Sensible level of technical support

[NotSoFast]

All,

I am wondering how the level of staffing in our school compares to that in others, and also what might be considered a "good level". I'm very aware that our support team looks after all kinds of devices ("if it's got a plug...") in addition to the ICT stuff. On the other hand, we are an RM school and a certain amount of administration should, therefore be taken away compared to a school running a vanilla network.

I know we'd all like infinite numbers of colleagues, or at least an equivalent to the situation in industry but I don't see how that's going to happen with the competing pressures on school budgets.

So, how big are your school and your network, and how many people support them (doing what sort of jobs)?

The second question is: what's the "right" ratio to keep everything running sweetly and the tech support team sane?

I'll start:

• Secondary (11-18) with about 1700 students
• RM Network with around 600 workstations including admin, offices and laptops
• Projector and DVD/VCR in virtually all (100 plus) classrooms
• SharePoint, Exchange and various other bits like ClickView in addition to usual server setup

1 full time network manager and 3 full time technicians

Simon

[maniac]

Well we're a secondary (11-16 with a few 6th form, but not many) with 340 Students (Yes just just 340, but increasing )
Ageing RM CC3 Network with about 550 Stations, Most of which are Laptops.
Projector/Whiteboard etc. in Every classroom (About 40 rooms)
Exchange server, Website, intranet, Eclipse Library system, Uniware Cashless Catering and lots of other bits and pieces to look after.

1 Full time Network Manager (Me) and 2 Full time Technicians.

Although we're small at the moment, we do have a lot of ICT equipment and a lot of it is on the older side so is quite high maintenance. We expect to hit a roll of 600 students within the next 3 years, and are suposidly moving into new premises in about 2 years time, so things are expanding fast here.

Mike.

[TonyJF]

Upper school - Yr10-13

Approx 1600 users
Approx 550 computers
10 servers
Admin and Curric network
Separate Music network x 32 stations
All network management and support in-house
1 x FT Network Manager plus 2 x FT Technicians

[budgester]

1 Network Manager
3 Technicians

550 PC's
A couple of racks of servers.

1 more technician would hopefully push us totally over the edge of the reactive/proactiv barrier.

But then there is different workloads at different times of the year.

[FN-GM]

We have nearly 600 machines with 2.5 techies with around 550 students.

[jamin100]

2 form entry Primary School
500 Students
40 Staff

50 PC's
90 Laptops
6 Servers
Admin + Curriculum Network
4 Printers
2 Printer/Photocopier combi's

1 FT Network manager (me) and . . No just me!

[russdev]

11 to 14 Years 7 to 9.
170 workstations
400 odd kids (not had latest figures)
Network Manager (Me) + 3 Day A Week Technician (One day is special projects day)

Russ

[User3204]

Students yr7-13, ages 11 to 18. approx 1500.
500(ish) computers, of which: 110-120 staff laptops, 60 student laptops.
Network Manager (me), 1x F/T Technician, 1 P/T Technician/Manager/Teacher (my ex-boss - who will be leaving at the end of term).

We're currently advertising for an ICT Manager (who will become my new boss).
This is down from last year as we lost 1 P/T Manager (Deputy Head in charge), and 1 F/T Technician.

So currently this is 2 and 1 half bodies, down from 3 and 2 half bodies, and soon it should go upto 3 and 1 half bodies. (this is ignoring the 1 F/T and 1 P/T Temps we had in over summer).
Last year, when there was 5 of us, we actually caught up with ourselves, and spent some time planning, but now we're back to 3, it's all going pear-shaped again.

[wagnerk]

About us:

Secondary school (with 6th form):
1. Approx 1200 students
2. Approx 150 staff
3. 550 PC's & Laptops (this includes 7 mobile classrooms)
4. 16 Servers (Physical as well as virtual, including 2 x Exchange, 2 x ISA, etc)
5. IP CCTV (currently 4 IP camera's linked up to one of the above servers)
6. Telephone system (including IP Phones)
7. Fixed projectors in almost every room
8. Approx 20 smartboards
9. Bookable items as 4 mobile projectors, 4 digital camera's, 2 camcorders, etc

That's off the top of my head, then:

Primary School:
1. Approx 200 students
2. Approx 20 staff
3. Approx 50 laptops & PC's
4. 2 Servers

Off the top of my head.

And to support all of that there's us, IT Services: 1 IT Manager (me), 1 Senior tech and 1 virtual person who we are still waiting for (for the last 2 years)

That's us...

-Ken

[wagnerk]

...The second question is: what's the "right" ratio to keep everything running sweetly and the tech support team sane? ...

There is no right amount, it boils down to the following:

1. network (reliability)
2. technical support (whether they are efficient or not)
3. users (if they are ICT confident and trained or not)
4. Service Desk (if there is one or not)

If you have a perfect one, Becta "recommends" 1 tech to every 150 machines, but it can go down to 1 tech to every 50 if it's in a bad state. However it really does depend on the school...

-Ken

[NotSoFast]

Thanks everyone - very interesting!

[Sirbendy]

11-16 secondary, no sixth form
600+ kiddies
200ish PCs
IWB and projector in every classroom
20ish printers
Cisco VoIP phone system
"nodal" server room containing "zone 9 servers" (3 racks, LEA maintained)
3 Auxilliary servers (all VM hosts for accounts, personnel, VPN, print serving etc)
Several laptops
PC based CCTV
1 incoming laptop trolley+wifi

2 of us. 1 FT Network manager, 1 TT+2 tech (will be FT with luck). Sometimes not got time to break wind (putting it nicely), sometimes idling.

In the new building it'll be non-LEA, and loads more kit so there will be a 2nd tech by that point and probably a media tech for the theatre and video stuff.

[DSapseid]

11-16 secondary
700 kids
10 servers
200ish computers
50ish laptops
3 websites
wireless
IWB in nearly all and projector in every classroom (30ish)
IP CCTV

3 Primary Schools Totalling
700 kids
80ish computers
50ish laptops
wireless at one school
IWB's in all classrooms (30)

Primary schools get 3 hours a week each.

1 Full time - Term time + 2 weeks in holidays (Me)
1 Full time - Term time

[kennylang74]

Hi Simon,

I work for a centralised team looking after eight high schools with the following:

38 Servers
3000 PC's
300 Laptops (approx 200 wireless)
Sharepoint / Exchange / Openfire IM / Streaming Media Platform etc
300 Smartboards / 500 Projectors
12,000 Pupils / 1600 Staff
Digital Camera's, Camcorders, Visualisers, and anything else with an LED on it!

We have four full time engineers (centrally based), a part time tech at each school, and a comms engineer who spends part of his week looking after Education.

[grumpy_git]

We have approx 600 machines, another 100 or so thin clients, oodles of switches and cabling, about 60 printers of varying types (though a lot are unused or under-used), 70 projectors, 5 photocopiers, CCTV etc.

1 NM, 1 full time technician, 1 part time (0.25) technician. Hopefully adding another person soon, but pigs can fly too...

Spend an awful lot of time with a huge backlog, it's almost impossible to do anything proactive or development wise as the time is taken sorting out the day-to-day stuff.

Senior staff are quick to moan when stuff doesn't get done on time, but then bleat on about budget pressures when its pointed out that extra staffing is required.
(Of course its fine to hire extra bean-counters, or give teachers fancy titles and huge pay rises for doing very little).