesn't exist now, if it ever really did! Schools have their curriculum heavily squeezed and so have to offer a lot of activities outside of the normal school day. This is also related to how some of the activities are funded and controlled. It is not the fault of the schools, but yes, I agree that they should consider this and adapt homework policies around it.

As pointed out, it is expected and when it is done it can make all the difference to the learning that goes on in school. If people also consider the Flipped Learning model as well ... where a lot of self-study occurs outside of the classroom, then this is effectively homework ... but it is not measured in essays written, questions answered in an exercise book, but by the teacher discovering who has done the prep work for the next lesson. Prep is something that those from a certain set of schools will understand as well. My problem with how homework is done is the lack of understanding that some schools have that the school day does not finish at 3-3.30 for some pupils / students ... after school clubs run by the school are not thing (often finishing around 4.30 from looking at how local primary schools are running atm), activities such as Rainbows / Beavers / St John Ambulance / Young Men's Reformed Cultist of the Ichor God Bel-Shamharoth Association, or in school-based childcare until early evening ... who may not do homework sessions ... and that is not uncommon for some working families. This gives very limited time to do the homework, so you get things mounting up for the weekend and that hits family time too ... and is too much to do in one or two blocks. Some schools get this and structure it better ... others don''t or they put unfair expectations on families.

Have you tried the moodle.org forums? Remember this being discussed not tool long ago (may have been by Mary Cooch actually) as it was linked with OpenBadges too.

Have a chat with Stuart Ball, he might be able to put you in touch with the right folk.

Just spotted the bit about ESPO. Simple bit of investigation. AdEPT sit on a single supplier framework within ESPO. ESPO - 7 - Telephony - call charging, line rental, broadband The scope of the framework appears to be for lines, connectivity and voice services only as it does not mention any other services. Case Studies | Telecom Framework really talks up what they have done for large scale aggregation of costs at LA and regional level. AdEPT are a member of PSNGB AdEPT Telecom | PSNGB and their Chief Exec has spoken at PSN events Public Services Network Summit 2014 This sort of says to me that they can do the data and voice, and integrate it securely ... but I haven't seen anything specific for an individual school in anything they have on their site. They sit on the JANET Framework agreement Education - Voice and Data Networks from AdEPT Telecom | Education - Voice and Data Networks , but Universities are not schools. Send the Broadband and Services doc over to them with your requirements marked up and see what they offer? If it means that you have to do your own DNS, domain registrations, Mail services, Mail filtering, Web hosting, firewall, filtering and so on ... then these can be costed up so you get a like for like comparison with others out on the market. Even though they sit on frameworks, the school should still do mini-competition against others on the same or similar frameworks. Best Value does not mean cheapest.

If you are looking at a broadband and services provider then the following document may be of use. A few years old now (and open for an update I suppose) but should still be helpful when talking to the school leaders about matching requirements for the school to what a supplier can provide. http://www.goddardpark.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Schools-Broadband-connectivity-and-servicesv1-0.pdf No idea how it ended up on a website for a Swindon school though ... maybe one of the members here? A number of schools have used this document well, as both Dave and Mark can attest.

Replacement programs should be based on both warranty and on projected improvements. I still chat to folk who had top of the range networks 10 years ago but are now struggling because there is no investment to improve the capacity or technology.

Probably the best folk to speak with are Wildern School in Hants. Can't remember Tim's EduGeek name though :-(

You need to base it on realistic expectations of the support you will provide. Look at the systems the schools have, and chat with the SLT in each school to see what the want to have in the future too. Analyse it on the basis of the following. The hourly rate of your staff will already have certain costs built into it, so check with your school what you will and won't be passing on to the new schools. Presuming that a rigorous and agreed maintenance regime is in place to allow for proactive work then assume a ratio of 60:40 proactive to reactive/requested work. How many hours will the proactive work take on a monthly basis? (work it out over a month as salaries, etc will be monthly and a number of proactive jobs will only be done on a monthly rota). You may want to band some of the work so that lower level items is completed by more junior staff, but more complex work (requiring more skills, experience, education know-how, etc) will obviously cost more. Add the relevant percentage of reactive/requested work you then have the total number of hours it will take to look after things (the ration is a finger int eh air job ... and you may find that your own school has a different ratio. It is usually different between primary and secondary as well. Use of support desk stats will help you in this) Then look at whether this requires on site staff to do the work and how much can be done remotely. Add in a percentage to contribute towards CPD for staff, any expected travel costs (never a good idea to try to add on travel claims) and any other on costs the school will incur (insurance, support infrastructure, etc). Once you have done this you may end up with a figure that is out of their reach and so the school might decide to lower the cost to get the business ... often as part of looking to pick up schools into multi-academy trusts. If you need to, separately cost big items of work. If you are going to move the schools over to a network based around SCCM because it will save more work further down the line then break it down for them so they can see the cost before and after moving to a more efficient method of managing things. Also consider giving them a price list for set items, such as room builds, hands-on support during INSET, etc. Things you should *never* itemise though will include preparing workstation images, documentation, patching, etc. If you give people the opportunity to choose whether or not to buy the 'proactive' areas then they *will* cut corners. You also need to consider whether there are existing staff in place and whether you are expected to take them on / manage them. A few things (not a complete list) to consider as you look at this.

There is a certain amount of crossover on this with the IMLS framework, which also already covers these areas for where systems are hosted (private cloud). The IMLS framework runs until 2016 so there will be some suppliers who do not move onto the DfE list for some time, but other suppliers will be adding their response in due course.

Game pre-owned is a good option for this too ... found a few add-ons for it dirt cheap recently (6 months ago)

I've been overweight since I was 20 and became obese once I joined the army (before injuring my knee and having done numerous 10Ks). I am in the interesting position of knowing I am going to get a hammering on my health when we go to the adoption panel as I am now seriously overweight, and the agency doctor who has reviewed our records (not actually checked us, spoken to us or spoken to our doctors / specialists) is pushing for us to commit to being 'normal' weight' (knowing the particular medical agency used they have a standard 'one year' statement for things like this). So, I could be told that I need to lose 5 stone in a year ... lose up to 10% muscle mass and get down to 7-10% body fat ... all of which will be unhealthy for me and liable to have a serious rebound effect. BMI fails to take into account so many things ... and being skinny is not always healthy either. At Uni I moved up a fighting weight (up to under 71 Kilos) so I could put on some more muscle, but I was still 5-6% body fat (measured through hydrostatic weighing so extremely accurate) and this was no a good thing. Once I go up to a healthy 12% I was fitter, stronger and not as frequently ill.

BMI!!!! AAARRGGHHHHHHH!!!!! One of the stupidest measures out there. Better to measure waist, limbs, neck and chest instead and do it that way.

This thread is an interesting one and a lot of the points raised so far have merit, and @Ephelyon has covered a lot of historic conversations about the risk of BYOD. As investigations are also still going on it is hard to make cast iron statements about what did or didn't go wrong. A few things to cover though ... 1 - these devices were provided by the school so there is a responsibility even when the devices are outside of school. This has been core to some lengthy discussions between a number of esafety and legal folk, so please take it as fact rather than spending a lot of effort arguing about it. 2 - there are lots of technical options for heavy lockdown and I already know of two MDM providers who will be using this as an example whilst at BETT, including how you can keep control when outside of school. The issue is that for each element you lock down you lose engagement with the students. We cannot collectively comment on this school, but many of us know that the view of a number of schools (even after legal advice) is that they will take a risk on it as there is good research showing that where children take ownership of risk that learn to handle it better and take less risks as a result. 3 - different children will take risks in a different way, and it varies from school to school. Some area will be constant but the approach in a school with a large number of noted issues on risk affecting health and education will differ from another school where there are few and limited cases. One example used is whether you give certain classes access to craft knives due to certain children being a risk of causing damage to equipment or injury to others. One size does not fit all. 4 - the child is a victim, even if they have also broken rules. It is possible to be both. 5 - no matter if you have mobile devices, BYOD or just desktops, are we sure that everyone who has responded to this thread has a fully documented risk assessment of their own systems and have recommendations etc that have been followed, risks reduced or documented where accepted (with a name against who accepted it)? I know some of you have ... but has everyone? I know mine was never fully written down in the end but we had a good amount of it covered. I would definitely do it differently now. Do I think that there is a perfect answer for all this? No ... And any supplier or consultant who says they have the perfect solution for your school when they haven't discussed your school's needs ... well I would steer clear of them. Do I think that locking down everything g would solve things? No ... it would just make a different set of problems. Most school become risk adverse to protect the school rather than protect the child. That is the difference that a lot of folk forget. If folk want to contribute to a discussion about how a school could look at options to do things more safely, but still keep flexibility, then I think that would be the best thing to do next. @localzuk has already provided a large number of good comments and options. Shall we go from there?

A quick interjection ... when people say 'cloud' they usually just mean Office365 or Google Apps for Education. These are public cloud. There is also the option of private cloud too, which many folk have had for years in different forms, from LAs, RBCs, other schools, etc. Would I stick everything in the cloud? Not the public cloud ... IL2 and below only. Private cloud? Yes ... up to IL5 in fact (and have done and had it as part of a Cabinet Office project!)

I will be at the Ibis just up the road (Commercial St) so not too far away :-)

Tony Sheppard will be there all week on Stand F346 with Learning Possibilities GrumbleDook will be there in limited faceprint glory on Friday. TeachMeet on Friday evening too!

Friday afternoon catch up with folk from Naace?

ooohhh ... be careful ... you well get folk doing silly things like trying to wear every EG Lanyard they have ever picked up ... :-) I will turn up to one of the evening drinks in my original white t-shirts though.