Wi-fi scheme only for ‘stuck’ schools after levelling-up plan ditched

[DGardiner]

10 minutes ago, Koldov said:

You mean a bit like the 'DfE Technology in Schools Survey for 2025 (England Only)' where we had to put our school, on the promise that information won't be recorded...

 

But honestly as I said, if 'other schools can do it', what rationale can you put other than SLT won't budget for it?

 

i mean, not budgeting for it isnt an issue.... its when you dont have the 10k to replace your wifi, but youve got 20k to install a new sandpit on the yard with water fountains and slides.

 

if youre short because you have an aging building and are having to pay for repairs that much its a valid thing. Safe warm and dry comes before IT, but having some accountability with then the availability of topup funding where appropriate would be nice? though i guess this may just fall down to the current SCA funding and should be in that program or something?

 

Edited May 22, 2025 by DGardiner

[NegativeKillDeath]

Or spending 20k+ on phone pouches that only the good kids will use anyway.

[mthomas08]

19 hours ago, Koldov said:

You mean a bit like the 'DfE Technology in Schools Survey for 2025 (England Only)' where we had to put our school, on the promise that information won't be recorded...

 

But honestly as I said, if 'other schools can do it', what rationale can you put other than SLT won't budget for it?

That's actually a good starting point and something I was thinking about yesterday.

 

What we need is something much more detailed and a point rating. Your rating gets graded and off to the DfE. Someone with power and the ability to not 'attack' your school.. but to say.. look you need to take this a bit more serious. We don't expect you fix this within 6 months like an Ofsted inspection, but we need you to work towards it within 3-5 years. You do the review again after 12 months and progress will be seen. You can lie about it, but well.. if you need to do that...

 

Currently doing cyber security review and it shows a score. Pretty good, but only covers 15% of the DfE Digitial Standards. Our score isn't great, but not poor....  something like this being presented to SLT and Governors should be the norm. I'll be adding this to my governor report which they get during end of the year and they do actually read. Obviously with a bit of blurb to understand it or, I'll have to explain it. Just like the finance auditors every April.

[DGardiner]

2 hours ago, mthomas08 said:

That's actually a good starting point and something I was thinking about yesterday.

 

What we need is something much more detailed and a point rating. Your rating gets graded and off to the DfE. Someone with power and the ability to not 'attack' your school.. but to say.. look you need to take this a bit more serious. We don't expect you fix this within 6 months like an Ofsted inspection, but we need you to work towards it within 3-5 years. You do the review again after 12 months and progress will be seen. You can lie about it, but well.. if you need to do that...

 

Currently doing cyber security review and it shows a score. Pretty good, but only covers 15% of the DfE Digitial Standards. Our score isn't great, but not poor....  something like this being presented to SLT and Governors should be the norm. I'll be adding this to my governor report which they get during end of the year and they do actually read. Obviously with a bit of blurb to understand it or, I'll have to explain it. Just like the finance auditors every April.

 

 

what we do internally is we have a forever moving baseline of "we expect his as a minimum" and we asses all of our schools on a rag rating of Below and meeting/exceeding (red/green) this allows us to focus our improvements as required and once the majority of schools are all at target or near to we regrade the baseline offering and then repeat the proccess against the new baseline and then refocus.

 

This allowed us to pretty quickly and visibly get all the schools to a functional level and keep them there.

 

also no school liked seeing the trust rag sheet and having red bits where others didnt :D