Chris_Cook

Theres some great ideas above. I think having a checklist, risk assessment and/or policy is key going forward. All our software and systems need to be built and tested by competent persons (someone with training, skills and experience). We need to ensure we have taken all reasonable steps to ensure safety of end users from data release and system compromise. We should be aiming for best practice, rather than good enough, and also testing/verifying rather than just assuming or thinking that all hackers are limited by our knowledge or levels of patience/available time. You wouldn't let someone untrained fix the plumbing, electrics or gas boilers using AI. I'd argue they are all much simpler that coding an app, especially if its not using a no-code solution. At the end of the day, its not AI who's going to get sued, or have to defend themselves to lawyers, judges and the press. You should have the backing of the head, the governors and the schools insurers. You should probably also consult lawyers and cyber security/GDPR experts for advice. We should also make sure as schools that we aren't re-inventing the wheel and wasting tax payers money when pre-built solutions exist. Obviously bespoke software can be amazing when customised to the organisations needs, but the cost of ensuring the above best practice probably outweighs the cost of buying something in.

I should have said parent funded, therefor some parents think they know best. They are indeed filtered more or less the same as at school, but somethings are allowed if they are just blocked in school to keep kids on task. We direct parents to their ISP if they want stricter filtering at home as other devices are likely in use that would bypass our filtering.

Apparently our 11" chromebooks are too heavy for Year 9. Year 7 seem ok with it though... And the breakages we've seen. We laughed quite hard at the "My dog ate my chromebook charger" until the student got it out of his bag. 2 incidents of chromebooks being left on cookers. Several half chromebooks found on the field. Screen breakages are daily if not hourly. Water damage is common when it rains, as is damage on the football field and basketball courts at break time. I love chromebooks, but they are seen as a free option so don't get looked after. Mind you laptops don't get looked after either. Parents want various different things for web filtering at home. Some no access, some full access.

I've still found switches behind desks after 10 years of working in a school. Looking up Mac addresses on switches can be quite useful in tracing this sort of thing back. Unifi do a similar switch that can do vlans and be centrally managed. I still don't like having them hidden though.

The colour coding is global, but I think you have to switch between speed and VLan per switch, but it does remember it. I've left ours on VLan.

Joking aside, its probably worth searching AD for accounts with the description field set, or enabling the column in AD users + Computers. I did spot this on some of our user accounts by chance. It seemed to have been added by an automated account creation system that I know other schools on here use. I won't name names. Its certainly something I would never have done, and was too many for them to be done one by one. I'm assuming it was done for diagnostic purposes and then never turned off.

We used to use MRBS, and before that an excel spreadsheet/google sheet.

We've had 3, 1 failure, another took a lot of faffing to get the lock to fit and work correctly. I wouldn't recommend them for student areas, office only in a school. They do mention somewhere that they aren't intended for high traffic doors. The oldest one (installed during covid) is still going strong and is on one of our IT rooms. The 2 with issues were on staff toilets that the kids wanted to get into.

I'm in the process of setting these up. I've not got the site manager to work yet. I think that's getting blocked by the web filter and/or a firewall rule. Installing apps such as protect is also blocked by default on the web filter, but can be unblocked. As its a router/gateway, you will need to setup a stub network with LGFL for the outbound interface. It won't let you have the public interface on the same subnet as used internally. If you can't do that, or can't do that yet, it can work as a console for Unifi switches/Wi-Fi if you connect one of the internal interfaces to the LGFL router. You will also want to turn off NAT or else everything on schoolprotect will show as coming from the same IP with the same policy.

We had something done at home with a stud wall. A builder cut a horizontal slot in the plaster board on one side - about 1 foot high by the width of the wall. This was enough to feed fibreglass insulation into the wall. Not perfect, but cut down a lot of noise. The plaster board can then be put back after and plastered / painted. That might be less disruptive than removing the whole side of the wall. Another thing to check is that the stud wall goes all the way up beyond the false ceiling. If there is a gap above that might let sound through. Also make sure the draft strip is in place on all the doors.

One way to do it, assuming you have patchable dimmers, is to have a hard power distribution box next to the dimmers so you can send normal mains power up to the lighting bar. This could be as simple as a bunch of 15 amp sockets and a small fuse board if that's the plugs you use. Some used Wieland, American or GST connectors. You can get adaptor cables for these to plug into normal UK sockets. You could also get normal mains sockets installed next to the bars, as the patch option has the risk that someone plugs an led light into a dimmer by accident. Alternately if you get the bars wired for mains, then you can get single and 4 channel dimmers that can be hung on the bar next to the light and controlled by DMX. You would then need a way to get DMX signal up to the lights. If its a recent rig from the last 20 years, you should have this, otherwise Cat5/6 from the control or dimmer position up to the rig would be best. Ethercon connecters are more robust for this application, and backwards compatible with normal rj45. and cat5 to DMX adaptors are available. Wireless DMX is also an option, but not something I'd recommend for a permanent install. The problem is that stage dimmers turn the power off and on again 100 times a second. If the light has transformers in it, then this sends a back-emf pulse back down to the triac (solid state relay) in the dimmer and this can get overloaded. The power also isn't smooth enough for a lot of digital circuits. You could/would end up blowing the dimmer channel and the light. I think the Betapack4 has hard power on some of the sockets, and some dimmers have a rating for transformer loads, but this is normally much less than the normal rating and I still wouldn't want to run digital stuff from that. You might also need to check with your PAT testers as some might not be too keen on the 15 amp plugs not having fuses in them. Edit: I misread the original and thought you wanted to plug DMX controlled LED fixtures in, not just put LED lamps in old fixtures. Some manufactures like ETC do make an LED conversion module, but this is almost the cost of a new light.

You could maybe look at Edulink as a part way option. Really I'd suggest a move to a more modern MIS though. Its worth the pain.

There are 2 different sizes of BNC - 50 Ohm and 75 ohm. The pin size is slightly bigger on one of them. The outer is the same. 50 ohm is more for test equipment and networking 75 ohm is for video and cctv. I've never had much luck making up BNC ends.

I think if you are using a Unifi gateway, that's not a big issue. I think that VL4040 is for if you use the switches themselves for L3 routing and trunk through to a non-unifi gateway. The documentation on that isn't very clear I find. You would be dependant on your ISP forwarding on the traffic to your gateway and letting you route it on your gateway however. I think this is going to vary a lot by ISP/MSP. I've not fully transitioned to our EFG yet, so I'm not an expert. The vlans we have got routing don't use VL4040.

It really boils down to: 1. What are they doing with your data? 2. Have they had an independent cyber security audit for code and systems? 3. Has it been designed and built with someone with the required knowledge, experience and training in this area? 4. Do you trust what they have said about 1 - 3 Extensions have lots of access to your browser. Would you feel comfortable if the developer was watching over your shoulder whilst your doing you work?