Chris_Cook

Its a little bit unfair to say parent pay hasn't changed - they made it more difficult to make a payment for lunch a few years back.

We also use Chrome OS, Google slides and Chrome Sign Builder. Sign Builder is a bit of work to get your head round, but you should only have to do it once. Once the slides are setup, you can just share it with the staff responsible and they crack on with it. Pretty all the updates are done through slides. - - - Updated - - - We also use Chrome OS, Google slides and Chrome Sign Builder. Sign Builder is a bit of work to get your head round, but you should only have to do it once. Once the slides are setup, you can just share it with the staff responsible and they crack on with it. Pretty all the updates are done through slides.

As with others, slowly moving as many as possible to ChromeOS/Neverware. We'll deal with specialist software when it becomes an issue. We are in the process of tendering for/moving to a cloud MIS, so that will reduce the need for Windows by quite a bit. I'm not sure at this stage much of our specialist software or PCs will support 11.

It can be great for replacing general use IT rooms, but you will probably still need specialist rooms for a while yet. Things like music, DT, Media, IT may still require windows/mac. There are options on the horizon, but some teachers are reluctant to change if all their experience is in 1 program. There are things like Bandlab for music, sketchup for DR, some cloud based tools for coding including Google Apps script. There are only a couple of Adobe apps that work on chrome, and I think they are more basic versions at this point in time. Its important to choose good quality devices - same as windows. We've gone for Lenovo 300e's with hard cases this year, and that seems to have helped with broken screens and wear and tear issues. But we've still had 3 broken screens since September. Robustness of the keyboard and case is critical. It looks like a lot of recent CBs have pick resistant keys on them where there are little tabs that click under the case. Insurance is an issue - If your students aren't able to take care of a CB, then you need to make sure you insurance will cover you. One of our insurers has started charging a £50 excess on claims. Not all students are going to understand how to look after it, so will require training and guidance. Storage at break/lunch times is also important. Kids need somewhere to store the laptops that is convenient. Some of ours end up on the football field and basket ball courts, or the kids end up in fights. Few laptops are going to survive a basket ball landing on them from a great height, or a drink getting spilled in a bag. Or torrential rain if the bag isn't water proof. You need to factor in time for managing repairs, forgotten chromebooks, and other issues. Spare's are in short supply at the moment, and this is causing us headaches for some makes and models. This year, we've built up a pot of money for repairs, rather than getting insurance. We can then make the choice of outsourcing repairs, doing them in-house, or just replacing the device if its not economical. E-safety and cyber bullying are other issues. Parents differ greatly in what they expect if they have to pay for the device. Some want it completely locked down, some want no restrictions. On the positive side, it seams popular with staff, and we've saved a boat-load in printing costs from not doing worksheets etc. It was also very noticeable during lockdown. In one school we only had to look after years 10-13 when issuing CBs for families without. I was personally very surprised at how many familys only had 1 device between them. The other secondary, we had to do a fair bit more work, as we hadn't planned on implementing 1-2-1 devices until the following year. We were an office 365 school about 4-5 years ago, but uptake was slow and painful. Staff were reluctant to use it. Moving to google apps has been a great change. Once staff are show how easy it is and how they can collaborate and share work they tend to just get on with it without pushing.

I'm not a fan of Biometrics for school canteens as its much slower. Plus we were also spending a fortune replacing all our fingerprint readers every year due to damage. Re-issuing tags is a pain though - I'll give you that. One other option is to use rfid fobs that can go on your keys (or labels to go in a diary). But lets face it - some students would lose the tag even if we injected it into them like you do with pets. We've also registered Oyster cards in the past. There's some more incentive there to not lose it. But that can be difficult to explain to some parents/students that its the same card, but a different account you have to pay into.

Fridges and freezers are departments/canteens problem. They should stay cold if kept closed for a good few hours. Department procedures should be in place to monitor anything critical in them. Alarms should be battery backed and should be checked by the support company. These should last hours. Doors are the same. These can be tested by disconnecting the power and timing how long they last (Net2 logs should help, and email monitoring can be set up). We found Dell servers started up much quicker than our old HP ones. and we moved away from a san as it often caused more problems than it ever solved. Especially once you have 10G networking between hosts + SSDs. Our VMs still took most of the day to do the windows updates. Once things are back up and running, we do an all staff email to say reboot your PC and it will work fully. It does help having most staff + students using google docs etc as it minimizes what they need from the onsite servers - pretty much just DHCP, DNS, routing.

We had a 2 hour powercut the other week. It affected 6 schools locally, plus the ones in the MAT that we host servers for. So far, what we have planned is moving to cloud-hosted mis, hosted voip phones etc and then mobiles/chromebooks/laptops with 4g dongles for key staff. Obviously having UPSs with auto shutdown configured, but these are going to last 10-30 mins at most. Other than that, people got on with it and used pen and paper. the power was back on for lunch, and the tills and sign in systems worked in offline mode until the servers were back up. Hopefully when one of our schools gets rebuilt, then we will have more centralised network cabs that are easier to cover with UPSs to keep the infrastructure running a bit longer. with fewer servers on site, I'm hoping the UPS runtime will be longer due to less current draw. Without a generator, there is only so long that a UPS will last, and owning a generator adds another maintenance task (replacing fuel, oil, testing it, testing the changeover switch etc). Its also important to test, and de-brief after these incidents so that issues are resolved. We found some emergency lights not working, so that got fixed pretty quick. Our servers took an age to come back on because of windows updates. That still needs sorting. If there is a plan, there is a lot that can be done to keep a school open without power.

We've been using LiveRegister for a few years now. No complaints, the system works very well. We've not had to use the support much, but they are always helpful. We got our own touchscreen PCs from VeryPC due to bad experiences with another cashless catering supplier who shall rename nameless. We use Mifare cards now instead of fingerprints. Its much faster and more hygienic.

If you have the photos on sims, then salamander can sync them.

We use the Magicard Enduro 3e which works well. I think the Magicard 300 is the current version of that.

I'd recommend Net2 as well, and then Salamander for the Sync. If you have the card ID in AD in the right format, then they may well be able to sync that as well. I think there is a free version of net2 that you might be able to setup earlier

Do you know what desk you are getting and where the connections need to be? Many digital desks run over cat5e, so you might be able to get a data cabling company to do the run if you know what you need. Otherwise, most AV installers should be able to help. We've worked with STLS before.

sorry, I wasn't thinking straight. Your right on the subnets. You could use those numbers as you VLAN ids instead, but your original way is probably the clearest. As long as you leave clear documentation and label the VLANs on your switches, then the numbers aren't too critical.

Doesn't make a difference from a performance point of view. Its worth keeping things as logical as possible if you are doing lots of vlans. The only issue might be if your ISP has given you a block of IP addresses to use. Then you would need to stick within that or request more. Edit: Just saw you said /22. so removed a suggestion

Do you know what sort of hdmi cable was installed? Was it active or fibre, or just a plain cable? 10m is the limit on hdmi if I remember right, unless you use an active cable of some sort. Its possible some devices don't output as high a signal level as others. We used to get this with some of our really long vga installs. CPC do some fibre hdmi cables at reasonable prices. I was surprised at how easily they went in. This is the 10m, they go up to 50m https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-signal/psg3328-hdmi-10m/hdmi-active-fibre-optical-lead/dp/AV28912

The Flashforge printers are pretty good, and not too expensive. There's a good range between basic and more expensive models. Our DT dept has several Finders and a Creator Pro. It seems like they are less faff that the prusa/ender ones, if you want to just focus on printing. If you want something to fiddle with and upgrade, then the ender might be quite a good one.

I certainly wouldn't say its a bad thing or that it doesn't have its place, but I'm not sure its really necessary for a school. It does depend on how you weigh up cost and complexity vs reliability and performance. Personally, I'd rather keep things simple and have centralised management like Unifi. A non-stacked setup can still be extremely reliable provided its installed and cabled properly, and using quality equipment and cables. Maybe in a newer building with larger, more centralised racks it would be different. At the risk of causing another argument, I'd also look at how many unused ports you have patched in, and whether you need that many live switch ports to support your devices.

have you got the sub-netmask set correctly on your 3cx server and DHCP scope? I'm running that firmware on my desk phone and it works.

Is this a new or old setup? First option I would try is to factory reset the handset by holding down the 'Ok' button, then following the prompt on screen. We had a couple of phones that went funny when they had done a recent update. Another thing that's worked for me when I've had similar issues is to delete and re-add the extension on 3cx. Obviously, make a note of all the settings for the extension. There might also be some settings in 3cx to configure vlans on the handsets themselves. I'd also check if you have any dhcp options that depend on the mac address in order to configure the phone. It might be that one batch of handsets has a different OUI in the mac address.

It sounds like wide band interference, so probably not a lot you can do other than getting licenced ones. However there are a few things you can try. When do you get the noise? Is it when someone is talking into the mic, when the transmitters are on, or when the transmitters are off? Firstly on Sennheisers, you should have both mics on the same bank to avoid Intermodulation interference. One of yours is on the user-specified bank (u.1). Try changing that to 1.2, or 1.3 or something starting with a 1.* I'd avoid the U bank unless you absolutely need it as its not guaranteed to be free from interference. If there are any other radio mics in the near area, you might need to co-ordinate with them on channels They all need to be on the same bank, but different channels - which can be tricky if they aren't from the same manufacturer. Shure and Sennheiser publish the frequencies they use for each channel. There should be a 'squelch' setting on the receiver. Turning this up a notch or 2 may well sort this issue out. The receiver should mute its audio output when it doesn't get a signal. This model doesn't check if its a valid signal or interference, so a burst of RF energy can cause the issue you describe. If you turn the squelch up too high, then the audio might cut out. I wouldn't go much above 25-50% unless you get good signal from the transmitters. You might also be able to relocate the receiver if its near any lighting kit, electric motors or other noisy equipment. Edit: I'd also check the batteries if you've not done it already. You can get weird issues when the batteries start getting low. The battery meter probably isn't that accurate, So I'd always put new batteries in when using them for an event. Remember rechargeable batteries have a lower voltage which can affect things. There should be a gain setting on the mic. If you get the burst of noise when someone loud gets too close to the mic, turning this down might help with that. You would need to adjust the gain on your sound desk to compensate. If I remember rightly, the handhelds you have to remove the capsule to get to the switch, and the belt packs is under the flap or in the menu. I think this is an older model, so its also possible that the mics or wires are damaged. This can especially be the case for lapel/headset mics. In this case, you might be able to replace just the mic, rather than the whole thing. You can test that by gently shaking the mic and seeing if you get the noise. The cables between the receiver and the sound desk or the sound desk and the amp could also cause issues if they can be disturbed. You can also hire radio mics if you want to try different bands. We use a company called Radio Facilities in West London. Most AV companies should have a set for hire though, and may be able to give local advice.

I found the old twist-and-tape method in a couple of our maths classrooms after they re-did the ceiling recently. It had been working fine for at least the last decade! My dad has told me of a school he worked in where someone was paid to put a new cable across/under a car park. Eventually they found a join below a manhole cover. They had used a reef knot. Apparently, they didn't understand about connecting the copper bits. Luckily our electricians are good at data.

What's the total length of cable? Are there any high current/noise devices near it (lift motors/fluorescent lights etc)? Whilst not ideal, you should be able to get a 1Gb connection with a junction box and crossing mains wires. If the mains cables are single insulated, then keeping them separate is more critical, as the trunking/divider is part of the insulation. But that looks like twin and earth. You could try better joiners if re-running the cable is not an option. I'd avoid putting plugs on solid core cable, unless you have plugs for solid core. You can probably tape a new cat5 cable on the end of the old one, and pull it through. It just won't pull round corners, so you would have to do a bit at a time. I'd also double check the patch cables at each end, and try a different PC. Its possible one of those is bad. If its recent work, then like you say its best to hand it back and say try again.

We've been with Live Register for a few years now. No real problems and very helpful. We used to be with Vericool. No end of problems with the older software + finger print readers. Now we use Mifare cards/fobs and its much quicker.

PSA parts have been good for us: https://www.psaparts.co.uk/laptop-screen.html

We use these: https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-signal/psg3279/hdmi-faceplate-module-200mm-flylead/dp/AV28758 You need a double back box to fit the pigtail/flylead, but you can get 2 hdmi and a network port in 1 box (just). Its a bit tight but cheap, and easy to replace in case of issues. The module also has a bit of give in it which helps protect against damage. Fully agree on the need to terminate HDMI on a panel. replacing long installed hdmi cables can be a pain, especially if its a long fibre or active one. We used these in our drama studio the other week and they worked brilliantly, even with the faceplate and a good length hdmi cable on both ends. https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-signal/psg3332-hdmi-30m/hdmi-active-fibre-optical-lead/dp/AV28916 As for them getting snapped off, positioning the port can do a lot for protection. I go for above desk height and near/behind the teachers desk. If they are low or where people will walk into them they get a lot more damage.