browolf Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 our school is having a sort middle NM restructuring over joining parts of the admin network to ours. it prob a bunch of politics that doesnt affect us lower downs. Nevertheless we've been sent a consulation document that we can make our thoughts on known to the head. Im interested to know how other places with 3 or more staff are organised we are 1 NM with 3 technicians under him (1 of is "senior") 1 tech goes to primaries every morning & fixes stuff other tech fixes stuff senior mostly does sever/network stuff NM does mostly manager things, teaches comp studies, fixes the network infrastructure~ switches, oversees work being done, makes & writes policy, the senior has no responsibilities concerning junior techs, budgets, h&s, decision making. chain of command is pretty much 'all us' > nm is it different elsewhere?
Lee_K_81 Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 We are: 1 SM / NM - same as yours but no teaching, instead some assessment & timetabling stuff. 2 Techs - one mainly hardware, one mainly software. 1 currently spends 50% of time in campus schools we are about to hire a junior tech who will do a bit of everything. Maybe taking some of the external support to campus schools. same chain of command really. Techs will have no real authority over junior tech as such, but may end up giving tasks, when they are busy doing stuff sm delegates.
CyberNerd Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 Very different. 1) ICT Co-ordinator, teacher/SLT, has a maintenence budget, non-technical but does some website and VLE stuff, in-charge of 'policies' which are usually ad-hoc rather than anything in writing. 2) His line manager, teacher/SLT, controls the overall budget, and orders things like IWB's, absolutely no technical ability and often makes elementary mistakes for which we have to clean up. 3) 2x Senior ICT techs - we are the real network managers, just on a lower salary. Sometimes we get an input into strategic decisions, sometimes not. We've sort of divided our responsibilities into where our strengths are - I do network, email (not exchange), citrix, curriculum, web servers he does MIS, databases, exchange MS stuff and admin side. Between us we run all the technical work from documentation to wiring to installations to line-managing 2X techs etc. 4) 2X Techs - one does hardware repair - laptops,printers etc other does everything else (very well I might add). 5) web manager - sort of - inputs data into CMS, does some photoshop. I'd probably organise things a bit differently myself, the structure seems very vague and nobody seems to have clearly defined responsibilities. This is how I would hypothetically organise our department: 1 X technical NM who has ultimate responsibility for policy, security, procurement, budget (fixed for 5 years, not negotiated every term) etc 1 X helpdesk operative who assigns jobs to technicians 2 X technicians who escalate problems to snr techs 2 X Senior techs, for R+D testing, new stuff, anything techs can't handle teachers use the CMS themselves - thats what its for. 1
alan-d Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 we have; ICT Cooord - figurehead for all things ICT - also assistant deputy head and create and maintains the timetables. Network Manager - Lord over all things technical, policy, security, procurement, budgets, Research & Development, Hitman etc etc etc Over Admin and Curriculum Networks Senior Tech/Admin Network Manager - Runs the Admin network on a day to day basis, assists in Research and Development and looks after the trainee by hiding him from the Hitman. Senior Technician - Responsible for Asset management and curriculum network, also hides trainee from Hitman. Junior Tech/Trainee - Does as he's told :twisted:
webman Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 1 Network Manager (bossman), 1 Technician (me) and a trainee. Adrian does just about everything + SIMS. I do general support, and primarily look after the linux server (proxy/email/web). Our trainee sorts out laptops, printers and the like. We work well as a team and usually just share the workload though so it's not a case of "I do this, only this, and nothing else".
browolf Posted February 7, 2007 Author Posted February 7, 2007 we suffer lack of clearly defined responsibilities too, its often whoever is standing in the wrong place. That more of a management issue than an organisational one i think. I sit at my desk more doing network stuff so invariably i answer the tech support phone the most.
dezt Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 We have 2 techies, and our roles are supposed to be split by domain, so i do curric domain and the other does admin domain, but it tends to be whoever picks up the phone first does the work, 8 time out of 10 it's me.
Lee_K_81 Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 ...whoever picks up the phone first does the work, 8 time out of 10 it's me. lol, that used to happen to me. Although the phone was on the other techs desk people used to come in and specifically ask me to do something..... then i got moaned at for "cherry picking" the jobs! Yeah like i want to do twice the work!
iSteve Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 We have... 1x ICT Director 1x NM 1x Senoir Tech 1x Vanilla Tech 2x Classroom assistants The assistants are more in classes to help with "how do I get a picture from the Internet?" questions from kids but should be able to restock printers etc. The rest of the structure is a bit of sham but that's more down to the people...
browolf Posted February 7, 2007 Author Posted February 7, 2007 We have... 1x ICT Director 1x NM 1x Senoir Tech 1x Vanilla Tech 2x Classroom assistants The assistants are more in classes to help with "how do I get a picture from the Internet?" questions from kids but should be able to restock printers etc. The rest of the structure is a bit of sham but that's more down to the people... how does the ict director differ from the nm?
Sylv3r Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 1 x Direcotor for e-Learning Strategical work, that brings together ICT for teaching and learning purposes. 1 x Deputy Director for e-Learning Only been appointed this week, so cant really comment. 1 x Network Manager (Me) I work alongside the Director for e-Learning on the majority of things including the introduction of our new VLE etc. We meet on a bi-weekly weekly basis to pool together ideas. I do all budgeteary work and have a lot of say in ICT across the whole school from an SMT point of view and nothing is done or decided over my head. I am reguarly invited to SMT meetings as my input is valued. I also do a lot of Technician roles as we only have one other technician and the workload would be immense for him if I didn't pull my weight. Hopefully we are to employ an additonal technician before Easter which will take the technician role away from me leaving me to get on with the true Network Manager tasks. 1 x Technician Primarilly in charge of the website, but will be given more responsibility once we emply an addional technician and will share the workload. 1 x Technician (tbc) The new person will probably be an internal promotion and will be the current reprographics technicians, he has a keen interest in ICT and will be a benefit to the ICT Support team here, he is also keen on data and will provide a service closley linked with our Exam Officer.
NetworkGeezer Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 how does the ict director differ from the nm? Normally this a post held by a senior teacher either ICT Coordinator or SMT.
GrumbleDook Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 how does the ict director differ from the nm? Normally this a post held by a senior teacher either ICT Coordinator or SMT. /me jumps up and down ... Doesn't have to be a senior teacher ... it can be another senior member of staff ...
CyberNerd Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 how does the ict director differ from the nm? Normally this a post held by a senior teacher either ICT Coordinator or SMT. /me jumps up and down ... Doesn't have to be a senior teacher ... it can be another senior member of staff ... In your case you were recruited because of your ability. Some might say that many schools internally promote teachers to technical leadership positions because of their length of loyal service rather than their capability.
iSteve Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 how does the ict director differ from the nm? One has the "vision" but no knowledge of how to implement it. The other one does as he is told.
browolf Posted February 7, 2007 Author Posted February 7, 2007 thats interesting, in our school the head of ICT and the NM are completely separated. neither answers to the other. the NMs line manager is the Business manager who the top of the tree for all non-teaching staff.
iSteve Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 Glad to hear it. Out structure is a little unique and I must say a bit of a hinderance and quite frustrating at times. I'm sounding a bit of a moan now!
tosca925 Posted February 7, 2007 Posted February 7, 2007 What structure...........! Ours is a right mess and far too political to mention on here
GrumbleDook Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 We have a slightly different structure compared to some schools ... and I was recently asked for it by someone else so I thought I would upload a PDF of it here.orgchart.pdf
browolf Posted February 8, 2007 Author Posted February 8, 2007 do any other NMs or ICT directors teach?
localzuk Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Looking at this, I'm kinda glad we have things the way we do! We have me (NM) who reports to the bursar and we have the ICT co-ordinator who reports to the head. Completely separate entities - the ICT co-ordinator tells me what we need and I then look at it and do my bit of working...
alan-d Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Thank the heavens our bursar is not in the picture when it comes to IT. We'd never have anything useful.
maniac Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 On the ICT technical side we have . . 1x Systems Co-ordinator Overall management role, and responsible for things like the schools website. 1 x Development engineer This post name was chosen as they didn't want to use the word 'senior' This person is responsible for most of the server side of things, as well as cabling and infrastructure, data backups etc. and when not busy doing these things, obviously is heavily involved in the schools ICT development, testing of new equiipment and software etc. 1 x Network Engineer Does most of the day-to-day repairs to laptops, desktops, builds systems images and handles calls when the junior technician is busy, or when it's something out of his knowledge. 1 x Junior Technician Does what you would expect, changes toner cartridges, resets passwords for users, and responds to requests for immediate help. This works well for us, in a school with 600+ computers, 1200 students and over 200 staff we find we cope quite well. Mike.
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