JonnyAlpha

Do you mean you are creating Teams automatically using Bromcom? Are you using an intermediate piece of software such as Salamander? I have now been told by our off site IT Sp that the OneNote issue is a new problem that Microsoft are aware of and they have a ticket open. Not heard back yet and its been two weeks - getting some frustrated teachers 😞

Hi, Odd issue came up today, I have created new Teams for all of our Year groups (as I have done every year for the past 5 or so years). All of the relavant staff have been added as Owners. Along with this I have created thier Teams Class Notebooks. In our Mixed Year 3 / 4 Team (3 classes) we have around 5 teachers and 5 TAs. Today all of the Teachers were in working on this years planning and all had OneNote open in some form (Teams, Web, Desktop). One user was moving pages from an old Team, 2023-24, using the Desktop app move / copy pages function when she encountered an error. Apparently whenever she tried to copy the relevant pages into a specific Section / Folder in the Teacher Only Section, it would not copy them and dropped them straight in a Missplaced Section, which has now caused the OneNote to stop synchronising. On looking at the OneNote on her device, all of the curriculum folders (Science / PSHE etc) which were created when I setup the new Class Notebook using a pre made template, her folders had all been renamed with the suffix '2', e.g. 'SCIENCE 2', whereas the original was simply 'SCIENCE'. When looking at the Team on my Laptop (Teams and Desktop) they were still called SCIENCE without the suffix, probably because it had not sychronised. Eventually other teachers versions started to show the suffix. My thoughts are that between the member of staff copying the OneNote Pages, something has automatically changed the name of all of the sections and when OneNote attempted to paste the new pages, it could not (because the name had changed) and it dumped them into a Missplaced section. I tried renaming the folders, but it automatically changed the name back to the folder name with the 2 suffix. What on Earth caused this and how should we go about fixing it. How do you deal with missplaced pages? Many thanks for any expert help

As we don't have FTTP in the area, we have asked to reconnect the FTTC line. We are now also being told the FTTC lines cannot be re-sold, as they are being disconinued and therefore will need an SoGEA line?

what I am trying to identify is daily bandwidth usage, to see if it corresponds to the usage shown on the Clarus (Starlink) Portal. It would be nice to see which users / hardware is using the bandwidth. However I cannot seem to find or create a report that shows Bandwidth. Most reports only show number of hits, which IMHO is pretty useless! I can only get on the OnPrem system when I am in school and I only work Tues / Wed Morn / Thursday and on Tues / Thursday I teach all day so don’t get time to look properly. i need to take some screen shots and post up here to get help. i have raised a ticket with Smoothwall to try and get help, but it seems to be like platting fog!! Bear with me.

Hi all, Looking for some expert advice on the use of Class NoteBook (OneNote). Bottom Line Up Front: Is there a size limit for OneNote, whereby after reaching a certain size problems start to occurs? I have tried to find the answer online and have found articles stating that a file size limit of 2GB, however it is unclear if this is files attached to the OneNote or the actual OneNote itself. I have looked at Storage Metrics in Sharepoint and most of our Notebooks are between 1GB and 5GB, one class (my worst offenders for breaching school practises - see below) are currently at 14GB. Screenshots attached - Class Notebooks are in the SIte Assets Folder at the top and account for about 90% of the folder size. What I am trying to ascertain is whether this will cause a problem, e.g bandwidth, slow loading of pages, sync problems etc. I understand that OneNote caches Notebooks locally and only downloads pages that are currently being used. If there are potential problems I can use this to try and get the SLT to enforce what should be the school's adopted practises. Background In our school we have adopted the use of MS Teams and more specifically the Class Notebook (which is a OneNote Document) as the launch pad for all lessons. This means every class in school is the same and make covers, whether using supply teachers or teaching assistant, the same regardless of class. teacher have complete autonomy on what the use to teach, but any digital media needed for teaching (Office Docs, PDFs, Videos etc) should be stored in Teams in a KS Team and hyperlinked on the Class Notebook page for that lesson. About a year ago, having weaned teachers away from Smart Notebook, the masses arouse and the HT bowed down and bought licences for teachers to use Smart Notebook. We had phased it out as SMART was an offline / Desktop product only and could not be launched from OneNote Class Notebook. The reintroduction was agreed after I had researched and identified Smart's new online tool Lumio, which is cloud based. You can upload your SMART Notebooks into Lumio and launch them from there, problem solved. I was allowed to do an initial training session, however no other training followed and those teachers that now use SMART iot to comply with the schools ClassNote policy, simply dump the actual file onto the Class Notebook page. This means for any cover, and indeed for the teacher unless they host the file elsewhere (which they probably do) the file has to be downloaded and opened in SMART Desktop. No one to my knowledge is using Lumio - stating that you cannot edit lessons in Lumio (I have yet to identify if this is indeed true) Many thanks

We are currently in a two year Startlink Trial and have been advised that, as it is a trial we get a backup line. I also understand that for many schools a backup FTTC line is a good idea. So I have started making enquiries using Everything ICT (Gov procurement framework) and Schools Broadband. I have also been advised to look at BT, Talk Talk and Airband etc. What is confusing me is that I went on the BT Business Broadband Site and get quotes of around £30 per month? if this is possible, why the ?? do we pay around £2.5 - £3k for an Internet connection - surely it’s not all for the Firewall and Filtering? We have a separate Firewall and Filter with Smoothwall can’t recall how much - maybe £500? So can we get a cheap FTTC backup connection from one of the high street providers, or is there a catch? many thanks

Update Back online now 🤣

Update It has been a very frustrating week for all, however we have no intention of going public. Apparently we are the only school on the trial that has exceeded 1TB in a month. And they are interested in finding out how and why. I am struggling to get this information. Our interim IT Sp who are from a MAT, have said that most of their schools of a similar size smash 1TB monthly, so I’d be interested in looking at the other schools on the trial and see what online tools they are using? We started the trial in Sept but did not switch over until Feb (lots of delays in our school with buy Firewalls and upgrading infrastructure). From Feb usage has gone from around 890GB steadily climbing each month and then on June 22 we hit 1TB and as the cap had them been introduced (without being informed), our bandwidth was cut to 1Mbps. In the portal the telemetry alerts were switched off so I have now set that to on. The DfE have nearly resolved the issue but suggest that, as this is a pilot scheme we should have some sort of backup. So without starting a full blown ISP contract, what back would anyone suggest. Mobile phone signal anywhere in school is dire, apart from out in our car park. Maybe a mobile solution? I have asked for quotes from Schools Broadband and Everything ICT (Gov procurement framework) as at some point we may need to switch permanently. AFAIK we do not have FFTP in our are (North Devon), which is how we came to get on the trial. And it would be a backward step to go back to FTTC. We have Smoothwall Firewall and Filter (On Prem Hardware and Cloud). Any advice would be appreciated.

Not yet - still basically offline. If the DfE don't sort this out, I presume we will be back online Tuesday 01 Jul 25, however will be in the same position towards the end of July - although we will break up for the Summer around then. End state is it still needs to be sorted! Are you on the same trial?

Hi, We have Smoothwall Fiter and Firewall in school with both the On Prem and Cloud Portal. Is there any way of getting a report that shows daily / monthly bandwidth use? We would like to be able to identify heavy traffic. Many thanks

Trying to set this up now, using ChatGPT to talk me through it!! Wow this is not easy 🙂

Hi all, I am trying to set up an MS to track the progress of a filter unblock / block request. I have created the form, which needs to be filled out by the person requesting the change, the school ICT Coord, the DSL / HT and then onto the schools IT Support who are offsite. How can you have an MS Form that needs to be completed by different parties at different stages? Has anyone done this before and could offer any help. Many thanks

5-8TB a month are you data mining 😂😅

I believe the breakdown in communication was between the DfE's account manager and Clarus? End state is we now basically had no Internet Friday and probably Monday / Tuesday?

Are you on the trial? Or just have a Starlink Clarus contract? I wonder if Clarus sent something to our office and they just overlooked it?

Last Sept we started on a two year trial through the DfE Technical Standards Dept using Starlink as our ISP. Up until now we have had a stable good Internet Connection. Today our Internet stopped working, technically it's still working albeit at 1Mbps 🙂 After emails to and fro to our IT Sp and Clarus (the company that the DfE used to roll out the trial connections), it would appear that wef 01 June 25, Starlink changed it's terms and conditions so that any connection that exceeds 1000GB of data useage will have bandwidth capped to 1Mbps unless you pay for a data top up. Prior to that you simply rolled onto an unlimited contract until the end of the month when everything reset. Th issue is, as we are not an account holder (as we do not pay the bill - the DfE do), we were not notified of this change. It would also appear that either the DfE were not notified or if they were it was missed! We are now in a situation where we have no Internet!! The DfE are now attempting to sort out the issue, so I will await the outcome. Has anyone else been caught out with this?

Also what is the CDN?

These are the domains that Smoothwall tech support have identified that need to be unblocked to resolve the issue. Is there a Smoothwall rep on here that can clarify this, as I would assume that as they are responsible for filtering, they would not allow a potentially inappropriate url to be allowed? I may refer this back to my IT Support team

Hi, Can anyone help share their experience with the most effective / practical ways to aid filtering reporting for iPads and guest devices. We have iPads used in school in various ways: 1 x iPad shared between staff in each class 1 x iPad for pupil and staff use in each class Class set of 32 x iPads for use across the school 18 x iPad Mini Ones (in a trolley for use across the school) 10 x iPad 4's (in a cabinet for use across the school) 20 x iPad Mini 2s for use across the school iPads allocated to several oher members of staff (PE / Pastoral / HT / Admin Office) We are setting up a guest SSID for use by visitors and personal devices brought into school that need WiFi access. In order to ensure we are able to best monitor Internet usage to ensure compliance with Online Safety regulations, we need to come up with a plan for each use of devices listed above. The plan needs to ensure that we strike a balance between being able to monitor useage, whilst maintaining useability. Many thanks

So, we set the domain that we had been given from Ruth Miskin in Smoothwall as an allowed category and low and behold videos still did not load. I raised the issue with Smoothwall, who remoted into my Laptop and identified 4 more domains that needed to be whitelisted to get this working.

Sorry Pete I missed this reply. Our Starlink was installed in Sept 2024, however we were also waiting to get out Network upgraded (all the APs and Switches needed replacing due to age and ergo security) and after much delay (mainly with getting all the authorisation for various purchases from the school), we finally got up and running last week. The main headaches we have had and continue to have is with the Smoothwall Firewall and Filtering. We opted for Smoothwall because it came with a Firewall included. Tech support has been pretty reactive though when I have dealt with them, but it appears they sent us hardware without the correct OS certificates installed, which is hampering setting up additional SSIDs for guest. Starlink has been fine, as have the VOIP (Cobalt) over Starlink. Didn't know that RM were going to increase the costs for Safety Net, that's another saving we've made.

Hi, We have recently moved to Smoothwall from RM Educations Filtering and Firewall. Our school uses Ruth Miskin’s Phonics Videos, which are hosted in Vimeo. The appropriate URLs were whitelisted a long while ago. Now that we have move to Smoothwall we need to get these videos working again, however the teacher who is the RWI Admin sent me an email quoting a message that she had received when logging into the Ruth Miskin School Portal. It stated that all RWI videos have been moved to a new domain: player.ruthmiskin.vimeo.work And that all that is needed now is for that single domain to be white listed. Has anyone else seen this and made the change? Did it work? Many thanks

Link did not work for me?

I had suggested Wireless keyboards, but they want something like this: Elecom EX-G Trackball Mouse, 2.4GHz USB Wireless, Ergonomic Design, Thumb Control, Smooth Precise Tracking Roller Ball, 6 Programmable Buttons, Tilt Scroll, Computer Mice for Laptop PC, Windows & Mac : Amazon.co.uk: Toys & Games But I dont want to buy anything without getting feedback.

Hi all, I have a requirement in school for a hand held device that teachers can use in the class, that will enable them to walk around the classroom whilst maintaining control of the class laptop connected to the main board. They need to have the same control as a mouse with a scroll wheel. I have suggested Wireless Keyboards with built in Mice, but they want something like a presentation clicker, but with more controls. Does anyone have any suggestions? Many thanks