Information Technology

BYOD Laptop selection check list

All students are required to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).

If you are purchasing your own laptop from your selected retailer (not the Valley View Secondary School’s recommended LWT parent purchase portal) please follow these guidelines to ensure that what you purchase will work successfully at VVSS.

The device must have one of the following operating systems:

• Windows 10 or 11 Home, Pro or Education versions – Windows 10S or 11S is not compatible
• Windows Version 8.1 or better

The above Operating Systems must use an Intel or AMD CPU.  Snapdragon or ARM CPU’s are not compatible with the school’s software.

The school can only provide limited support for the following devices and operating systems: Apple products (including iPads), Android, Chrome Books, Linux, WinXP. These devices are not recommended for use at this school.

The chosen device must meet or exceed these requirements:

• A viewable screen size of 11.6” or greater

• A Solid State Drive (SSD) of 128GB (gigabytes) or larger in capacity.  M2 storage is also a recommended variant of such technology

• 4GB of memory

• Intel i3 or greater processor or the equivalent in AMD for compute power

• Wireless connectivity protocols in the modes of a/b/n/ac/ax (must be dual band 2.4GHz and 5.0Ghz)

• A device with a battery life of at least 7.5 hours, enough to last a full day’s learning at school

• A hard cover protective case or carry bag for safe device transport between classes.

Please note:

• IT support from the school will be limited to providing assistance with any BYOD connectivity processes, access to the Learner Management systems, mandatory software and security certificate installations and school computer accounts troubleshooting.
• Assistance will be provided around the installation of any software as required by the school or supplied by the Department For Education (e.g. Microsoft365 installation and activation).  In the event of a student’s personal device sustaining a hardware or a critical software issue, the school’s ICT staff may only provide advice or directions as a best course of action to take to remedy such an issue.
• ICT staff are unable to perform any repairs on personally owned devices or provide support for any applications deemed outside of the scope of typical school use.

Valley View Secondary School provides computer resources to access the internet and other educational software. All students using IT resources at Valley View Secondary School agree to the following:

• Privacy and network security is to be observed at all times. Computer accounts assigned to a user including internet and printing logons are not to be shared
• At the end of each lesson each student should log out of their account and remove their USB device(s)
• No students are allowed to be unsupervised in computing suites
• No food and drinks are to be consumed in the computing suites
• All computing suites are to be treated with respect and care. Damage must be reported to a member of staff immediately
• Deliberate damage caused to computing equipment, hardware, files, data or the network may result in loss of access, disciplinary action and families will be responsible for financial loss
• Only software purchased, owned and approved by the school can be used on school equipment. Software copyright is to be observed at all times
• Privacy and ownership of others work and material from websites must be respected at all times
• Use of access of inappropriate material is strictly forbidden and will result in loss of access and further disciplinary action
• The use of computer software and the internet is made available for educational purposes only and not for personal use such as social networking, music, gaming or video streaming.

These are based on common sense, DFE policy, school policy and Australian Laws.

Various applications will be required to be installed to connect the laptop to the school network and school internet. This is to facilitate filtering and device monitoring while using the schools services. From a wireless and internet certificate installation to a low resource, real-time scanning tool that monitors applications and traffic from the device throughout the school day. Virtual Private Networks (VPN’s) are NOT permitted on the school network and devices will be removed from accessing the networks if detected or discovered by monitoring tools at the site.

Microsoft 365 Suite:

The Education Department provide access to Microsoft Cloud 365 and downloadable Microsoft 365 ProPlus to all students.  An installation guide will be provided to assist in the installation of the software. For families that do not have internet access at home, Valley View Secondary School IT staff can assist students/users with the download and installation of the products mentioned. Parents who wish to ‘opt out’ of this free software offer are required to do so in writing.

If you have Microsoft Store installed, typically most Windows computers do, you can go directly to the Microsoft Store using this strange looking link in your web browser:

ms-windows-store://switchwindows

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Non-affiliated Youtube video for Windows 10:

Non-affiliated YouTube video for Windows 11: