3 or more it staff?

our school is having a sort middle NM restructuring over joining parts of the admin network to ours. it prob a bunch of politics that doesnt affect us lower downs. Nevertheless we've been sent a consulation document that we can make our thoughts on known to the head. Im interested to know how other places with 3 or more staff are organised

we are

1 NM with
3 technicians under him (1 of is "senior")

1 tech goes to primaries every morning & fixes stuff
other tech fixes stuff
senior mostly does sever/network stuff

NM does mostly manager things, teaches comp studies, fixes the network infrastructure~ switches, oversees work being done, makes & writes policy,

the senior has no responsibilities concerning junior techs, budgets, h&s, decision making. chain of command is pretty much 'all us' > nm

is it different elsewhere?

We are:

1 SM / NM - same as yours but no teaching, instead some assessment & timetabling stuff.
2 Techs - one mainly hardware, one mainly software. 1 currently spends 50% of time in campus schools

we are about to hire a junior tech who will do a bit of everything. Maybe taking some of the external support to campus schools.

same chain of command really. Techs will have no real authority over junior tech as such, but may end up giving tasks, when they are busy doing stuff sm delegates.

Very different.
1) ICT Co-ordinator, teacher/SLT, has a maintenence budget, non-technical but does some website and VLE stuff, in-charge of 'policies' which are usually ad-hoc rather than anything in writing.
2) His line manager, teacher/SLT, controls the overall budget, and orders things like IWB's, absolutely no technical ability and often makes elementary mistakes for which we have to clean up.
3) 2x Senior ICT techs - we are the real network managers, just on a lower salary. Sometimes we get an input into strategic decisions, sometimes not. We've sort of divided our responsibilities into where our strengths are - I do network, email (not exchange), citrix, curriculum, web servers he does MIS, databases, exchange MS stuff and admin side. Between us we run all the technical work from documentation to wiring to installations to line-managing 2X techs etc.
4) 2X Techs - one does hardware repair - laptops,printers etc other does everything else (very well I might add).
5) web manager - sort of - inputs data into CMS, does some photoshop.

I'd probably organise things a bit differently myself, the structure seems very vague and nobody seems to have clearly defined responsibilities.

This is how I would hypothetically organise our department:
1 X technical NM who has ultimate responsibility for policy, security, procurement, budget (fixed for 5 years, not negotiated every term) etc
1 X helpdesk operative who assigns jobs to technicians
2 X technicians who escalate problems to snr techs
2 X Senior techs, for R+D testing, new stuff, anything techs can't handle
teachers use the CMS themselves - thats what its for.

we have;

ICT Cooord - figurehead for all things ICT - also assistant deputy head and create and maintains the timetables.

Network Manager - Lord over all things technical, policy, security, procurement, budgets, Research & Development, Hitman etc etc etc Over Admin and Curriculum Networks :D

Senior Tech/Admin Network Manager - Runs the Admin network on a day to day basis, assists in Research and Development and looks after the trainee by hiding him from the Hitman. :(

Senior Technician - Responsible for Asset management and curriculum network, also hides trainee from Hitman. :(

Junior Tech/Trainee - Does as he's told :twisted:

1 Network Manager (bossman), 1 Technician (me) and a trainee.

Adrian does just about everything + SIMS. I do general support, and primarily look after the linux server (proxy/email/web). Our trainee sorts out laptops, printers and the like. We work well as a team and usually just share the workload though so it's not a case of "I do this, only this, and nothing else".

we suffer lack of clearly defined responsibilities too, its often whoever is standing in the wrong place. That more of a management issue than an organisational one i think. I sit at my desk more doing network stuff so invariably i answer the tech support phone the most.

We have 2 techies, and our roles are supposed to be split by domain, so i do curric domain and the other does admin domain, but it tends to be whoever picks up the phone first does the work, 8 time out of 10 it's me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dezt

...whoever picks up the phone first does the work, 8 time out of 10 it's me.

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lol, that used to happen to me. Although the phone was on the other techs desk people used to come in and specifically ask me to do something..... then i got moaned at for "cherry picking" the jobs! Yeah like i want to do twice the work!

We have...

1x ICT Director
1x NM
1x Senoir Tech
1x Vanilla Tech
2x Classroom assistants

The assistants are more in classes to help with "how do I get a picture from the Internet?" questions from kids but should be able to restock printers etc. The rest of the structure is a bit of sham but that's more down to the people...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iSteve

We have...

1x ICT Director
1x NM
1x Senoir Tech
1x Vanilla Tech
2x Classroom assistants

The assistants are more in classes to help with "how do I get a picture from the Internet?" questions from kids but should be able to restock printers etc. The rest of the structure is a bit of sham but that's more down to the people...

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how does the ict director differ from the nm?

1 x Direcotor for e-Learning

Strategical work, that brings together ICT for teaching and learning purposes.

1 x Deputy Director for e-Learning

Only been appointed this week, so cant really comment.

1 x Network Manager (Me)

I work alongside the Director for e-Learning on the majority of things including the introduction of our new VLE etc. We meet on a bi-weekly weekly basis to pool together ideas. I do all budgeteary work and have a lot of say in ICT across the whole school from an SMT point of view and nothing is done or decided over my head. I am reguarly invited to SMT meetings as my input is valued. I also do a lot of Technician roles as we only have one other technician and the workload would be immense for him if I didn't pull my weight. Hopefully we are to employ an additonal technician before Easter which will take the technician role away from me leaving me to get on with the true Network Manager tasks.

1 x Technician

Primarilly in charge of the website, but will be given more responsibility once we emply an addional technician and will share the workload.

1 x Technician (tbc)

The new person will probably be an internal promotion and will be the current reprographics technicians, he has a keen interest in ICT and will be a benefit to the ICT Support team here, he is also keen on data and will provide a service closley linked with our Exam Officer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by browolf

how does the ict director differ from the nm?

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Normally this a post held by a senior teacher either ICT Coordinator or SMT.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NetworkGeezer

Quote:

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Originally Posted by browolf

how does the ict director differ from the nm?

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Normally this a post held by a senior teacher either ICT Coordinator or SMT.

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/me jumps up and down ...

Doesn't have to be a senior teacher ... it can be another senior member of staff ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GrumbleDook

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NetworkGeezer

Quote:

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Originally Posted by browolf

how does the ict director differ from the nm?

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Normally this a post held by a senior teacher either ICT Coordinator or SMT.

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/me jumps up and down ...

Doesn't have to be a senior teacher ... it can be another senior member of staff ...

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In your case you were recruited because of your ability. Some might say that many schools internally promote teachers to technical leadership positions because of their length of loyal service rather than their capability.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by browolf

how does the ict director differ from the nm?

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One has the "vision" but no knowledge of how to implement it. The other one does as he is told.