School set to refuse £14m in BSF cash

[Grommit]

school refusing BSF funding because they don't want managed Services..

 

A secondary school is considering turning down almost £14 million in funding from the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, if it is forced to sign up to a centrally-procured ICT system.

 

Tollbar Business and Enterprise College in Grimsby believes the system is inferior to the computer system it already has in place. If an agreement is not reached, it could become the first school in the country to willingly refuse money under the BSF scheme.

 

SecEd | School set to refuse £14m in BSF cash

Edited June 28, 2008 by Grommit
undo Ric's fiddling

[Ric_]

It is important to note that the school has been shuffled down in the order of re-builds and the partnership has not yet accepted their decision.

 

He added that agreement had been reached with Tollbar to review its options and that another school would now replace it as the first school to benefit locally from BSF funding. “We’ll continue to work with Tollbar but we recognise together that deadlines are tight,” Mr Edwardson said.

[GrumbleDook]

It is also important to note that this is a school refusing to accept the money, not demanding the complete control of the money to allow them to fund IT they way they believe it should be. We are still not at that stage yet.

[sahmeepee]

school refusing BSF funding because they don't want managed Services..

 

SecEd | School set to refuse £14m in BSF cash

 

Send this head a Gold Edugeek Badge!

[BSFer]

It is also important to note that this is a school refusing to accept the money, not demanding the complete control of the money to allow them to fund IT they way they believe it should be. We are still not at that stage yet.

 

Hear hear

[timbo343]

I hope they dont get BSFed from an IT Managers possition.

 

Would love to know what the out come is on this... Is the IT guys from this school on here? If not, we need to get them on here and find out what is happening. Im sure we will all back them up on this. If they dont go down the BSF route, i wouldnt mind seeing what system they have in place as our Head of IT doesn't want the BSF in either as likewise "it will be a step backwards". It has taken him 7 years and me 3 to get the network to where we want it to be.

[Diello]

Send this head a Gold Edugeek Badge!

 

Hear hear!

 

Nice to see that Head's are starting to take notice of the mess BSF will make of education for the benefit of profit-making companies.

[maniac]

Is it just me, or is their site down at the moment, wanted to read that article! Anyone got a copy of it, or is it too long to post??

 

 

Mike.

 

EDIT: Don't worry, it seems to have come back!

[timbo343]

Dorothy Lepkowska

 

A secondary school is considering turning down almost £14 million in funding from the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, if it is forced to sign up to a centrally-procured ICT system.

 

Tollbar Business and Enterprise College in Grimsby believes the system is inferior to the computer system it already has in place. If an agreement is not reached, it could become the first school in the country to willingly refuse money under the BSF scheme.

 

Under the terms of the programme, schools in north east Lincolnshire have to take part in a centrally-managed ICT system in order to qualify for a share in an estimated £107 million in funding.

 

Tollbar was to be one of the first schools in the area to undergo building works, including replacement of existing technology and art blocks, and mobile classrooms with permanent buildings.

 

But David Hampson, the principal, said signing up to the ICT system could compromise the standard of education being offered at the school.

 

“Of course this money would be a fantastic boost to Tollbar, as it would be to many other schools in Grimsby,” he said.

 

“However, our main priority has always been to improve standards for our students and, if necessary, we will continue to do this in the existing buildings rather than sign up to an ICT system which we consider would inhibit the progress of ICT at this school.

 

“We have repeatedly asked for written confirmation of the fact that we do not have to sign up for this ICT system, but have not received a clear and concise response, and we now have only until September to sign up or lose the funding.

 

“The proposed centrally-managed system is, in our opinion, not comparable to what we already have in place and therefore would be a major step backwards for us,” he added.

 

North East Lincolnshire Council has recently submitted plans for £107.7 million of BSF funding to Partnerships for Schools (PfS), the body set up to deliver BSF. The proposals will now be assessed and forwarded to the Department for Children, Schools and Families for approval. The council must then create a detailed plan, to be submitted by September 16 for final approval.

 

Mr Hampson added: “We do not wish to be seen as the bad guys here, but protecting the interests of our pupils is our main priority and we will not take what we consider to be a major step backwards in educational provision, even if it means that inevitably we are forced to turn down this funding.”

 

North East Lincolnshire Council said Tollbar was an “excellent school” and the council wanted it to be part of the development.

 

Roger Edwardson, the deputy director of learning, said: “I believe we can find middle ground which will meet Tollbar’s needs but allow us to act on behalf of all our schools to get the best possible deal. With this amount of money we can free schools from the burden of procuring and managing complex ICT systems.

 

“The new managed ICT service will enable pupils to collaborate and share learning within their local community.”

 

He added that agreement had been reached with Tollbar to review its options and that another school would now replace it as the first school to benefit locally from BSF funding. “We’ll continue to work with Tollbar but we recognise together that deadlines are tight,” Mr Edwardson said.

 

A spokeswoman for PfS added: “The local authority, supported by PfS, is still in dialogue with this particular headteacher in the hope of reaching a solution which is viable within Building Schools for the Future and which also meets the needs and aspirations of the school. As talks are continuing, we do not feel it appropriate to comment in detail about this particular case.”

[timbo343]

There you go!!

[maniac]

Thanks for that, Interesting article it is too. I'm going to be really interested to see the outcome, probably like many of you on here, as *if* they managed to get their hands on the cash without having to subscribe to the managed service, I think that will open up the possibilities for a lot of other schools in their position, or soon to be in their position.

 

I hope someone manages to keep us posted on developments.

 

Mike.

[GrumbleDook]

One important thing to remember is that this is an outstanding school that is a centre of excellence in a number of areas, as well as having political clout in the right circles.

 

This is why *they* can do things that many other schools don't stand a hope in hell of doing.

[broc]

I think it will end up with a compromise; they will be offered money to refurbish/rebuild but the ICT funds will be withheld unless they sign up for the managed service. To do otherwise would open the floodgates in schools & LAs all over the country, and I cannot see the Govt allowing that as there is too much at stake politically.

 

Good luck to them anyway.

[porress]

That is one of the cleverest decisions about the whole BSF project that i have seen after nearly 2 years involve in this long,tedious and useless process...

 

Good head Teacher!!!!!

[Butuz]

Props to the Head for putting the kids first and refusing to be bullied. Props to the Govenors too for having the balls to back their head 100%.

 

Butuz

[Friez]

Regardless of who they are or their situation, I salute them!

 

The head teacher can clearly see that BSF will damage their IT provision and as a knock-on effect damage the education of their children. They have the right way of thinking, and it is good for them to stand up to the bullies that are our government.

[TechMonkey]

It is also important to note that this is a school refusing to accept the money, not demanding the complete control of the money to allow them to fund IT they way they believe it should be. We are still not at that stage yet.

 

But hopefully a step in the right direction? If more schools were to do this it might enable them to start negotiating on getting some of the money on their own terms. Probably too postive a thought as my cynical side says the money will be fully held as well as other incentives until they send in some inspectors and say "Ohh your IT is backward, we decree you must accept".

[timbo343]

If the BSF come to our school, the Head of IT will be fighting rebelling against the managed service.

[bossman]

Collaboration amongst the students and teachers shouldn't mean managed services have to be taken on board, it just means that the LA have to get their finger out and create a platform which will allow the schools to collaborate without taken over the schools IT.

 

Each school is unique in it's teaching and learning and I feel that only the teams who are in the schools understand the needs of the individuals who require their support be it student or teacher or admin, having a business model rammed down their throats will not empower the end user it will take away any creativity in my opinion.

 

Yes we will get the usual report of some schools IT not being very effective but this is down to mismanagement from top level in schools by not investing in both the right people for the job and finances.

 

Most schools I have visited have very good IT in place and these schools are, believe me, going to lose out to the BSF directive in both response times and also financial terms as the cost of each schools SLA rockets every year for the rest of the contract period.

 

IT is early day's yet and therefore no facts or figures have been collated to allow people to ascertain whether or not BSF actually improves the teaching and learning framework for students and young people. It has been seen across the world and especially in America where this type of model first came to light especially in the big cities whereupon the thoughts where exactly the same, collaboration amongst the teachers and young people in large campus style schools has not had the desired effect so much so that some schools in New York have actually downsized to much smaller schools with between 300 - 500 and seen upwards of a 24% increase in exam grades and also a marked improvement in both attendance and behaviour.

 

Phew after all this I feel this Headteacher has got a mind of his own and good for him that he thinks so loyally about his students it is a credit to him.

[Grommit]

 

“The new managed ICT service will enable pupils to collaborate and share learning within their local community.”

 

.”

 

 

This is the BSF big Trump card.... "the sharing of information between schools and the community".... "elearning" .. it seems to be their Mantra in Tec speak to confuse people

 

All it is is a simple VLE with learners able to access from anywhere on the Planet.....

Edited June 27, 2008 by Grommit

[CyberNerd]

This is the BSF big Trump card.... the sharing of information between scjhools and the community.. it seems to be their Mantra in Tec speak to confuse people

 

All it is is a simple VLE..

 

AFAIK there is nothing to stop individual schools signing up to shobboleth and becoming identity providers to the uk access federation. This will allow them to share logon info between other sites.

Edited June 27, 2008 by CyberNerd

[beeswax]

This is the BSF big Trump card.... the sharing of information between scjhools and the community.. it seems to be their Mantra in Tec speak to confuse people

 

All it is is a simple VLE..

 

With the 14-19 Diploma rearing it's head, and groups of schools having to collaborate, this is probably a good time to undertake such a project.

[Grommit]

With the 14-19 Diploma rearing it's head, and groups of schools having to collaborate, this is probably a good time to undertake such a project.

 

 

Ours is going in Next Month... Fronter

[localzuk]

Our LEA has been working on such a system for a while now. They've signed an agreement for Fronter, and are building a MLE using sharepoint and the SIMS.net Learning Gateway. Their eventual goal is/was to create a SSO environment which gets its details from local AD servers which are populated via automatic scripts which extract data from SIMS.net, then these would all be a part of a forest which would then integrate with other counties eventually.

 

Now, that task is split between the LEA and the new it company the county set up with IBM, 'SouthWest One'.

 

And SouthWest One has the intention of being part of a bid for the BSF contract for Somerset schools, with the only problem being that the staff they have on hand only have knowledge of first schools and many of their ideas are linked to how they operate - which is completely different to how we operate, and completely different to how the community college up the road works.

[CyberNerd]

Our LEA has been working on such a system for a while now. They've signed an agreement for Fronter, and are building a MLE using sharepoint and the SIMS.net Learning Gateway. Their eventual goal is/was to create a SSO environment which gets its details from local AD servers which are populated via automatic scripts which extract data from SIMS.net, then these would all be a part of a forest which would then integrate with other counties eventually.

 

Our LA wants to impose an active directory forest upon us in a attempt to achieve SSO. They have not considered individual schools running their own directory services and doing SSO via shibboleth, I think this is a better solution as it gives schools control over their systems. The LA have not made it clear whether they will be funding it, or us or to what extent they will pay for AD licensing and servers, or whether they will train us to use their windows servers.