Single School Network Project

Background of the Project

• The school administration and curriculum systems currently have independent active directories, servers, LANs and e-mail systems.  This is now hampering school improvement and adding unnecessary technical complexity.  In Secondary schools the administrative PCs are supported by BITC and the curriculum PCs by the School Technician which creates further unnecessary complexity.
• This project was identified in the BITC Business Plan 2008/09, to be undertaken between March 2008 and December 2008.

Reasons for Commissioning the Project

• Teachers and support staff cannot access NPT Intranet from their classrooms and Admin Staff cannot access the schools internet/intranet from their offices.
• Teachers and support staff are using the curriculum e-mail system for administrative purposes but it has not been designed for such use and is not covered by an appropriate acceptable use policy.
• Admin staff e-mail accounts have to be removed from the Central IT Unix server.
• Admin staff cannot currently be included in the closed e-mail system.
• Admin staff require access to e-mail and documents from home.
• Teaching and staff on the current admin network need to share calendars.
• BITC needs to devolve responsibility for administrative desktops to secondary schools in order to give them an appropriate level of control over their local infrastructure.
• To reduce system failures, and the impact of system failures by reducing the current level of technical complexity within school networks (Business Plan R1).
• To reduce new system development time by simplifying the infrastructure as BITC resources are being reduced and the service must find ways to sustain service at reduced cost (Business Plan R1).
• To increase the autonomy of secondary schools over their ICT systems (Business Plan R1).
• To improve the availability of key ICT systems in Secondary schools.
• There is uncontrolled demand by schools for finite broadband and storage capacity which will impede the future use of ICT.

Benefits Expected to be Achieved by the Project

• Reduced system outages
• Improved fault resolution times
• Reduced cost and timetable of future ICT implementations
• Levels of customer satisfaction do not decrease
• Schools continue to use BITC services rather than seek alternative ICT service arrangements
• Improved school standards
• Helps BITC to work within Budget

Objectives of the Project

• Create a single managed service base product for curriculum and admin in schools, that is supported by BITC with the ability for Secondary schools to add bespoke elements
• Provide secure access to corporate applications, SIMS and school’s intranet and internet  from any designated point on the school network
• Create a single integrated LAN
• Consolidate the existing admin and curriculum e-mail systems into a single school e-mail system
• To improve supportability of the managed service
• Provide facilities to encourage self help and collaboration for ITCO’s and Technicians in Secondary Schools
• Ensure processes are in place for future development of the managed service base product
• Transfer of responsibility for admin ICT infrastructure to schools
• Produce an initial design for the replacement of the current Secondary school servers
• To construct a process which ensures that the impact on non school staff and sites are considered when designing changes to the schools managed service and network infrastructure
• To define responsibilities for the management of broadband and data storage capacity

Outline Project Timetable

• Project Initiation Stage: Starts June 2008
  • Creation of PID
  • Presentations to Customers
• End of Project Initiation Stage and Start of Stage 1: July 2008
  • Development Investigations
  • Workshop Creation
  • Policy Creation for Data Storage and BB Bandwidth
• End of Stage 1 and Start of Stage 2: September 2008
  • Design Secondary School Servers
  • Customer Requirements Admin, Curriculum and Technical
  • Proposed Solutions, Proof of Concept and Detailed Design
  • Test the New Version of the Managed Service
• End of Stage 2 and Start of Stage 3: January 2009
  • Training Materials Creation
  • School Pilot including training, implementation, testing and any changes to the new version of the Managed Service as a result of the pilot
• End of Stage 3 and Start of Stage 4: March 2009
  • Live Implementation
• Policy Creation: September to March 2009
  • Develop the Policies
  • Review and Awareness Raising of the Policies
  • Amend the Policies
  • Publish the Policies

Other Information

Project Board Members
In order to control the project we require a Primary and a Secondary school Headteacher to sit on the project board, to undertake the role of Senior User.  This role is accountable for ensuring that user needs are specified correctly and that the solution meets those needs.  It is planned for the meetings to be held once a term and will have a duration of approximately 2 hours.

If you are a headteacher and are interested in becoming a member of the Project Board please e-mail Kelly Gillings.

Customer Workshops
To facilitate the collection of user requirements BITC is going to hold a number of workshops with selected customer groups.  We would like the support of Headteachers, enabling staff to attend these workshops in order that all customer groups are represented. 

Customers that attend workshops will be providing BITC with user requirements that will enable BITC to update the Managed Service system.  Finally, customers that have attended these workshops will be invited back to BITC to review the changes to the Managed Service to verify the changes made have reflected the user requirements before BITC embark on the implementation a pilot.

Dates and Customer Groups for the Workshops
Wednesday 24th September: Primary Administrative Staff
Thursday 25th September: Secondary Administrative Staff

Tuesday 4th November: Primary Curriculum Staff (preferably ITCOs)
Friday 7th November: Secondary Curriculum Staff (preferably ITCOs)

Tuesday 2nd December: Secondary School Technical Staff
Wednesday 3rd December: BITC Technical Staff
Thursday 4th December: Curriculum Pupil Referral Unit Staff (including Hillside)

If you are interested in participating in the workshops please speak with your headteacher to gain approval for attendance and then e-mail Kelly Gillings who will confirm your attendance a few weeks prior to the event.  Please note that there are limited spaces on the workshops so it is possible that not all staff that respond will be able to reserve a place.

If you require any further information please contact Kelly Gillings, Project Manager at k.gillings@npt.gov.uk