Choosing appropriate Starz usernames (which will form part of a pupil’s e-mail address) and passwords for your school is an important decision that requires careful consideration. Schools across the county have chosen a variety of different formats to suit their setting. It is recommended that you consider the general advice on Internet safety that can be found on the schools’ portal by going to and searching for ‘internet safety’. Whatever choice you make should be in line with your own school policy on Internet safety, however the following considerations are essential:

  1. Your policy may lead you to consider the implication of usernames leading to a child being identified (e.g. they should never include a child’s full name or give away personal details about a child).
  1. Children need to know each other’s usernames to be able to contact one another. This can either be achieved by choosing a username format that is easy to work out or by children actively swapping usernames with their friends.
  1. Usernames have to be unique. Therefore, you should try to choose a format that will suit all of your pupils without any duplications.
  1. Usernames will remain with the children year on year. Therefore, usernames should not include reference to children’s classnames (unless those classnames stay with the cohort as they progress through the school).
  1. You may only use the letters a-z and the numbers 0-9 in a username. Any other characters are unacceptable.
  1. Usernames and passwords are not case sensitive.
  1. Usernames cannot be the same as the password or form any part of the password and vice-versa (for example, if you choose a username of 'Fred' a password of 'FredFlintsone' would not be acceptable).
  1. Passwords must be at least 6 characters long and must be unique for each person.
  1. It is recommended that the password contains a wide variety of letters & numbers. For example, 'aaaaa' or 'mummum' is not acceptable but 'cat123' is.
  1. You may choose to include the year of entry into the education system, i.e. a child in Year R in September 2009 will be 09freblo and a child in year 6 would be 03freblo.
Real name / Username format / Username / Advantages / Possible Disadvantages/ Considerations

Option 1

/ Mickey Mouse / First 3 letters of forename + first 3 letters of surname / Micmou.cyq /
  • Children can easily identify each other
/
  • Can lead to duplication within larger schools

Option 2

/ Mickey Mouse / First 3 letters of forename + first 3 letters of surname + year of entry / micmou04.cyq /
  • Children can easily identify each other
  • There is less chance of duplication within school
/
  • Children’s ages are potentially identifiable to other Starz users outside of the school (e.g. on discussion forums).

Option 3

/ Mickey Mouse / First 2 letters of forename + first 2 letters of surname + year of entry / Mimo04.cyq /
  • Can easily identify each other
/
  • Can lead to duplication within larger schools

Option 4

/ Mickey Mouse / First 2 letters of forename + first 2 letters of surname + cohort colour / mimoblue.cyq /
  • Children are less identifiable to people outside of school
  • There is less chance of duplication within school
  • Pupils in different cohorts are easily identifiable.
/
  • Schools will need to organise cohort colours, which will move with the cohort through the school.

Option 5

/ Mickey Mouse / Forename and initial of surname + year of entry / Mickeym04.cyq /
  • Children can easily identify each other
/
  • Children are easily identifiable to other Starz users outside of school (e.g. in Starz discussion forums).
  • Uses the child’s forename in full

Guidance on choosing appropriate passwords.

A ‘good’ password is one that is hard to guess, yet easy to remember. While it is difficult to choose passwords for/with children it is worth sharing with them the importance of careful choice and secrecy once the password has been chosen. While it is recommended that passwords are changed often, (every 30 days), this is not practicable in Primary Schools, so, the best we can do is to discuss the issues as part of Esafety education, reinforce the importance of not disclosing this information and having a system whereby a responsible adult can instantly reset the password. The good news is that Starz v2 has this facility!

Here are some ideas to help you to choose a more secure password for a young Starz user:

Password Idea / Example / Advantages / Disadvantages
Option 1: / A ‘spelling’ word/common word – Age appropriate to start with / Computer, winter, school, people / Easy to remember – could be visualised
Option 2: / CVC words + digits / Cat123, hen345, pen789 / Easy to remember
Option 3: / Story/comic book, TV/Film character / hogwarts, ironman, disney, batman / Easy to remember / May not be known to child
Option 4: / Animals, Birds and Fish / Badger, blackbird, marlin / Easy to remember
Option 5: / Any option from above as ‘we’ (the school) intend to personalise the password for/with the child / Easy to remember
Relevant to child / Requires teacher to change password on system
  • The V2 Starz system does allow teachers to change the passwords for/with a child once the account has been created. If you intend to do this select option 5, we will then create the accounts, supply you with the user names and initial logon password, which you can then change.

In the event of any difficulties, please contact the E-Learning team via the ICT Helpline on 0845 0450973 or email