Sensible level of technical support

[NotSoFast]

All,

 

I am wondering how the level of staffing in our school compares to that in others, and also what might be considered a "good level". I'm very aware that our support team looks after all kinds of devices ("if it's got a plug...") in addition to the ICT stuff. On the other hand, we are an RM school and a certain amount of administration should, therefore be taken away compared to a school running a vanilla network.

 

I know we'd all like infinite numbers of colleagues, or at least an equivalent to the situation in industry but I don't see how that's going to happen with the competing pressures on school budgets.

 

So, how big are your school and your network, and how many people support them (doing what sort of jobs)?

 

The second question is: what's the "right" ratio to keep everything running sweetly and the tech support team sane?

 

I'll start:

 

• Secondary (11-18) with about 1700 students
  
• RM Network with around 600 workstations including admin, offices and laptops
  
• Projector and DVD/VCR in virtually all (100 plus) classrooms
  
• SharePoint, Exchange and various other bits like ClickView in addition to usual server setup
  

 

1 full time network manager and 3 full time technicians

 

Simon

[maniac]

Well we're a secondary (11-16 with a few 6th form, but not many) with 340 Students (Yes just just 340, but increasing )

Ageing RM CC3 Network with about 550 Stations, Most of which are Laptops.

Projector/Whiteboard etc. in Every classroom (About 40 rooms)

Exchange server, Website, intranet, Eclipse Library system, Uniware Cashless Catering and lots of other bits and pieces to look after.

 

1 Full time Network Manager (Me) and 2 Full time Technicians.

 

Although we're small at the moment, we do have a lot of ICT equipment and a lot of it is on the older side so is quite high maintenance. We expect to hit a roll of 600 students within the next 3 years, and are suposidly moving into new premises in about 2 years time, so things are expanding fast here.

 

Mike.

[Gibson335]

Upper school - Yr10-13

 

Approx 1600 users

Approx 550 computers

10 servers

Admin and Curric network

Separate Music network x 32 stations

All network management and support in-house

1 x FT Network Manager plus 2 x FT Technicians

[budgester]

1 Network Manager

3 Technicians

 

550 PC's

A couple of racks of servers.

 

1 more technician would hopefully push us totally over the edge of the reactive/proactiv barrier.

 

But then there is different workloads at different times of the year.

[FN-GM]

We have nearly 600 machines with 2.5 techies with around 550 students.

[jamin100]

2 form entry Primary School

500 Students

40 Staff

 

50 PC's

90 Laptops

6 Servers

Admin + Curriculum Network

4 Printers

2 Printer/Photocopier combi's

 

1 FT Network manager (me) and . . No just me!

[russdev]

11 to 14 Years 7 to 9.

170 workstations

400 odd kids (not had latest figures)

Network Manager (Me) + 3 Day A Week Technician (One day is special projects day)

 

Russ

[User3204]

Students yr7-13, ages 11 to 18. approx 1500.

500(ish) computers, of which: 110-120 staff laptops, 60 student laptops.

Network Manager (me), 1x F/T Technician, 1 P/T Technician/Manager/Teacher (my ex-boss - who will be leaving at the end of term).

 

We're currently advertising for an ICT Manager (who will become my new boss).

This is down from last year as we lost 1 P/T Manager (Deputy Head in charge), and 1 F/T Technician.

 

So currently this is 2 and 1 half bodies, down from 3 and 2 half bodies, and soon it should go upto 3 and 1 half bodies. (this is ignoring the 1 F/T and 1 P/T Temps we had in over summer).

Last year, when there was 5 of us, we actually caught up with ourselves, and spent some time planning, but now we're back to 3, it's all going pear-shaped again.

[Kitkatninja]

About us:

 

Secondary school (with 6th form):

1. Approx 1200 students

2. Approx 150 staff

3. 550 PC's & Laptops (this includes 7 mobile classrooms)

4. 16 Servers (Physical as well as virtual, including 2 x Exchange, 2 x ISA, etc)

5. IP CCTV (currently 4 IP camera's linked up to one of the above servers)

6. Telephone system (including IP Phones)

7. Fixed projectors in almost every room

8. Approx 20 smartboards

9. Bookable items as 4 mobile projectors, 4 digital camera's, 2 camcorders, etc

 

That's off the top of my head, then:

 

Primary School:

1. Approx 200 students

2. Approx 20 staff

3. Approx 50 laptops & PC's

4. 2 Servers

 

Off the top of my head.

 

And to support all of that there's us, IT Services: 1 IT Manager (me), 1 Senior tech and 1 virtual person who we are still waiting for (for the last 2 years)

 

That's us...

 

-Ken

[Kitkatninja]

...The second question is: what's the "right" ratio to keep everything running sweetly and the tech support team sane? ...

 

There is no right amount, it boils down to the following:

 

1. network (reliability)

2. technical support (whether they are efficient or not)

3. users (if they are ICT confident and trained or not)

4. Service Desk (if there is one or not)

 

If you have a perfect one, Becta "recommends" 1 tech to every 150 machines, but it can go down to 1 tech to every 50 if it's in a bad state. However it really does depend on the school...

 

-Ken

how_many_technicians.pdf

[NotSoFast]

Thanks everyone - very interesting!

[Sirbendy]

11-16 secondary, no sixth form

600+ kiddies

200ish PCs

IWB and projector in every classroom

20ish printers

Cisco VoIP phone system

"nodal" server room containing "zone 9 servers" (3 racks, LEA maintained)

3 Auxilliary servers (all VM hosts for accounts, personnel, VPN, print serving etc)

Several laptops

PC based CCTV

1 incoming laptop trolley+wifi

 

2 of us. 1 FT Network manager, 1 TT+2 tech (will be FT with luck). Sometimes not got time to break wind (putting it nicely), sometimes idling.

 

In the new building it'll be non-LEA, and loads more kit so there will be a 2nd tech by that point and probably a media tech for the theatre and video stuff.

[DSapseid]

11-16 secondary

700 kids

10 servers

200ish computers

50ish laptops

3 websites

wireless

IWB in nearly all and projector in every classroom (30ish)

IP CCTV

 

3 Primary Schools Totalling

700 kids

80ish computers

50ish laptops

wireless at one school

IWB's in all classrooms (30)

 

Primary schools get 3 hours a week each.

 

1 Full time - Term time + 2 weeks in holidays (Me)

1 Full time - Term time

[kooperthedog]

Hi Simon,

 

I work for a centralised team looking after eight high schools with the following:

 

38 Servers

3000 PC's

300 Laptops (approx 200 wireless)

Sharepoint / Exchange / Openfire IM / Streaming Media Platform etc

300 Smartboards / 500 Projectors

12,000 Pupils / 1600 Staff

Digital Camera's, Camcorders, Visualisers, and anything else with an LED on it!

 

We have four full time engineers (centrally based), a part time tech at each school, and a comms engineer who spends part of his week looking after Education.

[grumpy_git]

We have approx 600 machines, another 100 or so thin clients, oodles of switches and cabling, about 60 printers of varying types (though a lot are unused or under-used), 70 projectors, 5 photocopiers, CCTV etc.

 

1 NM, 1 full time technician, 1 part time (0.25) technician. Hopefully adding another person soon, but pigs can fly too...

 

Spend an awful lot of time with a huge backlog, it's almost impossible to do anything proactive or development wise as the time is taken sorting out the day-to-day stuff.

 

Senior staff are quick to moan when stuff doesn't get done on time, but then bleat on about budget pressures when its pointed out that extra staffing is required.

(Of course its fine to hire extra bean-counters, or give teachers fancy titles and huge pay rises for doing very little).

[Pottsey]

Secondary school with post16 students

75 ish pupils

43 desktops and 21 laptops

10 servers & admin PC’s

 

1 full time technician

[Linfit]

600+ machines, mostly desktops, 55 IWB's, 6 laptop trolleys running on managed wireless. 15 servers some real some virtual and numerous other odds and sods. Plain vanilla Windows 2007/XP network.

 

We do everything with a plug which is technically more advanced than an OHP, including CCTV in and out, AV and PA in the Hall, and some other bits and pieces.

 

We are an 11-16 comp with 1050 on roll.

 

1 full time network manager.

1 half time ICT technician

and about half of my time (I'm officially ICT Manager but am also MIS manager, Exams Officer and I maintain the VLE) over the course of the year.

 

We manage reasonably well, but we have spent a lot of money on making our network robust, don't have much old kit and use only a few variations of machine types to keep it as simple as we can. There has in effect been a policy to invest in kit rather than people to improve reliability. Seems to have worked for us bu YMMV.

[pagelad]

4 Primary Schools

 

Each with a server AD, Ranger

 

Split over the schools :

About 250 Machines total

50+ Laptops

24 Smart & Promethean Boards

 

and Little ol me

 

Thankfully since i started last year ive systematically wiped and reinstalled everything that was shoddily done before so most of the schools have near identical configuations which makes my life easier.

[grumpy_git]

If you have a perfect one, Becta "recommends" 1 tech to every 150 machines, but it can go down to 1 tech to every 50 if it's in a bad state. However it really does depend on the school...

 

I wonder how many schools have anything like this? Based upon our 1.25ish technicians, we have one tech per 434 machines! Although, our NM tends to get involved with the day-to-day stuff simply because of the understaffing (even though the day-to-day running/support/answering the phone is technically outwith his remit).

[DanW]

3-18 Independent Boarding School

600 + Pupils

350 + computers

26 + Smart Boards

100 MBit Interwebs

20 + Virtual Servers running across 4 HP Proliants via ESX 3.5 server

70 Blade PC's

 

 

1 x Network Manager

1 x Senior Tech

1 x Tech

1 x Help desk Person

[Nick_Parker]

Grade 0 - 12 (ages 6 through to 18)

1000 Students

250 PCs

75 Laptops

30+ Projectors

 

And it's just me

And in my "spare time" I run the technical side of Drama (sound/lights)

yay!

[browolf]

All,

 

• Secondary (11-18) with about 1700 students
  
• RM Network with around 600 workstations including admin, offices and laptops
  
• Projector and DVD/VCR in virtually all (100 plus) classrooms
  
• SharePoint, Exchange and various other bits like ClickView in addition to usual server setup
  

 

1 full time network manager and 3 full time technicians

 

Simon

 

we have pretty much the same as this equipment wise, not as many projectors and vanilla 2003 network

 

we have 1 full time network manager 3 term time technicians (1 senior), 1 does primary schools 50% of his time + 1 volunteer mother with a tech background.

 

 

I think the right ratio is difficult to define as it depends on the nature of the network and how it is managed. for instance we've had the 1 nm + 3 term time techs for years and in that time the network size and potential workload" has at least increased by a 1/3. I think we've managed to keep on top of it because we have 1 person who spends less time fixing stuff and more time being proactive over making our work easier and quicker and taking note of what's taking up our time and how to make it take up less time or no time. I'd say in the long run, having less fixing mantime and having an amount of proactive innovation has made us significantly more efficient and its not always about making technicians operate more efficiently. There's plenty of teachers, if you give them user-friendly systems are happier doing things themselves than sending kids to us with notes and its not necessarily the more IT literate ones. We dont even have to educate new teachers about how to turn the internet on anymore as their departments will do it for us.

[GrumbleDook]

I wonder how many schools have anything like this? Based upon our 1.25ish technicians, we have one tech per 434 machines! Although, our NM tends to get involved with the day-to-day stuff simply because of the understaffing (even though the day-to-day running/support/answering the phone is technically outwith his remit).

 

If you look at the Becta Technical Competencies you will see that they are cumulative. It is expected that a Level D member of staff (usually the Network Manager) will be capable of all activities of the junior members. This, partly, reiterates the requirement for the Network Manager not to be a member of teaching staff.

 

Again, this just highlights the problem of the differences of job roles in support staff in schools ... and you either go for something completely common across the board by force of contract (one of the views that people take on BSF), accept that roles will vary but some type of framework is needed (difficult when you have to take into account the different types and levels of technology used in schools and the different skill sets of staff providing support) ... or accept that we cannot have commonality and we just need to get on with it based around good practice.

 

This is one of the factors preventing a common pay structure too.

[grumpy_git]

True, however there becomes a point surely where the NM can't do the NM role effectively, as he's spending all the time trying to do day-to-day stuff? Of course, filling in from time to time is one thing (say if a technician is off ill, or it's the first day of term and everything is manic), but being forced to spend time away from your real duties doing another job for half the time isn't ideal.

 

@browolf : I agree that with some subtle education of staff you can go a long way. I was forever getting calls from our librarians, for simple things like paper filling, computers unplugged etc. After some hair-pulling, I sat down with them for half an hour or so on an INSET day and went through some basic troubleshooting - how to check that it's plugged in, switched on, mouse / keyboard plugged in, how to fill a printer with paper. As such the Library causes far less aggro now than it used to.

 

There is also the issue we occasionally get where staff "don't want to report things that are urgent because we know you're busy..." - far better to learn about it when it's not urgent than when it's "needed urgently for a lesson in 5 minutes".

[GrumbleDook]

@grumpy_git

The number of 'technicians' is the wrong way to look at it. It is the number of technical support staff. The NM may have planned and the deployed the system within the school to make it more efficient for the technicians dealing with day to day tasks. It all depends on how your network is setup. Some networks might not have an NM with technical experience but who can plan and manage things, others may make more use of middleware to manage day to day activities ...

 

It is really hard to get an exact number at times but you should always include the NM as tech support is not always reactive thing.