Primary School IT Support

[KoolTech]

Hi Guys,

 

Bit of a random question but does anyone support Primary schools as part of their own business? I have been thinking about Primary schools in the area and wondering how they get IT Support and what they pay for it, if anything! Been thinking about contacting different primary schools to see if IT support from myself would be of interest to them. Does anyone have any experience of this at all?

 

Not sure exactly how it would work or even if it would work so any comments, advice would be welcome!

[elsiegee40]

I personally don't, but a good friend of mjne does. He has several schools in the area doing varying levels of support and now employs a tech to work with him. Typically schools seem to have him in for for half/one day a week. He can keep an eye on servers remotely. School holidays can be a bit of a nightmare and schools need to book upgrades with him well in advance.

[edutech4schools]

I look after a 4 primary schools. I managed to get in to my first school by offering my services for almost nothing, 6 month after that I contacted a few schools in the area and took on a couple more and then dropped the school that was not paying me much.

 

I did have 6 schools at one point but that was a bit much so keep it at 4.

[KoolTech]

Thanks guys!! I'm sick of working where I am now and feel like this might have potential but getting it off the ground is difficult! How did you get started @edutech4schools did you email round first schools and find out if anyone would be interested? How did you find most were currently getting IT support?

[edutech4schools]

I just sent out some emails, not many, and I was lucky as a primary school just round the corner had been without a techie for about a month. It turns out that they never pay very much for IT support and are willing to go a while without anyone or take on someone without much experience. I did have lots of experience but not in a school environment so took the job with a thought of getting in other schools later.

 

About 80% of the primary schools around me have the LA look after their IT systems and you will find it very hard to get in to these schools, not because the LA offer a better service, they definitely do not, but because its easy for the office staff / bursar to use them. From the bursars point of view money is all automatically transferred and they do not need to worry about CRB checks etc.

 

You will find it much easier to get other schools if you can get into 1 school, as they will then recommend you to other schools.

[never-ending-troubles]

I manage 1 primary after I finish the day job and run another high school remotely, I find a lot of little primary school can't afford full time techie's as I took over from the caretaker who had little knowledge of networks as everyone logged in as a local user account worth doing but always wonder if I would be any better off doing it full time.

[Sylv3r]

We are a secondary school and support 1 non-feeder primary school with 6 of our feeder primaries coming on board in the next couple of years. As a catholic school we've also good a couple of church halls and associated offices under our umbrella too.

 

To be honest, I haven't been actively looking for business and in most circumstances they have approached me. We aren't charging a fortune but are comfortably covering our costs and we appear to be providing a more flexible approach then they were originally receiving so they appear to be happy too.