Saltash, Cornwall (Near Plymouth) - Deputy Network Manager

[pirran]

Job Title: Deputy Network Manager

 

Person specification prepared by: saltash.net community school

 

Start Date: As soon as possible

Salary: £16,966 - £21,519

Contract: Full Time and Permanent

Live On Site Until: 14 October 2013

Applications Close: 14 October 2013

 

Please pay special attention to the personal specification, the job description is a rather generic Cornwall County one.

 

If you have any questions regarding this post please do ask.

 

 

 

JOB LINK

 

Many thanks,

 

David Jones

Network Manager

[MrEprise]

If it wasn't so far, I'd go for it.

[pirran]

If the job wasn't so far away I would hope you'd have applied already. We need to catch up soon!

 

As this may be of interest to all that are looking to apply:

 

This week I'm meeting Nexus for a second time to put together a strategy document and commence pretty major works. With their help I will be scrapping RM CC4, new DCs on the blade servers and SAN (all being re-configured), introducing System Centre 2012, migrating local exchange to 365 and getting our rather high end managed Cisco wireless system in better shape. The list goes on, but that's a good idea of what's happening at Saltash.net in the year ahead.

 

Evidently there's a lot of work going on within the school, so this post is ideally suited to someone who embraces change and likes a challenge. We have a fairly large team of 5/6 staff although this does includes web design, video as well as all the usual IT requirements.

[IrritableTech]

Although I've never visited, I've heard a lot about this school. I once attended a conference where the deputy head (who has moved on now) was talking about the schools use of social media. They have used facebook in particular to communicate with the school community and set homework. Mobile devices and mobile learning was big.

 

They like their technology from what I could tell, and aren't afraid to explore how it can aid teaching and learning. I'm sure this would be a really interesting post for anyone lucky enough to get it.

[unmode]

Is there any possible negotiation on pay? I'd be very interested, but the salary range is too low.

[twin--turbo]

Does seem fairly low, what's actualy being supported?

 

Rob

[pirran]

Dear all,

 

As an employee myself please understand that I can only convey the schools terms, please PM me if you would like to discuss further.

 

Regarding the pay: The salary grades at the school use Cornwall Councils own, the pay and conditions are also the same. Although the school is an Academy they have chosen to stay with these. Unfortunately these scales are lower than Devon's and due to our proximity to Plymouth I'm fully aware of the disadvantage this puts us in.

 

Clearly I would like to fill the post with a great candidate, if you are not interested due to the salary do please leave a comment and I can make the senior leadership team aware of this feedback.

 

I have been assured by the HR Manager that the school doesn't always employ at the bottom of the scale.

 

For more information please google "cornwall council salary scales" and hit the top PDF link to a file hosted on the council website.

 

 

What's actually being supported? Quite a lot... I'll elaborate a little!

 

The following figures are estimates as I don't have these exact numbers to hand at the moment.

Circa 1300 students, 140 staff

 

 

Most staff have dell laptops

120 iPad 2's managed by apple configurator

400 Netbooks running windows 7 (atom)

120 Windows 8 touchscreen laptops (core i3 - pilot for one to one scheme for students)

60 Windows 8 touchscreen tablets with keyboards (atom - pilot for one to one scheme for students)

300 Desktops running Windows 7, these are mostly Dell Core i5, i3, core 2 duo and some Revo/Nettops

25 Windows RT tablets (these just arrived free from Microsoft)

Students and staff have a lot of personal devices connected to the wireless.

 

Server:

Dell Blade chassis with 6 blade servers, all high spec.

Dell Poweredge rack servers x6

x2 SAN SAS arrays linked to the blade chassis and a couple of trunks to external servers.

Synology NAS 8 disk (new)

A few older NAS boxes

 

Network:

200Mbps SWGFL

A lot of layer 3 Gb switches (3com/HP), quite a number of layer 2 HP switches.

Fully managed Cisco wireless, 30 AP , dual band (v.new)

Quite a lot of fibre throughout the buildings.

 

Other kit:

Lots of cameras, flipcams, sound recording kit

CCTV system

A lot of printers

 

Software and similar things worth mentioning:

SIMS - we have just paid Cornwall for support this year so the workload on this should be reduced.

Adobe CS 5.5

RM CC4 - We're getting rid of this though.

Microsoft licences - we're a Microsoft World Tour School so get a lot free, expect Server 2012 and the latest toys including System Centre 2012

365 rollout this year, so our in-house exchange servers will hopefully retire.

We're currently an Apple Regional Training Centre although our most knowledgeable Apple employee recently landed a job with AT Computers and will be sorely missed.

 

Less 'IT/Tech' things my team is involved in:

Lots of audio, video recording and editing (

)

The school website (wordpress driven), a number of blogs and social networking accounts too.

The school prospectus

Lots of other design work

Photography

I'm sure I could make this list a lot longer, we do have a great designer in the team.

Alcatel phone system

 

 

I started employment with Saltash.net just before the Summer, the last Network Manager or 'Technical Consultatant' as he was known had to leave suddenly News Article

 

Unfortunately for the school, not only did he steal lots of money, he also left virtually no documentation and a neglected network, so in summary it's been a busy few months. RM CC4 is still running on some aging Windows 2003 servers, generally there's great hardware throughout the school that just needs some time spent (ok quite a lot) configuring it all properly. I have Nexus in this week who I'm employing to assist in this process.

 

We're moving quite rapidly towards a Windows vanilla network (lots of Hyper-v, System Centre 2012) where we'll make use of the decent servers and SANS the school already owns. This along with migrating our mailboxes to 365 this year should alleviate some of the pain that RM CC4 is currently inflicting.

 

 

Who am I?

I'll keep it relevant : Last year I ran another IT Team in a large IT specialist Academy that also supported two primary schools. Before that I was an IT Manager for four years at the University of Reading. I started off in IT supporting businesses and schools in the South West after graduating with an IT degree. I've also some Microsoft Server Certifications (2008 r2 era).

 

Apologies if this isn't brilliantly written, it's far too late for me to be writing this. If you do have any questions please post or PM me if you prefer. All job applications will be assessed based on their own merits. Posts you may make on this forum are separate from that process so please don't feel like you can't quiz me now, use another account if you're concerned.

 

Many thanks,

 

David W Jones

 

Network Manager

Saltash.net Community School

Edited October 1, 2013 by pirran
addition to content

[Tall_Paul]

Hi Dave

 

I'll send you a PM with my thoughts as we're currently going through a recruitment process for a similar position and are just up the road from you.

 

Thanks

 

Paul

[DrPerceptron]

I forgot about that Torquay post :/

 

I need to look into whether I can viably consider moving to the area (an hour's each way drive doesn't appeal, regardless of how much I enjoy driving), the salary band is a concern, but I'm likely to apply regardless.

 

How big is the team/department if it includes graphic designers etc?

[pirran]

Many thanks to all for your messages, especially Paul for the useful advice.

 

Update for potential applicants: we've just had Nexus in who are helping with some of our current projects to speed things along.

Edited October 3, 2013 by pirran

[pirran]

shameless bump

[Techie-v2]

Hi, I shall pm with my views!

 

Techie-v2