MAT considerations

[Razzy]

Hi all,

I was wandering if anyone could help.

We are currently a MAT of 6 schools who have completely independent IT systems.

The Trustees are beginning to ask if this is the best way to do things, or if centralisation is worth considering.

 

Would any of you who work in a similarly sized MAT have any experiences to share about any of the following at all.

 

Has it been worth the effort in centralising? What have been the true pro's and con's.

What processes did you go through to get from decentralised, to centralised.

What advice would you give for a MAT thinking about this?

 

Any pointers / advice / rants would be most welcome.

[Primus]

Centralisation is essentially but it will take time - your starting point is the staffing structure and from that then inter-site connectivity since everything else depends on that.

 

Walk - don't run!

[IrritableTech]

We're only half a step further along the path than you @Razzy and I'd echo what @Primus says.

 

We've written a paper on the current situation across our MAT of seven schools. Highlighted risks associated with our networks and the additional complication of multiplying that by seven sites. We've schools with and schools without, schools teaching one thing and other teaching something else.

 

There are two main areas which are obviously also linked. Operational and Curriculum. I wanted to make sure that operational decisions supported outstanding teaching and learning. A few points off the top of my head...

 

Consider your core on each site, nothing can be improved without a solid foundation. Sadly it takes investment and people don't see the flashing kit, but without it the plan will likely fail.

Interconnected sites need a good Internet connection, better still a more considered WAN of some type. Consider speed, reliability and redundancy.

On prem, co-located or cloud. Costs, benefits, risk appetite. What you'll need where will depend on all sorts of other factors, least of all the devices users will be using.

Don't forget wireless networks. They need to support many end user devices, BYOD and guests. One authentication method across the trust allows for more agile working.

All devices should be monitored all the time - how can you achieve this across sites, who keeps an eye on that now you've seven sets of staff and students.

How do you provision users, have you systems you can tap into to have them created when they are needed and disabled when they need to be. Be efficient.

Communication, collaboration, storage. One system across the trust which ticks as many boxes for as many users as possible.

Devices - who needs access to what when. Consider that devices best suited for staff may not be the same devices as those for KS1 students. Look to standardize as much as possible across the trust - it'll make it easier to support both from a technology perspective and a T&L one.

How will the whole system be supported. Does it work if different providers are supporting different sites, services or devices. Does this increase or reduce risk?

[TechMonkey]

Another one to consider, that I have noticed larger Trusts finally addressing after some major hiccups, is who is going to coordinate across the schools and what level of managing is going to be pushed out to the individual schools. Policies, procedures and security measures are incredibly important now and what has happened is that one school may be... laxer than others and been the opening an attacker has needed. Standardisation will help a lot with centralisation, not only moving forward but as a cross school team, and there needs to be a decision if there will be a one-size-fits-all situation or a baseline that all schools have to meet and then can be built on.

The position needs to have backing from the very top and the clout to enforce things happening.

[HereIGoAgain2601]

Hello,

 

I have just joined a MAT in a similar position with 8 secondaries and 1 AP.

 

As others have said standardisation and centralisation is essential. Having come from a larger MAT where this was done well makes it so frustrating to see an established Trust in this position. A simple task I could have applied to all schools in minutes now takes hours. We have different networks in each school and it’s impossible to provide support or advice as there is such complexity in GPO or everyone is doing things their own way. There is no security consistency and the whole thing is an unmanageable nightmare both on the ground in schools and operationally.

 

We are sorting out our staffing structure with a view to having a centralised network rolled out for September 2023.

 

Previous leaders in my post were going going to full Azure AD and Intune management - but I have decided against it for now. We are so far behind and has such poor visibility of our network and systems that the jump is unmanageable. I couldn’t even tell you what devices are windows 11 ready. So we are going hybrid with a view to that giving us 2 years to get our act together and transition our most on-prem software to cloud. Hopefully the providers of cloud solutions will have added some of the critical missing functions. Many will advise going straight to cloud and if you can that’s great but for us there is too much complexity. (And I’ve ran full Intune/AzureAD in a school previously so it’s not that I’m afraid!)

 

Happy to chat through our plans but as others have said staffing, inter-site connectivity and a reliable core are key. As is buy in from school and Trust SLT and staff.