We have received several reports of thefts of ICT
equipment from schools in Cambridgeshire. Recently a primary school had laptops and
projectors stolen from their school while staff were still on the
premises.
Please be aware of the security in your school, particularly over the half term break.
Internet Access
Problems - week beginning 6th February
2006
Purpose: For Information - Statement from E2BN Technical Director
Audience: All School Staff
Week
beginning 6th February some schools experienced problems with internet
access due to an 'outage' of the filtering service provided by E2BN. Philip Pearce, E2BN Technical Director
has issued the following statement and apology to schools that experienced an
interruption to normal service.
"An outage of the
filtering service occurred yesterday (6th)
between 10:45 and 11:30am (Schools
filtering) and 10:45pm and 12:10pm (Library
filtering).
The problem was traced to
a software problem in the caching appliances
in
the E2BN core which resulted in a 'page not available' message being displayed. Later yesterday, our
caching appliance partner Appliansys applied a
software fix which they
believe will prevent a re-occurrence of this
problem. They will also be closely monitoring our
caching systems today to ensure the
service is continuous.
Several of you have
expressed concern that you where not contacted
quickly with information
regarding the outage. I have
discussed this with Chris Kastel, E2BN
CEO and we will put in place measures to rectify
this.
Please convey our apologies for yesterdays outage to your customers".
There are changes being made to the CFR by the DfES, these were not available for the February upgrade release but will now be incorporated into the April release, FMS6 version 6.80. The CFR will not need to be submitted until June, therefore the upgrade with the CFR changes will be with you in plenty of time.
The latest version of FMS is 6.79, we did not send this upgrade out to schools as it did not make any significant changes. The version of FMS you should be on at the moment is 6.78, this upgrade was released on the Spring 2005 CD.
Please ensure that your school has upgraded to at least FMS6.78 and the FMS executable is installed on every workstation that runs FMS. FMS 6.78 is the version from which later versions of FMS can be upgraded via SOLUS. The url for FMS is separate from the SIMS .net url and this will be released to all schools using FMS once the upgrade has been tested on the Helpline.
DfES Learning Platform Roadshows - change of
venue
Wyboston Lakes
Wyboston
Bedfordshire MK44 3BY
Further details and a booking form are on the E2BN website http://web.e2bn.net/vle/roadshow06.php
There is a DfES expectation that all schools will be represented at
the roadshows. They are aimed at head teachers, deputy head teachers,
AST's at primary and secondary level; service managers, local authority
improvement managers and regional school improvement managers. The roadshows are
intended to support the DfES targets identified in the 2006 Standards Fund
Guidance for ICT relating to Learning Platforms, personalised learning space and
e-portfolios. The targets are:
a) Provide a personalised learning space
for each pupil with the potential to support e-portfolios in every school by
2007-2008.
b) A learning platform with (at least) basic functionality in
schools by spring 2008.
Purpose: For
Information
Audience: Headteacher and ICT Managers
An increasing number of schools use systems that link directly into SIMS to deal with first day response. Examples include Truancy Call and SchoolsComms. If your school uses any of these systems, please get in touch with the ICT Service Helpline as we often get requests from schools asking us for contacts to get first hand accounts of what it's like to run these systems.
SIMS
accreditation survey
Purpose: For
Information
Audience: Headteacher and ICT Managers
Schools have been posted and emailed a letter about this survey that takes place in the 2 weeks after Half Term. You will receive an email from Capita / SIMS telling you about the web site to use for the survey and your logon ID and password.
More detailed information about the survey can be found on the portal - search for "SIMS Accreditation".
Purpose: For
Information SIMS are bringing a new product
to market - Curriculum & Lesson Planner. Capita have sent out
information about this recently and the ICT Service will host sessions on this
product if there is sufficient interest. If you visit SIMS' website (http://home.capitaes.co.uk/SIMS/LessonPlanner/lessonplanner.asp)
you'll find more information. If you are interested, please contact
Matthew Nall at the ICT Service (01480 376655 or email matthew.nall@cambridgeshire.gov.uk).
Curriculum & Lesson Planner from
SIMS
Audience: Headteacher and ICT Managers
Primary SIMS User Groups
Purpose: For
Information
Audience: Headteacher and ICT Managers
We will be publishing a detailed agenda shortly after Half Term. However, we expect to show schools how to develop their use of SIMS to use more of the system more effectively, particularly linked files and SEN. We are also devoting some time to showing you the new pupil reports system - Profiles 7 and the forthcoming Curriculum and Lesson Planner (see above).
We are publishing more detailed information on the portal - search for "PUGS".
Helpline Performance Measures
Purpose: For Information
Audience:
Headteacher and ICT Managers
The Education ICT Service Helpline are now publishing performance measures, for example responses to queries and answering phone calls. These make use of new systems we've invested in over the last year to provide reliable monitoring.
The information is published on the portal - search for " Helpline PI".
Curriculum Team Newsletter
Please click on this link for information on all ICT Training Courses