In partnership with the Foyle Foundation

IT Guidance, Device info and Firewall guidance for Schools

We know that each school may have different requirements and setups for protecting their devices and networks. To help all our schools have a smooth experience we have produced the following documentation to help guide IT staff at schools to review requirements and troubleshoot content or firewall issues.

If you still have technical questions or problems you can get in touch via email; schools.curriculum@rsc.org.uk

Please add no-reply@rsc.org.uk and schools.curriculum@rsc..org.uk@charanga.com to your global Safe Senders email list.

####Supported Device Types

  • Desktop and laptop computers: Apple Mac, Windows PC, Chromebooks

  • Tablets: Windows Surface Books, iPad, higher spec Android tablets

  • Phones: iPhones, Android phones

Please note: The devices listed above must be capable of running one of the browsers listed below. Some of the cheaper and older Android devices can barely open the most basic of websites, some processing power is required to play videos, use our interactive tools and rich multimedia experiences.

####Supported Browsers

We will support browsers where the operating system is receiving software and security updates and will support outdated browsers where possible. We currently support:

  • Google Chrome — (120 or later)
  • Microsoft Edge — (79 or later)
  • Mac Safari — (16.4 or later)
  • iPad: Safari — (on iPadOS 16.4 or later)
  • Firefox — (122 or later)

####Content Filtering & Firewalls

If you run a content-filtering firewall, you will need to ensure that in addition to standard web-content types, that you also allow the following file extensions through your firewall (these are all served via standard HTTP GETs on TCP port 80):

  • .mid (Midi audio)
  • .mp3 (MP3 audio)
  • .mp4 (MPEG video)
  • .wav (Waveform Audio)
  • .otf (OpenType fonts)
  • .ttf (TrueType fonts)
  • .woff (Web Open Font Format)
  • .woff2 (Web Open Font Format)

We make the assumption that you are already allowing the following standard and de-facto standard web filetypes through your firewall:

  • .css (Cascading Stylesheet)
  • .gif (GIF image)
  • .html (HTML files - and all text/html MIME type files)
  • .jpg (JPEG image)
  • .js (Javascript file)
  • .json (JavaScript Object Notation)
  • .pdf (Adobe PDF)
  • .png (PNG image)
  • .svg (Scalable Vector Graphic)
  • .xml (XML)
  • Content tests
  • Basic Content Tests (automated)

Our resources use a variety of different filetypes to drive them. School networks are often configured to block mp3, mp4 and occasionally wav and/or midi files.

If some resources aren’t playing audio or video correctly, please read the guidance below.

####Content blocks & whitelisting domains

If you see a message such as ‘Content blocked’, ‘Filetype disallowed’, or ‘500 Internal Server Error’, you’ll need to unblock the following domains:

  • shakespearecurriculum.com
  • d3sm58fubrfysb.cloudfront.net
  • d15gixf9u5zfv.cloudfront.net
  • d2mxzlsmn6jen9.cloudfront.net
  • dbf5e6fpzksto.cloudfront.net
  • d2c6cyrru3e9za.cloudfront.net
  • www.staging.shakespearecurriculum.com
  • app.staging.shakespearecurriculum.com
  • use.typekit.net
  • plausible.io

You can test whether everything is configured correctly by visiting our browser test page. You should see 3 green ticks.

####Email filtering We send out password reminders, login resets and other emails to our users using Amazon Web Services (AWS) Simple Email Service (AWS SES). All From: addresses are @rsc.org.uk and our emails are SPF and DKIM signed. If you can add this domain to your email whitelist filters, then this will aid our support emails to your users. The sending mail servers are all hosts and subdomains of amazonses.com.

We send out newsletters and periodic updates about the service from the SMTP host rsc.org.uk. These are also SPF and DKIM signed.