DfE confirms £2,000 funding to get you set up on Office 365 or G Suite

[techy32]

The DfE is offering funded support for you to get set up on one of two free-to-use digital education platforms: G Suite for Education or Office 365 Education. Find out exactly what's on offer, whether you're eligible and how to apply.

 

DfE confirms £2,000 funding to get you set up on Office 365 or G Suite

 

It seems interesting... any thoughts are useful

[keyboards]

Haven't read it indepth but probably well worth doing if you haven't got either, think I've set up G-suite in a number of schools now

[Sylv3r]

I think it's great that they are offering it - although what are these companies getting for £2k? I've setup about 8 Office365 tenancies now for our schools and couldn't justify that charge for 8 schools never mind 1.

 

Does it include training etc? From a technical point of view, it's probably half a days work for a primary at most - that's not a bad hourly rate.

[fiza]

I think it's great that they are offering it - although what are these companies getting for £2k? I've setup about 8 Office365 tenancies now for our schools and couldn't justify that charge for 8 schools never mind 1.

 

Does it include training etc? From a technical point of view, it's probably half a days work for a primary at most - that's not a bad hourly rate.

It includes training staff too as far as I am aware.

[Arthur]

Does it include training etc?

This is what it includes:

 

The funding will cover the cost of service from an accredited Google for Education partner to carry out:

 

• End-to-end set up of G Suite for Education
  
• Integration with your Management Information Systems to provision Google Classroom
  
• Core security settings to support remote education
  
• Creation of a central "remote learning hub" site for your school
  
• Handover training for your school's staff
  

These partners can help to carry out a safe, secure and professional set up of your platform, including sharing best practices on domain settings and feature enablement.

[techy32]

It does seem basic setup but if you see it from another angel if a school starts this process then they want to do full migration at the end so full cloud is the end goal. It is a clever move by DfE to encourage schools to move towards cloud base system at a very crucial time. They are paying £2000 and school will pay around £4000 for full migration (secondary).... It is a good and solid investment at the end of the day...

[BlueSkies]

Has anyone applied for this? We have O365 through our current learning platform, but I started setting up GfE earlier this year (as I wanted to compare what it had to offer different from O365). We don't use either with the pupils - the staff are currently using Teams to communicate and we have had them using OneDrive for a few things prior to this.

 

I know there are some people here who use both (and I was initially tempted to use O365 for the business side of things and GfE for theclassroom teaching/pupils) but I wondered if this might offer the perfect opportunity to get GfE properly up and running for use as a classroom tool.

 

I have read through the info and wondered who the certified partners might be? £2k does sound like a lot of money ... and our GfE is partially setup already ...

[LeMarchand]

Has anyone applied for this?

 

One of mine has. We already have GSuite set up and figured that, whilst we could probably get Classroom etc set up ourselves, might as well get some free help. So far the "contact" stuff happened very quickly - we'll see about the rest.

 

Bit worried that it's "services" = £1.5k (Primary) and we really think you'd benefit from our special offers...

[EdTech-Tom]

Has anyone applied for this? We have O365 through our current learning platform, but I started setting up GfE earlier this year (as I wanted to compare what it had to offer different from O365). We don't use either with the pupils - the staff are currently using Teams to communicate and we have had them using OneDrive for a few things prior to this.

 

I know there are some people here who use both (and I was initially tempted to use O365 for the business side of things and GfE for theclassroom teaching/pupils) but I wondered if this might offer the perfect opportunity to get GfE properly up and running for use as a classroom tool.

 

I have read through the info and wondered who the certified partners might be? £2k does sound like a lot of money ... and our GfE is partially setup already ...

 

Since you've not used either with the pupils you'll be eligible (Link here). This honestly seems like a great time to get GfE up and running for use with the pupils with no impact on the school budgets themselves. RM is a certified partner (Full disclosure I work for them) but I'm not privy to the other partners I'm afraid... We've had a couple of applications similar to yours ( eg, Have a O365 tenancy but not used with pupils) that've been processed fine.

 

I think this is the ideal opportunity for schools to move towards more cloud based technologies and the perfect storm of events that could lead to long lasting change in the way learning happens in schools.

[MS2011]

Does anyone know this funding is totally different from free laptops to help with remote learning and 4G routers to vulnerable pupils?

[techy32]

As far as I know these are two different funding. We have applied for both funding separately and are in the process of setting up O365 & laptops are also being ordered separately.

[MS2011]

As far as I know these are two different funding. We have applied for both funding separately and are in the process of setting up O365 & laptops are also being ordered separately.

 

for office 365 do you need to go through your finance team / BM ? As far as I know you work with a partner for setup teams/google classroom and they get direct funding from dfe for this.

 

School don’t need to raise PO etc.

[StoneGroup_JackW]

Hello all, reference to this if you choose to go with ourselves at stone for this side of work we are also offering 30 days free technical support during this period to get set up and help with anything you may need. might help to take the pressure off this job or if there is anything you could be unsure of

[GreyWhirly]

Does anyone have the full list of partners to choose from? Would anyone here be able to recommend a partner for GfE?

 

I am assuming that there is a list to choose from ..or do you get one allocated?

[LeMarchand]

I am assuming that there is a list to choose from ..or do you get one allocated?

 

The one we chose (purely because they were local) apparently only do MS, so Google assigned one. The next day we had contact from a different firm, then radio silence. However last contact was Friday lunchtime, so it's not that bad.

[EdTech-Tom]

You have a full list of providers to choose from (See pic below) , but if you don't have a preference then one gets selected for you.

 

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by EdTech-Tom

[GreyWhirly]

Thanks @EdTech-Tom ... where did you find that list?! I have been looking all over the place!

 

 

Is anyone here happy to give any recommendations for a Google partner?

[EdTech-Tom]

Thanks @EdTech-Tom ... where did you find that list?! I have been looking all over the place!

 

Is anyone here happy to give any recommendations for a Google partner?

 

Haha, it's not the most publicised list unfortunately. I made that picture but found the providers via the form and collated them together. It needed to be together, this process is already new and confusing so I figured I'd make it as easy as possible.

 

I'm a bit biased so I can't really give a recommendation, but can say we at RM are handling it well and provide the set up & a product every school in Scotland uses to make cloud O365/GfE easier.

[Sylv3r]

There's a lot of companies on that list I must admit i've never heard of. I take it there was set criteria for the Government to approve them and not just Billy in his bedroom got in touch to say he could help.

 

There's also a lot of companies on that list for one reason or another either through bad experiences or others receiving bad experiences I wouldn't use ever again - so good luck with who you choose !

[Edu-IT]

Haha, it's not the most publicised list unfortunately. I made that picture but found the providers via the form and collated them together. It needed to be together, this process is already new and confusing so I figured I'd make it as easy as possible.

 

I'm a bit biased so I can't really give a recommendation, but can say we at RM are handling it well and provide the set up & a product every school in Scotland uses to make cloud O365/GfE easier.

What is that product?

[Sylv3r]

What is that product?

 

RM Unify at a guess.

[saggu]

As far as I know these are two different funding. We have applied for both funding separately and are in the process of setting up O365 & laptops are also being ordered separately.

How did you apply for the devices? Are you MAT Secondary school?

Cannot find any guidance on how to apply for the devices.

[gh5000]

There's a lot of companies on that list I must admit i've never heard of. I take it there was set criteria for the Government to approve them and not just Billy in his bedroom got in touch to say he could help.

 

There's also a lot of companies on that list for one reason or another either through bad experiences or others receiving bad experiences I wouldn't use ever again - so good luck with who you choose !

For Google you had to be a Partner, have over 150 school relationships already, and certain numbers of staff with some of the Google qualifications

[EdTech-Tom]

RM Unify at a guess.

 

Correct! I didn't want to mention it in my post because I'd appear too salesy...

[paulkerton]

There's a lot of companies on that list I must admit i've never heard of. I take it there was set criteria for the Government to approve them and not just Billy in his bedroom got in touch to say he could help.

They're all accredited Google for Education Partners and will likely be using one of RM Unify, Wonde or Salamander for MIS Integration. Just because you haven't heard of some of them, doesn't mean they can't do it. Some of the bigger names in the Education space I wouldn't touch due to past experiences.

Edited May 6, 2020 by paulkerton