JNC sept 3rd 2024 Digital changes
Renfrewshire Council · 3 September 2024
Back to Renfrewshire Council Joint Negotiating Committee for Teaching Staff — 3 September 2024 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
Page 1
Renfrewshire Joint Negotiating Committee for Teachers To: Renfrewshire Joint Negotiating for Teachers On: 3rd September, 2024 Changes to Digital Infrastructure Report by Joint Secretary (Teachers’ Side) Background Before the summer break there were a number of changes to schools’ digital infrastructure which are presenting several problems for staff upon their return to work after the summer recess. Staff are reporting some of the following issues: • inability to log in to Office 365 which means that staff are unable to produce and edit documents and presentations required for teaching classes. • inability to access necessary school servers which means they are unable to view and share whole school information • issues with logging into or accessing Seemis, which is an essential part of attendance, pastoral and behaviour tracking and reporting • problems with pupils logging into computers which presents subject specific implications for teaching and learning and ultimately attainment. All problems are being logged with IT helpdesk but there are concerns about the time it takes for matters to be dealt with, especially where in many cases the need is urgent and immediate. IT problems are an unnecessary source of stress and are having a significant impact on staff wellbeing and workload adding to the routine challenges that are already present for teachers.
Page 2
Action • Council should investigate the many difficulties staff are reporting when trying to access online and digital resources and commit to having access issues resolved more quickly. • Conduct an audit of teaching time and/or teachers’ non-contact time lost to resolving digital problems. • Ensure that IT support is readily available and that the helpdesk treats calls as a matter of urgency ensuring problems are dealt with as quickly as possible. The affected staff need to be contacted directly to update when their issues are resolved to assist them in effective planning. • Where problems cannot be resolved with a single call that an administrative liaison link is assigned in each establishment who can resolve matters for staff rather than have teachers engaged in time- consuming access issues because there is an expectation that the infrastructure should be in place to facilitate teachers in their work rather than have individuals responsible for reporting and discussing such problems- all time wasted in doing so detracts from teachers’ non-contact preparation and correction time.