School networks and student accounts are secured against access from unauthorised people. This usually means that no one outside of the school's local network can log in to an account. However, this is a problem for students who need to access their schoolwork at some. So, most school networks are set up to allow students to access their accounts from home through a virtual private network (VPN). When you use a VPN your computer is treated as though it were on the school's local network.

  • School networks and student accounts are secured against access from unauthorised people.
  • So, most school networks are set up to allow students to access their accounts from home through a virtual private network (VPN).

Download and install the VPN program used by your school network. Go to your school's help-desk website, if it has one, or contact your school's network administrator to find out what VPN program to use and where to get it from.

Start the VPN client. Enter the IP address of your school's VPN server and the name of the connection. Ask your network administrator if you do not know this information. Enter your student-account login and password in the appropriate spaces and click Connect. If there is no space to enter your login and password, click Connect, and a login and password dialogue box will appear. Enter your login and password at that time.

  • Enter the IP address of your school's VPN server and the name of the connection.
  • Enter your student-account login and password in the appropriate spaces and click Connect.

Go to My Computer and open the Tools menu at the top. Select "Map Network Drive."

Give the drive any letter that is not already being used by a drive on your computer. Enter the location of your student account in the "Folder" text box. If you do not know this, ask your network administrator.

Click on "Connect using a different user name." In the dialogue box that opens, enter your student account login and password. Click "OK" to save your changes and then "Finish" to map the network drive. The folder with your student-account files will now appear as a network drive when you got to My Computer. You can drag, drop and copy files to and from this folder.

  • Give the drive any letter that is not already being used by a drive on your computer.
  • The folder with your student-account files will now appear as a network drive when you got to My Computer.