School E-Mail

Background

Students have access to e-mail primarily for sending work to and from school, and in some lessons for sending work to your teacher or to ask questions. It is intended as an official communication tool and should only to be used for school work. E-mail will also be used for the school Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and may be used in lessons and coursework to learn about and practice with office workflow systems.

Accounts are provided from Year 7 to Year 11. Each e-mail account is linked to a network logon account. On leaving the school, accounts are deleted and the data removed from our servers.

You can access your e-mail from any web browser. Links are provided on our web site or from the gateway page in school.

Restrictions may be placed from time to time on the type and size of file attachments that can be received or sent. Large files may be held in the mail queue pending a check. Incoming executable files (programs) may be redirected to IT Staff for review as they should not be sent or received under any circumstances. Provision of e-mail is a privilege, not a right and as such we expect that students will follow the rules and guidelines for the use of ICT as set out in your student planner.

E-mail is a monitored activity. Suspected or actual abuse by students of this privilege will result in their account being blocked. This may, in the case of any action which could impair the performance of our systems, be without notice. The names of blocked accounts will be reported to form teachers for investigation via the Head of ICT / Hear of Year.

Security

Your password for e-mail is the same as your network login. Do not disclose your password to anyone. Members of staff will never ask for your password, if you forget it, it will be cleared and you will have to create another. If you suspect that others have knowledge of your password, contact IT Support who will arrange for the system to be reset so that you can create a new one. Please also note that e-mail messages are not encrypted – information could therefore be intercepted whilst in transmission over the internet. Remember, do not give out any personal information in an e-mail.

Mailbox Format

In the majority of cases, the format of your account name is (exceptions are those where duplicates would arise):-

JoiningYear+First 3 letters of given name+First 3 letters of Surname@flhs.wigan.sch.uk eg.

Alec Coburn who joined in September 2007 would be

“07AleCob@flhs.wigan.sch.uk”

Each mailbox is limited to a maximum of 50mb of messages and files or 75 messages whichever is reached first. It is up to you to manage this space and delete unwanted items. Mailboxes that are full may not receive any further mail until the excess is cleared.

In addition to messages, the e-mail system provides a basic calendar, meeting and notes function. You may use this to keep a note of any important dates but do not store confidential information.

Parents Notes

• Students should use e-mail only to communicate ICT based lesson work from any subject between school and home and vice versa. Students are not being forced to open e-mail accounts. Due to message size restrictions, USB memory sticks are recommended for large files.
• This is a traditional e-mail service, not Instant Messaging or Chat.
• It is recommended that students send e-mails to an address provided by the ISP used by the family. This could either be in the family name or the students' name depending on how the internet service has been organised. Such accounts are generally capable of holding more messages and particularly, messages with larger file attachments than many of the “free” services.
• For those without a subscription based ISP, there are many “free” services from Hotmail, Yahoo, Google etc.
• ALL home internet accounts should be set up with parental knowledge and assistance. The school does not provide support on these products and is not responsible for the quality of service or loss of e- mails in transit.
• Students are discouraged from using “Hotmail” as the destination or source account as this service places severe limitations on the size of attachments. Furthermore it is a source of high volumes of “Spam” and has other links which the school does not permit.
• Students are not permitted to send e-mails to each other in school, measures are in place to restrict such activity.
• Parents, teachers or students who are concerned about the use of e-mail can have the student account blocked or restricted. One popular option is likely to be restricting the account so that e- mails can only be sent to, and received from, specific addresses, such as a family account, parents address or the students own account. Application forms are available on the school web site onto which the required details can be entered. We will not set up a restricted service to redirect e-mail to or from “Hotmail”.
• Ideally we are looking to minimise the administration of restrictions, but reasonable requests will be honoured to reflect genuine changes of circumstances or home ISP access. However, we reserve the right to close accounts where changes are unreasonably frequent and frivolous.
• If a student or parent does not wish access to e-mail, the account can be closed and the address removed.
• Our system can and does monitor e-mail. The content checking filters are revised and added to on a regular basis. E-mails sent from the school which contain phrases or key words are blocked and referred for approval. This is both a security and safety measure.
• All e-mails sent from school accounts have the following legal notice appended to the content:

  “This e-mail is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or group to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Fred Longworth High School. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. Please note that Fred Longworth High School may monitor and intercept e-mail communications.”