DfE Connecting the Classroom project funding

[Griff]

Has anyone had HP/Aruba kit priced?, if so what models have you been quoted for core and POE switches

 

I bought an Aruba 2530 24G PoE+ Switch in the summer we paid £774 for it

[password1234]

Has anyone had HP/Aruba kit priced?, if so what models have you been quoted for core and POE switches

 

Yup we went half Cisco for some schools half aruba for others

 

 

Went for kit like this:

 

Hewlett Packard Enterprise 2930M 40G 8 Smrt Rte PoE+ 1s Swch Managed Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000) (PoE) cost us around £2k for the switch

 

 

 

Access points:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Aruba AP-515 around £300

[KMHarwood]

Just a question, are all schools eligible for the Grant for the DfE scheme? Or is there certain criteria? Ive tried to look at the GOV website and I cant see much on there about it. Can anyone fill in the gaps for me please?!

Many thanks

[StevieM]

@KMHarwood - Eligible schools will have been invited by email to apply for the grant. It may be worth running a search for emails sent to the school's main address with the phrase "Connect the Classroom" in the body (including junk and deleted items) as our invitation was initially dismissed as spam.

[bitznpcz]

Just a question, are all schools eligible for the Grant for the DfE scheme? Or is there certain criteria? Ive tried to look at the GOV website and I cant see much on there about it. Can anyone fill in the gaps for me please?!

Many thanks

Two of my schools were eligible due to them receiving rural gigabit upgrades from the DCMS. None of my urban schools have received the email, but are desperate for both connectivity and WiFi upgrades.

 

Hopefully the DfE and DCMS will expand to other schools soon...

[password1234]

....annoyingly still bit a miffed that the DFE were not willing to fund replacement of Cat5e cabling with Cat6.......despite them saying that the equipment must be Wifi 6

 

Does in a way kinda defeats the purpose

 

I've had a few of our schools as a result of this having to get the Cabling replacement from their own pocket!

[snagrat]

....annoyingly still bit a miffed that the DFE were not willing to fund replacement of Cat5e cabling with Cat6.......despite them saying that the equipment must be Wifi 6

 

Does in a way kinda defeats the purpose

 

I've had a few of our schools as a result of this having to get the Cabling replacement from their own pocket!

 

All depends how you word it.

 

Every school we have done we have installed Cat6A to the AP and Cat6 to other locations where the cable is not long enough to reach a new cabinet.

 

Some schools have been completely required.

[password1234]

All depends how you word it.

 

Every school we have done we have installed Cat6A to the AP and Cat6 to other locations where the cable is not long enough to reach a new cabinet.

 

Some schools have been completely required.

 

Queried this again with the DFE about getting existing cat5e cabling replaced to Cat6a

 

They now turned around and said yes they would be willing to cover the cost and even if we required twin data ports per AP they would be willing to fund this too!

 

Originally they said no to us, but now they have said yes

 

so looking to get this done with some of the schools that we have not already done, back to the drawing board again getting quotes and resubmissions of cost matrix as such a late stage!

[IT_JB]

Queried this again with the DFE about getting existing cat5e cabling replaced to Cat6a

 

They now turned around and said yes they would be willing to cover the cost and even if we required twin data ports per AP they would be willing to fund this too!

 

Originally they said no to us, but now they have said yes

 

so looking to get this done with some of the schools that we have not already done, back to the drawing board again getting quotes and resubmissions of cost matrix as such a late stage!

Very late for them to change their mind on this.. annoying as most of mine are already past cabling stage. However with some of mine i seemed to reach an undisclosed cost cap so i doubt i would have been able to push for a re-wire anyway, unless they have changed this as well.

[password1234]

Very late for them to change their mind on this.. annoying as most of mine are already past cabling stage. However with some of mine i seemed to reach an undisclosed cost cap so i doubt i would have been able to push for a re-wire anyway, unless they have changed this as well.

They seem to be still accepting an updated cost matrix, we planning to redo cabling for 2 of our schools and they seem to be open to the fact that we can resubmit things..even at such late stage

[StevieM]

Has anyone else been seriously hassled by a certain DfE recommended framework for payment?

 

We received an invoice last Friday afternoon and already we have had four emails chasing payment, the first of which arrived the following morning. Two more arrived on Monday and Tuesday and yet another this afternoon asking us to chase the local authority to process the payment!

 

!IMPORTANT EDIT!

 

It looks as though someone is trying to scam us. The bursar has forwarded the emails to me and they have come from a different address (outlook.com) from the invoice. The bank details are different too. Please check any payments you have recently processed to make sure everything is correct.

Edited January 28, 2022 by StevieM

[StevieM]

Update:

 

It appears that one of our email accounts had been compromised, giving scammers access to the invoice details.

[Warwick_Tech]

Very late to the party here,

 

But I've just been tasked with wholeschool WiFi (hooray) and wondered if anyone had a DfE contact email? Not nessasariliy for funding, but for copies of the project brief and suppliers so I can reach out to a few.

 

Regards,

[Primus]

Very late to the party here,

 

But I've just been tasked with wholeschool WiFi (hooray) and wondered if anyone had a DfE contact email? Not nessasariliy for funding, but for copies of the project brief and suppliers so I can reach out to a few.

 

Regards,

 

If you're paying for it yourself you will likely find the DfE specs expensive and restrictive.

 

In all honesty you'd be better posting on here with a new thread, giving details of exactly what you need and I'm sure members will make suggestions on brand and suppliers.

[password1234]

Very late to the party here,

 

But I've just been tasked with wholeschool WiFi (hooray) and wondered if anyone had a DfE contact email? Not nessasariliy for funding, but for copies of the project brief and suppliers so I can reach out to a few.

 

Regards,

When did the school get invited for this? Have left it really really late especially with the first wave of schools eligible for the program the claims cut off date is end of Feb as far as i can remember there was also some Submission cut off date back in December,

 

DFE should have sent you or the school all this information in a pack when the school got invited

[password1234]

Very late to the party here,

 

But I've just been tasked with wholeschool WiFi (hooray) and wondered if anyone had a DfE contact email? Not nessasariliy for funding, but for copies of the project brief and suppliers so I can reach out to a few.

 

Regards,

to answer your original query criteria is Wifi 6 and to have the infrastructure in place to "Make the solution work" which is what DFE has told us

 

With us we have gone for

 

New access points mixture of Aruba AP515 and Cisco APS for certain Schools

HP / Cisco Switches

CAT 6 Cabling from Cab to Cab and Switch to Data point some places we have done Twin Ports

Fibre to Fibre or Cat6 from Cab to Cab - for outside classrooms we have either gone with Fibre or Cat 6 Catenary cabling

10 Year Licensing / Warranty

Bigger Cabs (We have found that the existing ones a lot of the schools have are too small so we have gone for Bigger cabs)

 

you also need to do a Tech Evaluation / Site Survey (DFE will fund upto 1/2 day of this)

Then the usual costs they will fund like Project management (If you are dealing with external Cablers), Deployment and Configuration etc

 

 

DFE was willing to fund all the above

 

Some of our schools have been approved from £20 £40k Region and these are mainly Small Primary and Infant Schools

[Warwick_Tech]

When did the school get invited for this? Have left it really really late especially with the first wave of schools eligible for the program the claims cut off date is end of Feb as far as i can remember there was also some Submission cut off date back in December,

 

DFE should have sent you or the school all this information in a pack when the school got invited

 

We weren't invited unfortunately, I'm just doing an upgrade while using the framework as a base!

[cooper549]

Unfortunately, I have also been tasked with replacing our Wi-Fi and network, we bit the bullet and invested in the Meraki AP's ourselves but have only just been told about the connect the classroom process, one of the approved suppliers I spoke to though did they say where offering another round of this as there was apparently funding still left for the project so advised to try and get in touch and see if we could get approved. The only trouble is, like most, we don't seem to have any emails or contact details of this at all, and there doesn't seem to be much turned up on google either.

 

Can anyone PM me some contact details so we can at least see what the crack is and if we're too late to the party?

 

Thanks

 

Edits: corrected a few spelling mistakes

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

HI Adam,

 

Connect the classroom is invitation only. Most of the time the emails are sent to the Bursars or heads.

[cooper549]

Yeah, I figured as much, I'm just worried we've possibly missed it, or ignored it like others seem to have.

 

Trying to go back and see if we have had anything in the past, but all I've turned up myself so far is companies sending marketing stuff about it.

[Sylv3r]

The CtC scheme generally appears to be regionalised. If you are aware of any other local schools that have been invited to participate in the CtC scheme, then you possibly have missed out but I would hazard a guess that the DfE would try a number of times to contact the school if they didn't get anything back.

 

I believe the first three phases of the CtC pilot was worth around £30M. The most recent announcement at BETT on further waves mentioned £150M, but I am not sure if this is also for the 100MB primary and 1GB Secondary broadband target for 2025 also.

[Katiejennings]

Hi all,

 

This is something that Stone Group have had a great success in across the country and are close to delivering our 50th Connect the Classroom project.

 

 

At Stone Group working with Cisco Meraki, we ‘Connect your Classroom’ with a robust / future-proof wireless infrastructure (Wi-Fi 6) which will meet the needs of Teachers and students alike and is supported over a 10-year period.

From initial design to implementation, the Connect the Classroom project is Managed by Stone’s in-house team to deliver an enterprise grade solution that will make a real difference to teaching & learning.

 

 

https://www.stonegroup.co.uk/connect-the-classroom/

 

 

What to do next:

 

 

Once you’ve had your funding approved in principle so now it’s time to take the next steps to a connected classroom.

 

 

 

• Complete the form at the top of this page to request a quote from our dedicated school’s team who can discuss your projects requirements in further detail.
  
• Digest and send our specially curated quote to your DfE IT Adviser to carry out quality & specification compliance checks and ensure the design proposed by Stone and Cisco Meraki represents value for money.
  
• Once this is project is approved by the DfE, you can choose your supplier. Our school’s team will then work with you to complete your order.
  
• Our dedicated installation and support team will then take over, who will be professionally delivering your project, including a full site survey to finalise your design, acceptance testing and support from our internal teams.
  

 

 

Why work with Stone:

 

 

Proven track record of Connect the Classroom

Staffordshire based support team

Dedicated Account Manager

Cisco Meraki Premier Partner

30 Years of Education experience

 

We have an abundance of reference site schools that i can happily put you in contact with from a small primary school securing £30k funding to a large secondary who secured £180K for their future-proof wireless infrastructure.

 

Drop me a mail if i can be of assistance [email protected]

[Wave9_Lee]

Think this is broadly it;

 

Connect The Classroom funding for around 3500 schools, focussed in 55 Local Authority Education Investement Areas where school outcomes are weakest. Approximately £150M has been allocated to invest in modern, high spec Wireless and LAN infrastructure over the next 3 years.

 

The 55 ‘education investment areas’

Bedford

Blackpool

Bolton

Bradford

Bury

Cambridgeshire

Central Bedfordshire

Cornwall

County Durham

Coventry

Darlington

Derby

Derbyshire

Doncaster

Dorset

Dudley

East Sussex

Halton

Hartlepool

Isle of Wight

Kirklees

Knowsley

Leeds

Lincolnshire

Liverpool

Luton

Manchester

Middlesbrough

Norfolk

North Northamptonshire

North Somerset

North Yorkshire

Nottingham

Nottinghamshire

Oldham

Peterborough

Plymouth

Portsmouth

Rochdale

Rotherham

Salford

Sandwell

Sefton

Somerset

South Gloucestershire

South Tyneside

St Helens

Stoke-on-Trent

Suffolk

Sunderland

Swindon

Tameside

Wakefield

Walsall

Wirral

[atcoates]

@Wave9_Lee have you got a link where I can see this information?

[cooper549]

I've managed to email an email that was mentioned in one of the earlier links to a spam thread. I got a response back pretty quickly telling me that the scheme has been expanded to run for the next 3 years as it was previously just a limited pilot. Schools should be receiving an email in the coming weeks around May and will be told if they qualify and also what year they will be able to apply for their funding. So you could potentially be told your eligible this year, but only allowed to apply for your funding in 2024.