ICT services for South East Schools

Overview

Coastal Academies Trust (CAT), a school trust in South East England, decided to work with Educa following a review of their internal IT services. Educa implemented IT department support to ensure that their IT was reliable, agile, and never understaffed. The Trust now benefits from having the ability to escalate IT issues, meaning that no problem is ever left unresolved – and with a reliable IT department, students’ learning will never be compromised.

Background

Coastal Academies Trust is a multi-academy trust comprising five large schools (both primary and secondary) in South East England. The trust has a steadfast commitment to achieving the best learning experience for children by working together. As such, a modern approach to IT was perceived as critical to ensuring the highest quality education possible for students.

Challenge

Following the departure of Dane Court and King Ethelbert’s shared IT Manager, the trust decided to reassess how it could best manage its IT services at its schools. They realised the benefits that came from IT support being delivered by an experienced provider instead of internal dependence, allowing the trust to focus on learning, and not have to worry about IT problems.

Thankfully, the trust had already engaged Educa for some work at one of their schools, Hartsdown Academy. This school was already benefiting from a reliable, experienced IT Managed Service Provider, and CAT realised that this could be extended to other schools under their care.

Solution

After the initial introduction with Educa, the trust quickly opted to take on Dedicated Educa engineers and infrastructure consultants, who have since become a vital part of their everyday operations.

“They work with us as a partner, offering options and guiding, allowing us to make the best decisions to enhance the education of all our students,” says the Chief Finance Officer at Coastal Academies Trust.

With Educa’s on-site technicians always available, IT Department Support issues in the classroom can now be quickly resolved, helping teachers get equipment up and running without any delay to classroom time. Educa’s service for Coastal Academies includes:

• IT department support (EducaSupport);
• Safeguarding and security (EducaProtect);
• Remote monitoring.

Having reliable and agile IT Services is key to a positive and fulfilling learning experience, and is helping to improve outcomes for students. The trust also benefits from the availability of wider Educa capability services, meaning that the onsite team can escalate issues up to infrastructure consultants if there is ever a problem that requires particular attention.

Result

“Educa provide a professional, responsive and reliable service. The team fully understands our requirements, and always offers excellent advice. ‘Everyday problems’ are resolved quickly, and they ensure that our systems are secure and function efficiently.

“In a short period of time, the technicians have developed an in-depth understanding of the school’s needs, and built professional relationships with our teachers and support team. Now the school has a reliable IT department, so children’s learning will never be compromised” says the Head teacher at Dane Court.

“For the past 12 years I would receive complaints on a weekly basis about IT, now staff ask why we hadn’t done this sooner!” Coastal Academies, CEO.

Since starting our work with Coastal Academies, Educa has embarked on a programme of stabilising and improving the existing IT Infrastructure to make it more reliable and performant. Over the term of the contract, the trust plans to continue the journey towards transforming their systems, and removing the burden of everyday IT issues.