Ditto

Reminds me of the time a trainee teacher brought a bent MS Surface in. It had a perfectly matched, double bend profile of being sat on

Impressive, and the fact the teacher gets it back still showing signs of the *little* bump; priceless! One other thing I have to ask, in the first photo, in the background, why the need for IBM formatted floppy disks I mean, it looks as though it is still shrink-wrapped!

Absolutely not buying. Mrs. Ditto has an iPhone and one of my kids - I'm guessing around series X or 11. I've never been one to get wrapped up in new launches of hyped products, iphones or otherwise. Perhaps I miss out on a thrill, but the bank account doesn't take a hit! Personally, the few times I've tried to help out on an Apple product, I'm completely lost and I wonder of the original concept of early Apple products being intuitive to use is long gone, but do acknowledge they are a lot more complicated and advanced then early products. To their credit, they do take really good photos, but reception is often behind my android. I have recently replace my Moto G5 with a Pixel 6a. The only really benefit I see is photo quality. I miss the shake for light on the the old OS had. What really strikes me is they are still advertised as mobile phones, but seeing anyone having a telephone conversation on this devices is such a rarity nowadays!

You might be able to get someone to come to the school too. Reach out to STEM Learning at https://www.stem.org.uk/ and see what comes of it. You might need to register, but a request for an ambassador is worth a shot - https://www.stem.org.uk/secondary/ambassadors

Our IT provider have just told us Microsoft are replacing our flexible CSP which we have access to as a non-profit with NCE which apparently was available to corporates 18 months ago. We are advised this will impact our M365 from Jan 2024. Although MS claim the new model is more flexible, our IT provider suggests it is not, partly because we let our license numbers roll up and down with quick small, but regular changing FTE numbers. Do you have any experience in these licensing options and advice on any snags to look out for.

I haven't used Ryobi but generally seem to be good feedback from friends that have. I went for a more expensive Makita 6 tool set a while back and have added grass strimmer, hedge trimmer and multi-tool so definitely flexible once you start down that road. I have several batteries up to 5.0 Ah. More expensive than Ryobi but I have been thoroughly impressed by their kit throughout. I have to admit I have a petrol mower, but I would have thought you need at least 4.0 Ah for a mower but I see no reason for the smaller batteries to work - albeit for a shorter time. The amazon price looks good - I couldn't see better and camelcamelcamel says it is as good as it has ever been.

I'm hearing more local reports of Covid again and gov data suggests the recent lull in growth has switched. School returns are likely to increase numbers. The recent variant does appear to become a more dominant strain, but generally no evidence of greater severity. I wonder if the age 65 and above for vaccine will come down. Perhaps oddly, as an over 50 but under 65, I have been invited to a free flu jab, but not covid jab and I believe covid is still regarded as a greater risk to health.

Let's hope they all use their new powers in moderation First maybe ?

Everyone who was Progresso/Cloud School will have moved by now, so churn is likely to be a little up. An amusing aside, this is the message you reach when trying the usual portal login webpage. I think it is more than temporary.

The timing and effect of the clouds coming through was a bit of extra magic!

I'm just hoping no Clangers were injured.

The gov Coronavirus data website show England weekly admissions have trebled in 6 weeks. By contrast, numbers in hospital with the virus are double for the same time period. Beyond that not much data to add as the website no longer provides the same detail it used to.

On the modem/router, out supplier got a replacement to is in 48 hours. Make was Technicolor so perhaps we got lucky. SW is running as it just killed a port so we used a spare. It appears the switches escaped damage. So in this case, we were OK.

Interesting that you both had cover via insurance. I'm getting that checked because as far as I can tell none of the managers have done so. The info I have suggests the surge came through one of the two VDSL lines we have rather than a site hit.

It appears that whilst on holiday, our HQ was impacted by a lightning strike on the fttc network nearby. We lost one of our two modems, possibly a switch and we thought our Sonicwall TZ270. OpenReach have been in to confirm the line is OK. The modem has been replaced. Turns out the SW just had one port killed so we switched to using one of the 3 we don't use. SW warranty seem to be a no-go for replacement. I have read mixed stories about just replacing the TZ270 hardware and keeping the software license - the device is just a few months old, but the port switch will probably see us through. Our IT supplier is now saying, 'Oh, we should have installed protection' when the kit was installed! No pun intended, but that horse has bolted. Managers are now saying what protection we should install - chances are that it won't happen again but hey-ho! Why is the hardware so susceptible to damage and what protection should come via OpenReach etc. Currently I'm not convinced with the IT suppliers idea of installing a cheap (sub £100 UPS), a £4 4 Gang Pro-elec 1m 4 gang mains extension lead and a pair of £3 each ADSL Surge protectors. So, what experience have others had with this scenario, what protection do you have and what protection would you like. As an aside, we hope to go FTTP next year, so presumably much of this issue risk disappears?

First post from my Pixel 6a - noisy locals whilst in Rhodes

To the thief who stole my antidepressant medication. I hope you’re happy now.

I have no shame, this is stolen from local social media! It's clearly written to antagonise the locals... until the punch line While many complain about life in general and the cost of living etc., I am sitting on a sofa that costs £6,500, lovely and cool in front of an air-con unit costing £2,300, watching the latest film on a 70" smart TV that costs £4,000. Right now, I'm happy, with no worries and not a care in the world. Not even the employees at John Lewis, who keep asking me to leave can spoil my day.

Having worked in the exams industry for over a decade in the past, one thing remains true. Exam results, whether up, down or the same are easy fodder to fill a few column inches - or the online equivalent. Today's news is SATS reading expected level passes have dropped. 73% in reading, down from 75% in 2022 73% in maths, up from 71% in 2022 71% in writing, up from 69% in 2022 72% in grammar, punctuation and spelling, the same as 2022 80% in science, up from 79% in 2022 The GOV target of 90% across the board by 2030 is looking highly unlikely. Full BBC report at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66041645 The sentence with a parent/child photo of "Recruitment manager Victoria Williams says she was "devastated" that her daughter Georgina had been upset about the reading paper" because it was allegedly a tougher paper than normal. Whilst we don't want primary pupils getting overly stressed, the school and parents really need to do some work on resilience support and lowering the intensity around exams and results. I guess that's perhaps true for a lot of school measurements. I'm all for needing to assess and aiming to achieve the best for each child, but 'devastation' is surely hyperbole?!

Is that any different from the one at Argos for £9 https://www.argos.co.uk/product/1488432?clickPR=plp:7:9 - there's also a 3 pack for £21.

It's the same with Radox shampoo - apparently new formula, higher price, less volume. I bought up lots of the old stock. Why are so many corporations fleecing customers when times are tough for so many. More than ever, we all need to be cost conscious. check the details and buy alternatives where possible

Fall (Netflix) - picked by Mrs Ditto when friends were visiting, one of whom has a height phobia , which I thought was a bit of an odd thing to do! Didn't really do it for me, in spite of some suggestions the cinematography was excellent - for me it was a just a tall rusting aerial tower.

Doesn't sound like they did a thorough job preparing the papers. I wonder if my sons comment on CPU's was paper 1 - haven't seen the paper. Unlike other sciences, there's no practical element either. The biggest worry is if it puts people of Computing in future, A' level or GCSE, as I believe it was starting to see some growth in entry number over the last few years.

Following online criticism about this years paper, OCR have made the following comments: "Our aim is always to make sure students have a positive assessment experience and so it is disappointing some students found this to be a more challenging paper than they expected. We have also heard your feedback about the style of the paper.I appreciate how discouraging this may have been for you so I wanted to write to you directly to reassure you that getting to the right marks and grades is our top priority and explain what we’re doing to make sure the result you get is fair:• We’ll make sure the final mark scheme reflects the different approaches students have taken when answering questions. • When we set the grade boundaries, we will take into account any potential evidence that the paper is more time-consuming or more difficult than usual." My son sat this paper and I recall him saying it was quite odd and lots of his peers struggled. He said there were no questions on CPU's, which supposedly was a definite based on past papers. He also said lots on binary manipulation, which whilst he was comfortable with it (strong at Maths), a lot of his peers were not. Sounds as though the subject officer didn't get the balance of the paper quite right. As for the two bullet points, that's standard practice, but worth reminding worried parents and pupils about. What could cause a challenge, is if the paper is too much of an oddity, standards-based data from previous years might not be as robust as usual.

I do wonder if any schools haven't picked up that the product will be switched off shortly. I'd hope Advanced are pro-active with any that haven't indicated migration to date.