AlanPartridgeAhaa

I left IT in education a few years ago so am somewhat out of touch with what's out there software-wise. I'm a Governor at my son's Primary School and they've asked me for recommendations on software that will automate the paperwork relating to late/non-attendance to free up the attendance officer to deal with the cases that need more time and attention. It's a SIMS school and my hour of Googling hasn't given me anything useful so far, then I remembered this place! Any pointers in the right direction much appreciated. Edit: It seems SIMS can do this, but knowing the school anything that makes life easier via a user friendly interface, can do this by email or just works with minimal involvement from the office staff would be useful.

Thought it was the most accurate account of life in a state secondary that I've seen on TV. Much more realistic than the Educating... series. The harsh realities of underfunding hitting home with the middle leaders was really strong. Next week's looks interesting, beleaguered Head trying to control behaviour in a more deprived area.

After we billed the departments they all stopped vanishing. An annoyed HoD is much more effective than a sticky pad in my experience.

You could consider iPads, there are plenty of cases out there with handholds and tripod mounts (Iographer is a decent one that comes with lenses, but many others). Get some filming software on it like Filmic Pro and it becomes a good quality device for HD footage. They can even be editing stations depending on the level you're aiming at, then connect to PC to download the movie or raw footage.

For the love of God don't even consider Uniflow as your print software if you go with Canon machines. Stick with Papercut as suggested numerous times elsewhere. We jumped ship away from Uniflow at the first opportunity, such a fragile and complicated software.

I think this could be justified as Legitimate Interest, as could any communication relating to an activity of the school that educates their child.

It's pretty reliable - on PCs. On Macs it causes havoc.

They look cheap and cheerful, and delicate... Having said that, they appear to be a rebadged version of these Trantec's . Trantec used to be a half decent mid-range name , I'm surprised to see them using this rebadged stuff.

There is a manual entry section of MIS Sync, you don't have to use an xml. If you want to tie up PP and your kitchen system - ours was Impact from CRB that imported staff from SIMS - you need to find out what identifier the kitchen system uses so you can set it in MIS Sync alongside the staff member or they won't tie up.

It's a serious weak link of ParentPay, the staff and guest pupil (managed move) process is a pain. The MISsync tool won't pull either in from SIMS, so you have to add them manually into the relevant sections for upload to PP - then try to get the identifiers to tie up with your kitchen system which HAS pulled staff in, and probably had manual entry for the guest pupil which then duplicates when they become on-roll in SIMS etc.etc.

Ok, maybe this isn't about worrying about anyone else or statutory data. It's about taking time and effort care to get things right, and then looking at an example of the flip side of the coin where no time or effort is spent and then being interested in the lack of any consequence. You can go further with this to beyond the websites, I dare say we all know of schools/organisations that just didn't make any effort. Are there any consequences? I suppose time will tell. Maybe that's just the way of the world - significant savings were made not bothering, someone is wealthier because of it and everyone moves on to the next big thing. Food for thought next time we tackle something like GDPR. On reflection, maybe I'm just having a grumpy Saturday morning

As I've got some responsibility for our Academy Trust website content and policy, I often have a browse around other academy chains to see if there are any good ideas or anything I might have missed. It's not unusual to see websites that don't have everything I'd expect to see for Data Protection and GDPR. My question is, who actually cares? Does the ICO? Is it only when something happens that they might take a look? Is it up to parents to say something? Take this as an example - I can't see anything there that suggests GDPR has even been considered in the recent past either in policy or on the website, even the DPA content looks c+p from elsewhere. Ok, it's not the greatest site in the world but not even having the bare bones of GDPR seems reckless to me. Maybe I just have to get over it, keep our own house in order, and accept that some decide to chance it and get away with it...