kxv2020

The LA have started an expression of interest for our school - although it is not failing and glowing fantastic OfSTED report proves that - we need a new building and therefore the LA have decided we should be an academy. Most staff are opposed, but apparently there is a drive towards ICT with lots of money; still opposed as I won't be employed by the LA. But it's not even set in stone yet!

I will have a look at coppermine ... looks good But... I think i might not off explained myself; the kids fill in details about stuff in categories... with a paragraph of text e.g. Interests & Hobbies, Most Mememborable Moments, Ambitions, etc... That gets merged together with their picture. We then Merge into Word and send it to a professional printers. Have a great Christmas!!

Some dummy shots / quick reference guides are great!! New Year is fine thanks. @Kyle we're in cov

Hi Last year, I embarked on a small project for Sixth Form Leavers and produced an Access database [flat file] and front end in Delphi. That all worked really well and we mail merge all the data in a nice big word document which created a Year Book! However the program was only avaliable in school as we don't have remote desktop. And the database was flat file as I you can't seem to do Relational Mail Merge in Word... [but SIMS.net does some how!!!??] My question is... is there a simple but good way to create a database on the web, maybe use PHP, [not sure] and extract the data and mail merge into Word. It would be nice to mail merge relational data as Sims does. Thanks

Has anybody got any screenshots [blurring names, obviously] or user guides of PARS and or Eportal CMIS as I am just interested what its like and their both not giving anything away on their site. We're currently using SIMS Lesson Register and are quite happy but just wanted to see the alternative Web based solutions. Previously we had Bromcom [need I say anymore ]. Thanks.

Thanks very much!!! My assumptions about the 2600 were right - it seems that most people are happy - plus the fact that HP's are quite good printers anyway!! Thats that one on my list then!!

Hello We need a new colour laser for the office - and am not sure which one to get. I always buy HP for printers, because they are reliable and the consumables are ok too – I’ve been looking at the HP ColourJet 2600n. But looking around there seems to be some good Dell ones and the Samsung ones have built in duplex too, which is an added bonus !!! Has anybody tried the HP 2600n, or any Samsung ones? I have seen the Dell printers in action at a partner school but their print quality for black seems to be bit strange [like blotchy and heavily embossed type – really difficult to explain !!] compared to that of HP. Thanks Kiran

We have now invested in mini Netgear USB Print Server's which are quite good!!! I don't know what experiences other people have had of these, but they work fine although they need a power supply.

Thank you!!! You're a Star !!!

Has anyone got a copy of the RM blue star background which they are willing to upload that comes default with RM CC3? Many thanks

Most teachers use the IWB really well - especially in Maths, Science, and ICT where we have embedded clips and graphs simulations which students can alter, change due to variable changing. Most staff do use the IWB more and more; even the older ones - which is good. I try to motivate the older staff and encourage them to use it by providing 1 to 1 training and sometimes that does the trick!!

We have external hard drives which backup: Currently I have set up each a 2 shared drives: -StudentResources -StaffResources Each has each subject/faculty that I have created and then its subdivided into KS3 and KS4 - and further subdivided into Academic Years and then year groups. So typically a student poetry resoruce for this year's yr7 would be: O:\Communications\English\KS3\05-06\Year7\Poetry.doc I know that it is long but its organised and not getting in mess like the old one. The same convention follows for StaffResources but these files cannot be seen by students. We also use access based enumeration therefore students can't see files which are not accessible to them!!

@Webman Can I have the version that I can download like the website says? would that be possible Cheers Kiran

We have a kind of system like yours - basically all the Senior Leaders (about 8 staff) have all the school documents [sEF, minutes, memos]mapped to a drive that has permissions for full access on it for all 8 senior leaders. There is a sutiable file structure in place and it follows the convention: 1. The name of category - E.g. School Evaluation Form / Staff Handbook/etc. 2. Within this their are subdirectories of academic years e.g 06-07 We have found having "Previous Versions" Volume Shadowing Service enabled on the share which has proved to be a great benefit. Staff themselves can go back to previous copies that they may worked on yesterday or the day before. This system has worked generally well - we haven't yet had folders/files being renamed on this drive - its the one that's accessible to all curriculum teachers that things go missing and get renamed.

We also have Dell Latitude D520 with 3yrs Warranty! There working with no problems!!

Have been thinking about this for a while and the solution has come to me for schools usings SIMS. Schools can create a tutor group based templates with aspects for appointment times in SIMS Assessment Manager for each tutor/teacher. Therefore each tutor/teacher makes individual appoinments with each student and they are centrally avaliable to both teaching staff [as each member of staff has access to AM/SIMS through their own laptop as we use Lesson Register for eReg; Profiles for Reports (1 year trial) and AM for termly tracking]. Changes by parents to appointments would be made by ringing the Admin Asst directly who has access to all templates on Assessment Manager. Appointment cards/letters can easily be created using AM's individual report functionaility in reporting else SIMS.net can import AM info as well. Haven't tried it but seems a good idea which popped into my head!

I have found that using a Redirected Start Menu's - with Outlook Target set to import a PRF it works fine without roaming profiles : eg. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\OUTLOOK.EXE" /importprf \\server\sharedfolder\prf.prf PRF's are easily made and if you would like my copy I happy to post it.

We use Lesson Register & lesson Monitor for e-Registration - replacing bromcom. We trialled Profiles for report writing mainly due to the fact that teachers could ONLY USE comment banks, but were using a reporting package called AIM High , which was very good and most teachers liked it due to the fact that it was free text but the ability of comment banks was there. Now SLG don't won't free text reports - as there are far to many errors [thats what they say]!!

We've used SIMS.net and its great... yes we do have the odd hiccup now and again but it works well. Sometimes it can be slow over the wireless network but on the whole it’s ok. We have just moved from Bromcom to Lesson Monitor for Lesson by Lesson eRegistration - and that seems to work ok generally although the Reports some of the reports that can be produced are not as good as they should. We will be moving the .net version of Lesson Register as this seems far better with the addition of comments and behaviour tracking etc. We've been using Assessment Manager 6 with a separate system for Annual Reports for a few years now and that is very good, but we got the clerical assistant to enter the assessment data - however now that teachers have their own laptops we've moved to the staff actually doing it themselves. We used a SIMS.net partner reporting package to do annual reports for years but suddenly SLT wanted to use Profiles 6 to restrict staff in writing individual comments as the "Reporting Checking" process was taking too long for the AHT in charge and many mistakes were in the staff reports. Profiles 6 is bit rubbish but the new Profiles 7 is far better. Hope this helps.

Hi I finally got round to exporting the report - please bear in mind to remove logo's etc, and change the year filters [as its currently only set to 12/13/14]. Thanks Kiran 16__pass_year_12__blue_strip_.zip

I would start from the very beginning with a new OU - and sub OU. So my structure for Group Policy is: Domains: +Default Domain Policy +School Name ==Internet GPO ==FolderRedirectionGPO ++StaffOU ===StaffLoginGPO ===StaffLockDownGPO +++English Faculty +++Maths ...etc ++StudentsOU ===StudentLockDownGPO +++Intake2006 ===Intake2006LoginGPO ++Community ===StudentLockDownGPO +++AdultEd ===AdultEdGPO ++Workstations +++Room Name N3C +++Room name... etc..

@Ueline: I not in the office until Wenesday ... But can export the rtf for you then. Hope thats ok. Another thing that I've used is that you get ready made ID card Labels I think from Avery [but haven't seen them for a while] with Self Seal laminate on the paper, you print them and seal; these have the added bonus off not needing to cut the paper out and place in my laminate pouch seperatley, but i haven't seen many around. Kiran

We are about to buy Wireless Access Points for our laptop trolley's for the Science Faculty and Art & Design Faculty. We are considering Netgear WG102 ProSafe??!! Just wanted to know what other schools are using and any recommendations. Thanks Kiran

Hello We use a very polished .rtf report which pulls the photograph and other basic details from SIMS into Word [Name, Tutor Group, Year Group, DOB]. We then use those and stick them into Sealable Credit Card Style self seal Laminate cards and we've done Pass Outs. Works well, looks professional and is cheap!!! Good Luck

I think that it is really important that staff are involved from the start - they are a key stakeholder. I would make it clear that ICT is there to support teaching and learning and therefore is essential for the curriculum especially with ICTAC strategies becoming common place. Ofcourse SLG need to support you so that all staff can see the bigger picture.