Northgate questions

Northgate reps are in our school tomorrow (06.12.07) for a meeting with the NM and myself. Tho' the head tells me that they haven't even decided if they're going to bid to manage the services in our LEA, I have a sneaky suspicion that they just might.

I really would like to hear from anyone in the Bristol area and N. Ireland, or anywhere else they are providing a service, just how they go about their business.

Men in dark suits and glasses eh!

Northgate have been involved in a number of large scale government projects including the ANPR systems used throughout the UK.

They had high security premises in Hemel next to the Buncefield Depot which were demolished by the blast only days after delivering the system to Hendon Police Control Centre! (ludicrous conspiracy theory).

Black unmarked Helicopters were seen on several occassions landing in the car park at weekends and after dark.

 

After they tell you all about the proposed bid all of your hair will fall out and you will disappear!

Im not sure who is the more scary! RM or Northgate!

8)

MIB eh? That makes me an alien I suppose.

 

I was just wondering what the managed services equivalent of MRSA might be.

^BUMP^

If I can just give this one last heave...

It seems that the Technicians / Network Managers that have been TUPED / Assimilated no longer have the ability to speak...

Post removed for various reasons.

@Steven - that sounds like an absolute nightmare to me. I'd feel like a third leg.

@SteveB_NI

 

though this comes a little late for the meeting, thanks anyway. From our talks with the (quite senior) reps we were told techies would be kept in the schools in which they currently work. I asked if we would be glorified gofers, unpacking boxes etc and they said no. I asked if we would be given admin passwords and they said yes. but as they said, they haven't decided if they're going to bid yet.

It's not too bad, but to be honest I wish I had more interaction with the hardware side of things.

 

I'm happy in this job though because due to Northgate managed service I am able to concentrate more on other development work which will continue to benefit the school.

 

Just wish the school was open more over xmas so I could get this done!

I was working in a school in bristol which is due to be rebuilt with a north gate contract to. Because of this i moved to another school in a county. Maybe if northgate would of came out and told us their plans then i would of prob stayed.

 

Ross

The plans in Bristol could be very different to plans elsewhere ... this is the dichotomy of BSF ... you get what was asked for.

Northgate under a previous name provided technical support for schoolsl in Sheffield. I represented 18 of those schools at the time and the support was not good. This was 4 years ago. They may be better now but they were certainly difficult to work with then. The city council still have problems from what I've heard but again its better than it used to be.

It seems that Northgate uses RM's CC3 and re brands it as Classroom 2000 C2K..

 

Beeswax I doubt that any onsite Technician would get Admin Passwords as this is one of their main money spinners...

Happy New Year Grommit. Present at the meeting when I asked the question were the NM and the Head. However, as Grumbledook says above, you get what you ask for, and as I don't expect to be party to any detailed negotiations, this "seemingly minor" point (in the eyes of others) may not arise.

A few other things that people can ask at these sorts of meetings are examples of minutia that can give key indicators about how well the company will perform.

 

I don't think I would be giving away secrets to give examples of these sort of things ...

 

Ask for examples of end to end processes so that you can examine how the performance of the company affects the variety of stakeholders. A starting example would be adding a single new workstation in a classroom. This may seem like a simple request but get a full breakdown, some of which would be below ...

Source the appropriate hardware (who decides what is appropriate? The Service Provider, the school leadership, the technical staff, the teacher, the LA? Is it based on performance, cost, specific user needs - ie teacher / learner - or based on what is offered in a catalogue?)

Timescales from decision of hardware to the hardware arriving on site.

Timescales of implementation of hardware.

Process of rolling out hardware (Is it pre-configured so you just have to plug it in? Do you need to add it to the 'network'? How is software deployed? How is software decided on and how easy is it to change what is on each box?)

What maintenance is planned for the new hardware? (This ranges from daily running, regular cleaning, performance analysis, patch and release management through to change management for possible changes of use of hardware)

How does hardware that has come into the school fit into the replacement programme of assets? (The new box goes into a room of machines that are already 1 year old ... does it get replaced at the same time as the others? is it then skipped even though it is newer that the other kit and may be within warranty?)

 

Just getting a company to highlight a single task will highlight a number of policies and procedures / processes and this can be very handy to identify schools trying to identify companies that truly have an idea about the school's needs are.

 

There are various other questions like this that can be generated to twist it round to include T&L, Leadership and the various other sections of the Self-Review Framework.

and so we get the £500 toilet seat...

and so we get the £500 toilet seat...

and no computer suites...... and no corridors ...... Did you know, if you get rid of internal corridors and make the kids circulate round the outside of the building you might have enough classrooms to accomodate all of the kids in your school? Novel idea that.

and so we get the £500 toilet seat...

and no computer suites...... and no corridors ...... Did you know, if you get rid of internal corridors and make the kids circulate round the outside of the building you might have enough classrooms to accomodate all of the kids in your school? Novel idea that.

 

I've been trying to find that article by Prof. Stephen Hepple myself. Didn't have time to read it the other week and of course I've lost it now.

 

*EDIT*

 

It would help if I could spell Heppell! The article is here and the relevant section is

For example it is clear that children learning with rich new media, including the internet, become focussed and engaged in a way that results in them moving less and in some schools studied this movement reduction was very substantial indeed. The debate around school design focussed historically on the need to move children efficiently, without pressure or stress, around the school; cue debate about school corridors, passing places, social interaction "lay-bys" and the rest. But, in a world where the learners move a lot less, corridor free schools are being build and, unsurprisingly, the gains include discipline as the archtypal "naughty child circulating on the corridors" vanishes.

and so we get the £500 toilet seat...

and no computer suites...... and no corridors ...... Did you know, if you get rid of internal corridors and make the kids circulate round the outside of the building you might have enough classrooms to accomodate all of the kids in your school? Novel idea that.

 

Oh .. they get far more novel than that.

 

When designing buildings don't make corridors, but covered walk ways. That way they do not get included in the formula that calculates students against floor space to work out how much space you should have.

 

Each building has multiple stairwell, each servicing only 2 upstairs rooms and all entrance doors to downstairs rooms are directly to the covered walk ways.

 

A nightmare for security but has allowed some schools to actually have classrooms that are fit for purpose.

and so we get the £500 toilet seat...

and no computer suites...... and no corridors ...... Did you know, if you get rid of internal corridors and make the kids circulate round the outside of the building you might have enough classrooms to accomodate all of the kids in your school? Novel idea that.

 

Oh .. they get far more novel than that.

 

When designing buildings don't make corridors, but covered walk ways. That way they do not get included in the formula that calculates students against floor space to work out how much space you should have.

 

Each building has multiple stairwell, each servicing only 2 upstairs rooms and all entrance doors to downstairs rooms are directly to the covered walk ways.

 

A nightmare for security but has allowed some schools to actually have classrooms that are fit for purpose.

 

Yes yes... Just like we realised that AFTER we put in the access control system there had to be a break glass by every controlled door... so where we wanted 2 way restriction failed as they could just push the break glass in and open the door..

and so we get the £500 toilet seat...

and no computer suites...... and no corridors ...... Did you know, if you get rid of internal corridors and make the kids circulate round the outside of the building you might have enough classrooms to accomodate all of the kids in your school? Novel idea that.

 

Oh .. they get far more novel than that.

 

When designing buildings don't make corridors, but covered walk ways. That way they do not get included in the formula that calculates students against floor space to work out how much space you should have.

 

Each building has multiple stairwell, each servicing only 2 upstairs rooms and all entrance doors to downstairs rooms are directly to the covered walk ways.

 

A nightmare for security but has allowed some schools to actually have classrooms that are fit for purpose.

 

Yes yes... Just like we realised that AFTER we put in the access control system there had to be a break glass by every controlled door... so where we wanted 2 way restriction failed as they could just push the break glass in and open the door..

 

You must not refer to covered walkways as such, they are 'Stoa' and we will have an 'Agora' too. It looks like our new school is being designed by a 'classical' architect

and so we get the £500 toilet seat...

and no computer suites...... and no corridors ...... Did you know, if you get rid of internal corridors and make the kids circulate round the outside of the building you might have enough classrooms to accomodate all of the kids in your school? Novel idea that.

 

Oh .. they get far more novel than that.

 

When designing buildings don't make corridors, but covered walk ways. That way they do not get included in the formula that calculates students against floor space to work out how much space you should have.

 

Each building has multiple stairwell, each servicing only 2 upstairs rooms and all entrance doors to downstairs rooms are directly to the covered walk ways.

 

A nightmare for security but has allowed some schools to actually have classrooms that are fit for purpose.

 

Yes yes... Just like we realised that AFTER we put in the access control system there had to be a break glass by every controlled door... so where we wanted 2 way restriction failed as they could just push the break glass in and open the door..

 

You must not refer to covered walkways as such, they are 'Stoa' and we will have an 'Agora' too. It looks like our new school is being designed by a 'classical' architect

 

Don't you mean 'mock-classical' or 'faux-classical archicets'......modern architects just don't know how to do classical.

 

God, they can't even do modern functional....they all seem to subscribe to the norman foster school of glass and 'iconic' buildings - must be an ego-thing. What's more iconic in an area than a solidly built school that is well laid out and is clearly a design of it's time/era. None of the new schools i've scene going up (none BSF) are represenative of our time - except people in 20 years time may associate them with the current period of the New Labour ego-trip of demolishing the good and replacing it with the awful.

 

I'm actually suprised these new schools have architects at all, it wouldn't surprise me if the Balfour-beatty onsite foreman made the design up as he went along. These schools are the construction equivalent of the brown field noddy houses that are springing up on the outskirts of 'deprived areas'.

 

These modern school constructions are utterly hiedous and are likely to age quicker than anything built in the 60's, 70's or 80's.

As someone who has been in and around a few 'modern' buildings in the last 18 months I would like to point out that some work .. and Norman Foster's stuff is not that bad.

 

It boils down to the same issue with all PFI and BSF work ... they have to know from the word go what the school wants ...

 

I recently looked at the amended drawings of a build that went up 2 years ago. Learning from the mistakes that were made and after some improvements were added, the architects then took it to the school who crossed a heap of the improvements and questioned why they were needed.

 

Builders suffer from the exact same issue as we do when planning. If they don't get the job spec given to them they can't invent it as they go along ...

 

The sub-contractors may look as if they do, and the numbers of corners cut also give this impression, but they do tend to work to the design given.

 

The best one has to have been a logistics group that wanted a new wing on their central office ... this had to be based on the ideology of the company, the future expansion plans, incorporate additional essential services (creche, gym, cinema^Wpresentation area, grub house^W^Wmulti-function eating area and some R & R space).

 

Eventually they worked out it was easy just to get a frame built with glass on 3 sides, a mezzanine floor and put up partition walls that could be moved around. A change of decor is done with different artwork or propoganda^Wpromotional materials, all the services are run under a floating floor or via ceiling voids ... and they saved $10m ... which went as a bonus to the employees.

 

Apparently, money is a better motivating factor then whether you are eating your pickled herring and watercress ciabatta next to a virtual wooded glade whilst larks sing Handel's Messiah.

I visited a Norman Foster designed school last year, and the ground floor classrooms had glass walls, floor to ceiling. The school has to employ extra cleaners to wipe off the greasy marks which build up every day. At the end of each period as the pupils poured out into the wide central corridor the noise level was very high, more like being in a swimming pool during the height of the summer holidays. SMT acknowledged that they would have liked to do certain things differently, but there was no wiggle room where Norm was concerned. It's all or nothing. You would probably be better off using a firm of architects without such a strong ego at the head, and that's what you'll probably get.