Schools not computerised

[MartinT]

Is that secondary or primary? and do you still have some traditional IT in place for student use or is education 100% tablet based?

 

Great for when exams go all online i guess, but personally thinking about that as a parent, I have some negative feelings towards it.

 

Junior and secondary. We do have ICT suites with Windows machines for Computing and online exams, while all the admin staff and teacher offices also use Windows.

 

No, I don't relish mass online exams, the infrastructure and support load could be extremely non-trivial.

[psydii]

Weird example, I've seen plenty of maths lessons using IT.

Never seen a swimming lesson using IT though.

 

I may have extended an old 10Base2 network to the pool edge a few times

 

(I probably should have said "three decades" in my earlier post)

Edited March 11, 2024 by psydii

[comedymikey]

No one said all the time - half the time I arrived and said OK where are your exercise books they said er? don't know often we had to hand out paper and pencils it was useless

[comedymikey]

Ha r har har blooming har swimming lessons! I want to know what does all the money go on in these schools? the SLT's driving Maserati's most likely

[comedymikey]

I don't know who is paying the heating bill where I work now but must cost an absolute fortune!!!!!! sweltering classes corridors etc etc

[Edu-IT]

Ha r har har blooming har swimming lessons! I want to know what does all the money go on in these schools? the SLT's driving Maserati's most likely

In which schools?

[Andrew_C]

I don't know who is paying the heating bill where I work now but must cost an absolute fortune!!!!!! sweltering classes corridors etc etc

Heating control here is a nightmare. REALLY old science building (oldest bit 1908) that has had chunks added, joined, extended... The zones correspond to when built, not the geography of the building, or use. Thus, in my workshop, next to the brazing hearth, I've got the sensor for two dark north-facing labs, and one south-facing corner lab. Someone is always too cold, and someone too hot, (I'm fine as I set the temps)

[Cole]

Surely going 1-1 would be far too costly

[psydii]

Surely going 1-1 would be far too costly

It depends.

 

Delivering IT to good standard is not low cost. Many schools continue to underinvest so for them doing anything properly appears to be "far too costly"

 

However if you are delivering IT assets and infrastructure such that it meets or gets close to the DfE published standards, then 1-1 might be cost neutral, or even save money.

 

Once you have cleared the hurdle presented above, the two key pieces of the challenge are not actually the kit or the tech but the Head Teacher and the Head of Finance. What is successful and how it is accounted for? A change in Head or a change in Finance manager can result in a programme that was successful and cost effective being viewed as neither of those things, while no other variables change!

 

Here, we could do 1:1 and it could be lower cost than what we do at the moment. However we would not be delivering that same capabilities to staff and students as we do at the moment. We would reduce the number of computer suites by 50%. We would reduce the number of laptop trolleys by 50%. We could even perhaps swap the remaining 50% of high performance laptops into the IT suites we might otherwise retire - though these rooms would need costly works to make them dual purpose suitable for the practical classes that require the high performance laptops.

 

If we restructured our curriculum offer we could reduce the high performance laptops and IT suites by a further 50%.

 

We would also need reduce the density of our printing and reprographics facilities. "Paperless" is a myth, but we could certainly choose to reduce our paper consumption by 50-75% by having all department restructure their teaching and learning materials based around a 100% access to IT.

 

With the reduction in wired devices (desktops, printers, photocopiers) we would need 90% fewer active switch ports - while not an immediate cost saving, certainly one that would kick in over a 5 - 10 year period.

 

MDM has been the only sane way to manage 1:1 devices for a while now (yeah I have, can and occasionally still do 1:1 device management with AD/GPOs but Intune / MDMs are better). We could remove server infrastructure from the refresh - or at the very least dramatically reduce it. Again not an immediate saving, but over the 5-10 year period, significant.

 

Finally (again for us, your local circumstance may vary) a significant minority of parents are able and will to contribute financially to supporting a 1:1 programme.

 

When all these things are considered, I have found that I can model for a 1:1 programme making considerable savings, and the 1:1 programme being more expensive and come with substantial risks.

 

It just depends.

[DrCheese]

Aye, everything you say is right - The challenge comes from trying to phase over to the newer model when you already have existing assets. eg - If we gave all Year 7 devices in September, then the rest of the school suffers as the equipment they use isn't replaced as the moneys gone elsewhere.

I know of newly built schools that have gone 1:1 right from the start, so they don't have the headache of maintaining older equipment & dual setups so for them, its much easier.

 

In business you could invest substantially more than we have access to so doing a rollout wouldn't be as challenging in a place that has tight budgets.

[PotNoodleTech]

It's tough but can be done especially if you can find ways not to waste money elsewhere.

 

We did Year 7 year on Year got there in the end!