Whole school development plan- IT

[mrssevage]

Hi,

 

I have been asked to present whole school development plan including costs and time scale. I am thinking abut 5 year plan. Has any of you ever done that? Is there a template I can follow so i don't forget anything?. I understand every school is different but there would be many items that are the same as well.

 

Thank you

M

[CHiLL]

I haven't done one myself, but my manager does. It generally covers;

 

Printing (3 years - we lease our printers on a contract, which is always a 3 year contract)

Desktops - including staff, students/IT suites and bookable resources (5 years)

Interactive boards (10+ years)

Monitors (10+ years)

Wireless networking equipment (8+ years)

Wired networking equipment (10+ years)

 

Other devices like staff laptops and projectors are generally rated at 5 years, but are replaced as and when required throughout the year.

 

Other costs to consider are software licenses, such as Microsoft and other subscriptions as on-going yearly costs.

 

We've found that most of our equipment is suitable to last longer than our projected time-scales, but having them makes the right people aware that these costs are required and when they're likely to come up.

[mikkydoos]

Dont forget

 

server / core / infrastructure upgrades

services costs - subscriptions, support contracts etc

training/staff development

telephony

curriculum resource costs

[TechMonkey]

I do a 3 year plan, with a future forecast going on showing hardware changes. Anything more than 3 years is a complete guess. Don't forget you need to have a copy of the School Development Plan to work against as it is no good them planning to bring a new building online Y3 and you having nothing in the plan. If their plan goes further than 3 years then build a skeleton plan on anything that affects IT, so again, if they have a new build coming on line in Y7 you will spec out rough networking costs and a rough cost for all the bits you are responsible for. This also can form a basis for your plans as Y5 & Y6 might be to get a new core switch, or upgrade the switch that a new building would hang off.

 

My template I use is:

* Overview - What the document is for

* Current state of play - Walk through the infrastructure and department. A good place to highlight any issues you want to address or areas you are proud of.

* Previous Plan evaluation - I go over what was done in the past three years or not, and any reasoning. Helps me focus on what still needs to do and good to keep a record of why something wasn't done

* IT Department Vision - a section I have put together that is where I see the technology heading and how the school should leverage. It helps form my decisions and is a good reference for reasoning

* Development Plan - Broken up into the 3 academic years I am covering and any overarching projects that may need better explanation. This is also where I normally add a little table projecting the extended plan, so switches, server infrastructure etc, when it is expected to be replaced and a rough cost.

* Further recommendations - anything else that is either above my pay grade or out of my hands that I can suggest or give input to. Examples I have put in were getting a staff induction together (which has happened) or a new server room (which has not).

 

Two copies get saved, the full version and a chopped down version that just has the development bits and an explanation that this forms part of a larger document. The whole thing, in theory, gets reviewed each year to progress it on a year, and evaluate the year gone. There is also a budget document that is my yearly costs and projected costs of projects.

 

It may be a bit of overkill but at least anyone willing to read the full version can see my reasoning and if I get wiped out in a freak network rack accident anyone should be able to work out what the hell I was doing and where I was going. The vision bit is entirely up to you, the school may not agree with your vision, but I feel it is helpful in that at least whatever happens I have a set of ideals to work towards, whatever my budget, and areas I am not willing to compromise on.

Edited October 1, 2019 by TechMonkey

[Dave_O]

Call me old fashioned, but shouldn't the vision and direction come from the users rather than IT support?

[Arbor-Maggie]

Don't forget you are presenting this in education, so look for the impact on learning and teaching and HOW to achieve this. I have seen 2 schools roll out ipads/BYOD. In one, they caused more issues than anything else as they were literally used by the kids to communicate in lessons and the teachers didn't have a clue. Behaviour issues went through the roof and suddenly all eletronic devices were banned completely.

 

In the other there were trials of apps for different subjects, a usage policy discussed and planned with pupils, teachers and IT to ensure ownership, consequences for misuse (and be clear on what misuse was). Staff, pupils, parents all knew the educational reasonings behind the rollout and it's been brilliant.

 

If you get people buying into the vision, and able to see the positive impact then when you show costs for training, upgrades etc it is more readily accepted by leaders and those who may be fundraising for it to happen. As a former school leader I was always looking for the value in expenditure - how was this good for the pupils and the staff team?

 

As a parent I try and think like a parent but here is my next experience of a lack of thought into the education side of tech:

 

One of my kids schools PTFA just asked us to help raise £25k for 30 computers, I have responded by requesting a breakdown of where on earth they are spending the money and who they have had 3 quotes from. I was greeted with a grimace but was given the info - turns out they want a new telephone system, WiFi and server as well as some other things (like mathletics which is already billed back to us parents as a voluntary donation that we are hounded for monthly until we pay it)

 

I also asked for the reasons WHY they wanted these things and several weeks later no one has been able to tell me! (telephones near each classroom for safeguarding, and in the staff workroom for home contact would be easy to say, but they literally haven't put any thought into the impact or reasoning to even be able to say this)

 

If they could show the impact and reasons for the costings - I would help them raise £100k. As it is, I cannot bring myself to support the £25k drive they are on...

[mukz]

We wrote a plan recently which was a 7 year plan which whilst called a plan is actually more of a what do we want our IT infrastructure to look like once those 7 years are up.

 

The reason we did this was that we don’t have a budget which is always guaranteed.

 

For example in year 2 of our plan we had down as replace all projectors with non interactive screens but this had already changed spec in year 1 as we

[titch]

We wrote a plan recently which was a 7 year plan which whilst called a plan is actually more of a what do we want our IT infrastructure to look like once those 7 years are up.

 

The reason we did this was that we don’t have a budget which is always guaranteed.

 

For example in year 2 of our plan we had down as replace all projectors with non interactive screens but this had already changed spec in year 1 as we

You wouldn't mind me taking a look at your plan would you? Embarking on such a document myself soon!

[mavhc]

1. What do you need to do to keep things running?

2. What actual development do they want, what do they want to improve? more collaboration? more multimedia creation? publishing online? reducing paper? increasing reporting to parents? working with other schools around the world? peer review? embedding more computing in the rest of the curriculum? increasing efficiency of staff?

3. Based on 2, what do you, as the expert in computery stuff, recommend? Don't bother with x, that failed at all these places I've talked to colleagues about. Y is great, but will cost £z million. Actually S is a great idea, and we can save money by doing it.

4. Recommendations on how to save money. Switch to voip so call costs are now £50/month total instead of £500, and phones are £40 each. Although we're paying for Photoshop, no one's using it to do more than Paint.net, GIMP, Krita can do. We're paying for Online Maths Program 67, but only 2 people logged onto it this year.

[mukz]

You wouldn't mind me taking a look at your plan would you? Embarking on such a document myself soon!

 

Just realised it didn't post my whole message.

Will send you the document once i find it i have since moved on and would need to ask my colleagues at the school to send it to me.

[titch]

Thanks very much

[DrBeaker]

Kind of reminds me of this scene from the Simpsons Movie

 

Pick 5x options and let them decide.

 

E.g. I'd love to put a UPS in every switch cab, a backup generator, school PA systems, live streaming webcams etc.

 

Do I have the skills - most of them.

Do I have the time - Nope.

Do I have the money - Nope.

 

It's all just a pipe dream then.

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by DrBeaker

[MartinT]

Call me old fashioned, but shouldn't the vision and direction come from the users rather than IT support?

 

Not if you want a cogent, joined-up and usable vision. It's perfectly fine to create and maintain the IT strategy, with user input. I do and I wouldn't want anyone else doing it.

[DrBeaker]

Not if you want a cogent, joined-up and usable vision. It's perfectly fine to create and maintain the IT strategy, with user input. I do and I wouldn't want anyone else doing it.

 

This is a common basic thing so many companies and organisations get wrong. Little-to-no communication about things from small things to big things.

 

- Get people with interests in the issue in the same room

- Give them some refreshments

- Let each one have some input and voice their opinion and thoughts on said issue

 

Come away with some valuable feedback and input on things from the experts, users and management. Everybody wins.

 

I've found it requires people to be open-minded, frank and critical however whilst maintaining sight of what you want to accomplish.

Edited January 6, 2020 by DrBeaker

[sonofsanta]

I've just done a five year plan to help with budget planning, so SLT/Finance had an idea of what ballpark to aim for with my budget. I wrote up what had been done over the last ten years (because that's how long I've been here) to give context to everything, then presented numbers for any annual cost >£1000, including a plan for how many PCs would be replaced and when with an approx cost based on last purchase price + 5% inflation. I was only going to do three years, but as we replace hardware on a five year cycle I needed to work out the five years anyway.

 

Lots of specific financial info in there so I don't want to post it publicly, and I cba to redact it, but if anyone wants to see it PM me and I'll fire the Word doc over. I warn you that it's not very exciting though!