Home Learning Devices – Important Information

 
School is providing this device to support your child with their learning. Please remember that you must follow the acceptable usage policy – this device is only to be used for school purposes.

To ensure that your child is kept safe when using the device, we have monitoring software installed. We will use this to track any websites visited and to monitor all activity on the laptop. Our safeguarding team have access to review these logs – the system will automatically capture information it feels is inappropriate and flag it for review.

 
A polite reminder that you should not try to download any programs (or games) to the device - unless a teacher has instructed you to do so. We will be regularly reviewing the activity and have the ability to remotely disable the device if the device is being used for purposes other than education.

 
The device is school property and you must return it when requested. It is your responsibility to ensure that the device is returned in good working order. The school reserves the right to charge parent’s/carers for any damage to our loan equipment.

How to logon to the device

When you first receive your device, you will need to ensure it is connected to the internet before trying to logon. We expect that most families will be providing their own internet access – so you will just need to know the name of the WiFi network and the password.

It’s very important that you enter the WiFi details before trying to logon. This will make your experience as seamless as possible – you will only need to do this once and the laptop will remember your password. 

To connect to the WiFi, switch on the laptop and wait for the logon screen to appear. When the username and password box appear, look in the bottom left-hand corner an icon that looks like this.

Click it, and the WiFi networks nearby will show up. Find your home network, click connect and when prompted enter the password into the box.

Wait until the device has checked the security and says it is connected securely to the internet.

At this point you can enter your username and password. This is unique to the device we have provided.

 Important Notes

 When accessing any of the school’s remote learning platforms (e.g. Teams, SeeSaw, Dojo etc) you should use the usernames and passwords that have been provided for these. The password above is for logging onto this device only.

·         If you have any trouble accessing the device, you should speak to the class teacher or the school office who will assist you and contact the IT team if necessary.

Basic Troubleshooting Information

These are common problems that we have encountered and are easily fixed.

I have connected my laptop to the internet, but some websites aren’t loading.       Some sites are deliberately blocked e.g. Facebook, Twitter etc. If this is the case, you will see this screen.

We are struggling to access any websites at all – what can we do?

 Depending how long the laptop has been switched on it can take up to 5 minutes before the internet connection will be established. This is because there are multiple pieces of security and safeguarding software that need to ‘check in’ with school before they will let you on the internet.

If you continue to see screens such as the one below after 5 minutes, there is a problem with your connection to the monitoring system. Double check that the WiFi is showing as ‘Connected’ – to do this look in the bottom right hand corner near the clock. If you see this icon, there is a problem with your home network that is preventing the connection.

 A working setup will show either of these two icons:

I’ve waited several minutes after connecting the WiFi but still can’t access the internet?

If you’ve waited a few minutes and still can’t access the internet, there is a shortcut on your desktop called ‘Connect Internet’.

 This should restart your connection in case the system has crashed.

 I need a password to install software – the one you provided does not work?

 This is intentional, you are not allowed to install any software. Only approved software such as Zoom, Teams and other pre-installed education software is available. If you require something else, please contact the school who can arrange for the software to be installed if it meets the requirements of the acceptable usage policy.

 We are trying to use Office applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint. It’s saying we need to logon to activate.

 You should logon with the pupil’s Office 365 (Teams account). This will have been provided previously by the school. If you have forgotten this or lost the details, we can provide these again.

 We are trying to participate in video/audio lessons, but the signal keeps dropping out?

We would recommend that you try and plug in an ‘ethernet’ or network cable to the laptop if possible – not all models of laptop provided by the Department for Education support this though. You could also try moving closer to the Wi-Fi box at home to see if this solves the issue.

 If you make a note of the time that your call was ‘poor quality’ the IT team may be able to remotely review the systems and identify a fault.

 We need to contact school for support, what information should we provide?

 Please provide the computer name – this will be on the desktop wallpaper of the screen and look like this.

Either of these numbers will help our IT Team to identify you and provide remote support if appropriate.

 You may also need to provide the TeamViewer ID and password – this has been pre-installed on all devices. There is a shortcut for this program on your device that looks like this:

 When you open the program, you should see this window appear. It will have an ID and password and say ‘Ready to Connect’ at the bottom. If you do not see this screen there is likely to be a problem with your internet connection at home. An ID and password will only be displayed if your connection is working properly.