Primary Technology Ltd

Supporting Schools During Coronavirus (COVID-19) – Free Blogging Trial

In light of the impact of COVID-19 with school closures and disruption to learning, we want to do our bit to help and will be granting free access to our school blogging platform – PrimaryBlogger, for any affected schools, that don’t currently have blogs with us, until at least the end of June.

Blogs can help schools during this time in a variety of different ways, including:

• Communicating with parents and pupils to set work and tasks
• Allow open communication between school and home in the form of comments
• Reassure parents they’re not alone and allow them to communicate easily with class teachers if they need to
• Allow pupils and parents to show what they’ve been doing at home
• Give students something new and exciting to engage in
• Continue relationships with other schools you may already work with through the use of blogging and commenting
• Further learning on the subject of eSafety

If you would like to start using PrimaryBlogger, please complete our usual sign-up form here. Please note you will not be invoiced until at least July, and only if you confirm you would like to keep your blog(s) and start a paid subscription.

We hope we can help schools and their parents/pupils via our small part of offering another method of communication and learning during this tough time. Please spread the word so we can reach relevant schools.

After the free period, we will contact any school that has created a blog during this time to ask if you would like to continue you with your blog(s) and start a paid subscription, yearly pricing can be seen here. If you no longer wish to continue with the blog(s); the blog will be removed and the content will no longer be accessible. This offer is limited to six blogs per school and new customers only.

To offer our assistance during school closures, we’ve compiled a list of resources (some of which are currently free) and some great Learning From Home resources for children to work through.

Feel free to post these links on your website to share these with your students. Though we have checked each of these websites, we do not own them so are not responsible for any content posted.

Suggestions or Amendments

Please contact us or email hello@primaryt.co.uk to make any suggestions or amendments for the above list of resources.

Chromebooks are becoming increasingly popular as they offer a wide range of educational tools adapted to meet the needs of both pupils and teachers, such as the ability to collaborate in a secure environment. Here are three key benefits to using a Chromebook;

1) Collaboration with G Suite for Education

Chromebooks enable instant access to Google’s suite of educational apps and tools hosted online. This includes a classroom version of Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, as well as Google Classroom.

Apps are accessible from any Chromebook device opening up a huge opportunity for collaboration and teamwork between teachers and pupils. Tools such as Google Docs can be accessed by multiple users simultaneously, allowing pupils to work together on projects that have the added benefit of saving automatically as they progress.

2) Budget Friendly and Durable

Google have partnered with multiple brands such as Asus, Lenovo, Acer, HP and Dell, resulting in a wide range of products and prices to meet different budgets.

Chromebooks are highly durable and can survive a fair amount of wear and tear, making them ideally suited for environments where they will be handled by multiple students.

3) Greater Control for Administrators, Teachers and IT Staff

With a Chrome Education Licence, it is possible for administrators, teachers and IT support teams to manage hundreds of student devices from one central interface.

Chromebooks are built with multiple security features which are automatically updated regularly giving schools the option to apply various controls and restrictions to ensure their pupils are safeguarded from harmful content.

At Primary Technology, we have the experience and expertise in setting up Chromebook networks. We will work with you to integrate your Chromebook devices within your school, set-up your Chrome Education Licence and ensure your devices managed effectively and securely.

Click here to get in touch!

Summer 2013 has been glorious for the weather, but Primary T didn’t had chance to enjoy it, we have not stopped working hard! We have done 10 new server installs, 9 of which were admin servers. As part of this we have taken 5 schools into being single domains and we have had additional work at another school, purely to move to a single domain. It’s great to have 6 more schools working on just one domain for both admin and curric, it makes it a lot easier for managing and planning day to day school life. It’s also worth noting that despite ourselves undertaking SIMS server migrations in schools where we are not the SIMS support provider, the respective local LA teams were very helpful in providing required files for backups, monitoring and remote access – it was fantastic to have their co-operation. If you would like to know more about single domains then you can find more out, this article also goes deeper into the reasons some schools are moving to a single server: http://primaryt.co.uk/primary-schools-single-or-dual-server-environment/

The BLN migration has continued and we have been supporting Virgin Media in the roll out of their Layer 3 kit into our schools. Getting more schools off the old star network and onto the IPVPN.  If you are due to have this work undertaken in your school and it’s not occurred yet, then please contact ourselves and we can talk to the BLN about scheduling a date as soon as possible.

We have had 4 schools totally reimaged and 2 schools have had new physical network infrastructures due to massive changes in the fabric of their buildings. Our Installations team have been hard at work fitting: LCD touchscreens, door access systems, public announcement facilities, fibre cables, wireless networks, full ICT suites and interactive teaching walls! Wow, what a repertoire!

This week we have be really privileged to have Emma Rothery start with us as a Web Designer. She has come to us with a background of 4 years in freelance design. Her responsibilities will include supporting Primary Blogger, design and development of new sites, support of existing customers websites and keeping a close eye on Primary T’s web servers. If you get to speak to her please say ‘Hi’, she is really lovely!

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