Director of IT positions.........are they out there?

[Ephelyon]

I feel your pain.

 

If you don't have an appropriately-sized/resourced team under you, then the arrangement only works well once you've got the network to a state where it will pretty much run itself day to day, with decent enough monitoring in place that you can be alerted to the majority of upsets automatically. I use Veeam ONE for this, with a separate monitor in my office showing the state of CPU/RAM/disk/network utilisation across the virtual infrastructure plus e-mail alerts for concerning scenarios. Automation through scripting or products like Impero covers the vast majority of daily operations. Comprehensive backup routines blended with onsite and offsite DR arrangements gives me peace of mind for most problems.

 

Once you're in that scenario, the NM can be freed up to work at a more strategic level, but SLT ought to allow for the resources needed to get the system there first (either through more staff or streamlined technical structures) before putting him/her in that position. A strategic manager of any core resources also shouldn't be part-time as you say.

 

Maybe there are examples of case studies, or other local schools, that you could use to highlight the ideal scenario you're trying to progress towards, then build it up into a plan of action over e.g. 3 years (Ofsted is looking more closely at multi-year planning now), including specimen costings, and ask for a presentation to the Governors to introduce it? You'd need to work in constant links back to enhancements to T&L for it to be taken seriously though, even if it's not directly a resource that enhances learning but just something as simple as "teachers are waiting too long for problems to be resolved and this is how we could rectify the problem". Many SLTs like it when departments will take proactive action to remedy potential issues on their own as then all they have to do is just rubber-stamp... =]

Edited April 13, 2013 by Ephelyon

[GrumbleDook]

Surely that could be quite a good model if the strategic lead is at a secondary and the rest are feeder primaries though?

 

A comment from a friend who mainly works in primary (only lurks here for a variety of reasons) was why do Secondary NMs feel that they understand the primary arena which can have very different needs, be far more innovative and can also be better managed at a fraction of the cost.

 

A strategic lead should be able to understand all areas they need to cover and from his experience there have been a few too many secondary schools (recent academy conversions) who are trying to persuade primary schools to sign up with them but who have no idea what makes a primary school tick. In the same way I have seen secondary heads take over an all-through school, do wonders with the secondary phase but make a massive mess of primary.

[elsiegee40]

A comment from a friend who mainly works in primary (only lurks here for a variety of reasons) was why do Secondary NMs feel that they understand the primary arena which can have very different needs, be far more innovative and can also be better managed at a fraction of the cost.

We have had this debate on edugeek before. There is a section of IT techs/NMs that regard primary as somehow simpler and dismiss the loan techs who run them as less innovative and skilled. In comparison with the medical world, Primary school techs are necessarily GPs; they are on their own and have to be reasonably good at everything and we really benefit from the specialist knowledge of others on edugeek on occasion. In secondary, the IT staff can develop specialisms as they usually work aspart of a team. Both sides need to think very carefully!

[Ephelyon]

I can certainly say I don't regard the primary sector as "simpler". Having also been a "loan tech" in the past I wouldn't dismiss that area of the market either.

 

The first job I got after leaving school was as a subcontracted primary school technician dealing with everything from changing printer cartridges to the design and rollout of a completely new Windows Server environment to replace an aging installation (sometimes RM, sometimes Zentek, sometimes vanilla). Certainly the very varied nature of the role is not lost on me.

 

Accordingly, I acknowledge that there are some who would say a secondary school NM may well view a primary setup as "basic"; I have seen the setups they are talking about and, yes, quite frankly, they are. But I have also seen the kind of setup in a primary environment that would be considered highly innovative even in the corporate world, considering what it has achieved versus the relatively low expenditure. On some occasions I was contracted to replace that setup with a system that adheres to what is laughingly called "best practice" (I say laughingly because best practice is largely established by the business sector with little regard to how such standards might apply to other sectors) when the school wished to make a significant investment; at other times I have merely supported the existing structures. Either way, again, the way we must sometimes take what is there and transform it into a service delivery platform that meets or exceeds expectations - mostly on a shoestring budget - is actually something I would say is common to both primary and secondary school IT installations and - frankly - ought not to be considered a point of contention. Anyone in educational IT is a "GP" of sorts, in Elsie's words, whether they work in a primary or a secondary school. I would refute the argument that secondary staff can always specialise; I am a secondary NM with one apprentice. I don't really get to specialise either.

 

With regard to Tony's points... yes, I acknowledge the dangers of school clusters (in any respect) led by one secondary managing multiple primaries... but this all depends on the quality of the provision. If a secondary school wishes to offer a contracted support service to a cluster of primaries, it ought to put in place the kind of service that accommodates their needs. Bearing in mind that such a service will often be managed by Assistant/Deputy Heads linking in with each other, we might think more carefully about whether the perceived failure of a secondary technical support service to adequately meet a primary's needs has all that much to do with the technical staff after all...

[witch]

I'm raising the fact that I need to be full time rather than the 20hrs a week I'm contracted at the moment at my next pm meeting as most of last term I ended up doing 35hrs+ a week with no end in site in terms of fixing budget or it problems. The fact our neighbouring schools have done similar or created new full time posts has given me hope that our SLT might see sense and give me the time I need to sort out all of the issues.

 

Don't hold your breath. I am contracted for 15 hours a week even though the local and pretty much identical three middle schools all have full-time techs. I have pointed this out many many times but it hasn't got me anywhere. I did stop doing the extra though, and SO SHOULD YOU as I felt that it wasn't helping my argument - they were seeing that a lot of work was getting done apparently on 15 hours a week so they didn't see the need to increase my hours. I live in hope that someone will see the light soon.

My other school is a junior and I am that lone tech there as well. It is a difficult one because the head involves me in discussions about IT and budgets, which is great, but I am paid as a basic IT tech - the job description of which makes it clear that I should only work under supervision and have no involvement with budgets etc.

[Will_Townsend]

One of my central london clients is looking to recruit one this autumn, I don't have the fine details yet but if there are any aspiring or existing directors of ICT from an educational setting then please do get in contact with me

 

Managing two sites, operational and strategic direction

 

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