How big a school before you need a full time on site presence in IT Support

[kennysarmy]

Interested in this:

 

Fill in the blanks please.

 

A school which has:

 

"X" number of students

"Y" number of staff

and

"Z" number of devices, would require a full time member of IT Support (not term-time only)

[steveg]

How much do staff use ICT? Secondary or primary school? Types of devices used? How much time is spent on staff training? What other roles come under the IT team? How much is invested in ICT? Age of equipment? What is the infrastructure like? Local servers or primarily cloud based?

 

I don't think there is an easy x number of people + devices = x amount of support.

[Oaktech]

I don't think that's possible to define...

 

I know a 3 school MAT with around 3000 users and 1800 devices who have 1 permanent term time only support person and a 1 person-once-a-week thirdparty company... And I equally know a 650 student primary school who have 2 full time support staff.

[TechMonkey]

Depends on the need and the school requirements and IT willingness (as in do they embrace IT or see it as an added expense and chore?).

- Does the school want someone strategic and planning out their road map?

- Do they intent to use Data to a high extent

- Do they want instant troubleshooting and fixing or happy to wait a week?

- Are the staff well trained so low level issues are at a minimum?

- Does the school want training carried out internally at regular intervals or happy to pay external providers?

- What is their stance to cybersecurity?

[kennysarmy]

How much do staff use ICT? Secondary or primary school? Types of devices used? How much time is spent on staff training? What other roles come under the IT team? How much is invested in ICT? Age of equipment? What is the infrastructure like? Local servers or primarily cloud based?

 

I don't think there is an easy x number of people + devices = x amount of support.

 

Secondary.

Windows devices.

 

Training?

No other roles come under IT team

 

Rolling programme of investment such that PC's are replaced at 5 years old.

 

Cloud based school, infrastructure is all sound.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I don't think that's possible to define...

 

I know a 3 school MAT with around 3000 users and 1800 devices who have 1 permanent term time only support person and a 1 person-once-a-week thirdparty company... And I equally know a 650 student primary school who have 2 full time support staff.

 

Surely, it's possible to give an average

[kennysarmy]

Depends on the need and the school requirements and IT willingness (as in do they embrace IT or see it as an added expense and chore?).

- Does the school want someone strategic and planning out their road map? No, just day to day support.

- Do they intent to use Data to a high extent. No, there would be a designated Data Manager, outside the IT Support

- Do they want instant troubleshooting and fixing or happy to wait a week? As instant as possible....

- Are the staff well trained so low level issues are at a minimum? Just the usual mix of some who can and some who can't.

- Does the school want training carried out internally at regular intervals or happy to pay external providers? IT Support would not be responsible for training.

- What is their stance to cybersecurity?Sorry don't understand the question....

 

 

Response above

[TechMonkey]

Old BECTA guidelines were 1 tech to every 100 endpoints. That was in 2006, & I think you can debate either way if that figure has gone up or down.

EDIT: Saying that though I Would put the emphasis on number of support calls rather than devices. What is the need, rather than the potential load.

Edited April 21, 2023 by TechMonkey

[Sonic007]

I dont think size of the school is the issue. It depends on how much they use and rely on I.T. in day to day life and also how tech-savvy your users are.

[mavhc]

Given 1000 students, that's 200 per year new students, and 200 to archive. Say they each need support once a term for 10 mins, 10 min * 1000 students/60 days, that's 2.6 hours per day

 

Given 100 staff, and they each require support for 30 mins per term, that's about an hour a day

 

So just supporting staff and pupils in real time takes half the day up

 

Hardware wise: Given 1000 computers, and a 5 year lifespan, that's 200 computers to replace per year, about 1 a day for term time.

 

Software, depends on what they're doing

 

Self training, at least an hour a day to keep up on average with security exploits.

 

Another hour a day on average to improve the systems, first to make your own job more efficient, then everyone else's.

 

So now you're keeping the software updated, backups working, and the data secured hopefully.

 

Next up, filtering, are you supposed to block and unblock sites, monitor usage?

 

Will you have to script the creation of users on websites that don't OAuth? And the disabling when they leave?

[psydii]

I don't think size of the school is the issue. It depends on how much they use and rely on I.T. in day to day life and also how tech-savvy your users are.

and the tech you choose to deploy to meet those needs, the desired responsiveness of the IT Service to problems and change requests, and the scope of their responsibilities.

 

Strategy, Implementation, Project Management, Procurement and Tenders, Systems Management, BAU change requests, Problem Management, Incident Response. Business Continuity and Disaster recovery

The intersection of GDPR, Information Security and KCSIE responsibilities.

Technologies: Classroom AV, Portable AV, Theatre AV. PA System, CCTV, Building Access Control, Building Management System (well, supporting and securing the 'server' and 3rd party that support it), Solar Array, IT Suites, Servers, 365 solution design, change requests and service enhancements, knowledge of business process, SharePoint management, Azure AD, exchange/smtp/DMARC etc, Teams (which is its own massively complex under the hood), Google Apps, Telephony, 2 way radios. Wireless and Wired Networking, Maintenance of Laptops / Chromebooks / iPads hardware, administration of Laptops/Chromebooks/iPad configuration, Firewalls, Internet Connections, Mobile Phones. Visitor Management, Attendance Management, Printers and Photocopiers.

 

1800 Students

270 Adults with IT accounts

750+ Devices (if you don't count the DfE stock which are still used, but mostly remotely)

all of the above responsibilities

 

1 NM/Head of IT Services

2 Senior Techs

1 Junior tech

 

Honorary mentions to the non-IT staff who undertake some duties that might otherwise land in the IT Office: Repro Admin, Music Tech, Media Tech, Art Photography Tech, School Office Manager.

[PotNoodleTech]

It's hard to quantify as each school is totally different and has totally different attitudes to IT and support staff.

 

Here we have expanded our IT significantly with 1:1 and I have taken almost all services (apart from SIMS) in house which has saved vast quantities of money but has also increased our staff requirement but we still only have 1 IT tech full time on the ground which actually is no more than I had back in 2010 and with less than a quarter of the equipment. So we are still significantly understaffed.

 

Just the cost savings alone from the local education authority's hardware SLA which we opt out of, pays for 0.7 of my full time tech so if you are willing to think outside the box and go though the numbers precisely you may find you can justify hiring more staff. I've easily saved my own salary sometimes via negotiating new contracts and leases and playing hardball with suppliers but the school doesn't really appreciate that fact.

[Koldov]

This is quite a divisive question... are you looking to hire or fire someone?

 

It really depends on what level of 'support' the school sees as essential (versus what they can afford and what view they have of I.T. support in general).

 

I work solo, but full-school-time (TT+3 weeks) in a very small school with minimal I.T. (350 students, 150 iPads, 40 laptops, 40 desktops - 30 in an ICT suite, 2 physical servers, 1 network stack, plus all the usual school I.T. paraphernalia - no refresh policy - basically fix it until you can't, then we will think about buying a new one) and although ultimately I feel my job may eventually be farmed out to a 3rd party support company (due to budget squeeze), it has been stated quite clearly by more than one Headteacher and more generally the SLT that they view my role as 'essential' to promote the uninterrupted flow of T&L.

 

In a way I'm lucky, the Head comes from a school where they have been used to full-time, permanent, in-house support and feels that it is necessary for the smooth running of the school. Also various members of SLT have horror stories of things going wrong during important times and having to submit tickets that get a 'we will respond according to our agreed SLA in 3 days' (or whatever), or "yes, put it on the list and we will look at that if we get time in the half-day on Wednesday that you pay for"...

 

So far (11 years and counting) it appears it is worth my wages to be able to get me to pop into a classroom and set something up (or fix it) 5 minutes before a lesson/assembly/play/parent presentation. Not convinced it will last forever as budgets get squeezed further and other T&L issues get prioritised, but for now it's all good and everyone is happy... Unfortunately I haven't risen to the dizzying heights of being able to control budgets, renegotiate contracts, force users to utilise what we already have instead of signing up to whatever platform is the flavour of the day (they employ a Business Manager and a large SLT for that) but that's up to them, I do often bring it up in conversation...

 

As for how many boots on the ground you need, that can also be dependant (as others have said) on the skill level of other staff (I get called to classrooms on the daily to press Windows + P, or just plug things in and switch things on for some of the less tech savvy TAs), the age/condition of hardware (also whether things like projectors/whiteboards vs. interactive displays are used, physical servers or cloud, Chromebooks, iPads, which desktops if any, how many ICT suites, how often it is all refreshed).

 

Going by a comment further up, 1 tech to 100 endpoints (devices) would mean a school with 300 iPads needs 3 techs... and we all know that isn't true. Possibly with 300 desktops/laptops though... but even then it depends on a few other factors.

[robintech]

As others have said it depends on the setup, 500 or 1000 identical MDM devices with everything in the cloud is the same amount of work

[PotNoodleTech]

As others have said it depends on the setup, 500 or 1000 identical MDM devices with everything in the cloud is the same amount of work

 

Not if you repair them in house it isn't!

[mavhc]

There's fixed costs, linear scaling costs, and log scaling costs

 

It will takes 2x the time to repair 1000 vs 2000 computers, but maybe only 1.1x to configure them.

 

Then if you add 100 ipads, that's another thing to learn, 1x, configure, 1x, so now you're at over 2x the time vs just the single OS for configuring, after the fixed cost of learning iOS.

 

Running around switching things on entirely depends on the agreement between the SMT and your team. You want someone to run around and press the on button? Got to pay for that.

[Garacesh]

How do you think schools can strike the right balance between the level of IT support they need, the resources they have, and the ever-evolving demands of teaching and learning?I mean it's complicated to manage an effective utilization of existing resources while still adapting to new technologies.

 

I think that's precisely @Koldov's point. There is no cookie-cutter answer. It's going to vary from school to school.

 

Where I work, there's 5 of us (Well, 3 directly in 'ICT Support' (myself as NM and 2 techs), one IT Director for the trust, and one person who predominately deals with data, emails and MIS), ~350 kids, ~10 servers, mostly virtual, and most of the stuff is in cloud. 365 and OneDrive everywhere. Intune for deployment and management of the few school devices we have. To some, 5 of us would sound like overkill.

 

But we're also 90% 1:1 staff devices, and BYOD for the kids. Is it still overkill?

What if I told you we're also a boarding school. How does that change your opinion of techs:kids or techs:devices ratios?

Maybe I should mention the bit where we have something like 12 different buildings, including over 5 boarding houses, which require constant connectivity as per DfE guidelines?

 

Suddenly 5 IT Support to 350 kids doesn't sound so bizarre, I'd hope.

 

The amount of support personnel you require is going to depend on your school's setup, acceptable minimum levels of service, acceptable minimum response/resolution time, hardware and software complexity, and many many other special considerations.

It's also going to depend on how specialised some or any of your kit is, and the knowledge and capabilities of your team.

 

There's really no easy answer for this.

 

Edit:

Typically you hire based on where your gaps are. Maybe you don't have enough time, so a generalist will do. Maybe your team aren't very knowledgeable about a certain aspect. Can that be plugged with further training, or is it such a big aspect that it would be better suited to having a dedicated (or semi-dedicated) body for it? Maybe it's incredibly complex, but also a non-issue the vast majority of the time? Probably not worth hiring an extra bod, maybe consider third party support for X amount of hours? etc

Edited May 24, 2023 by Garacesh