The Good Shepherd Trust’s chief operating officer, Louisa Mason, describes her journey to centralise the trust’s broadband services with internet service provider Schools Broadband.
Louisa explains why the trust needed to centralise their broadband operations, what her experience has been and what advice she would give to other trusts planning on centralising online services across their schools.
About Me
Louise Mason
Chief operating officer, The Good Shepherd Trust
- What we were looking for
An organisation that understands about different connectivity types and wide area networks, as well as safeguarding, web filtering and cybersecurity within schools.
What is The Good Shepherd Trust?
The Good Shepherd Trust is a 16-school multi-academy trust within the Diocese of Guildford. With nearly 5000 pupils, our growth plans include an additional four schools in the next 12 months and several further schools over the next three years.
The trust is part-way through a major connectivity upgrade programme to future-proof all operations.
Why is centralising broadband services strategically important to the trust and its schools?
The primary reason for centralising operations has been to reduce the amount of time and resource involved in procuring good value, high quality services.
The trust is at that point in maturity where we needed to have a single managed service provider across all schools to achieve this. This has removed the pain of procurement from our individual schools which has led to increased efficiency and improved service.
If all 16 schools obtain three quotes from individual broadband companies, the nature and size of contract values run into several hundreds of thousands of pounds. That size of contract needs to be managed at a senior central level.
What is important and critical in choosing a broadband provider?
As chief operating officer, I’m contacted by a lot of telecoms companies, but for this we needed a specialist schools’ provider like Schools Broadband, experienced in working with multi academy trusts, not just individual schools.
We needed an organisation that understands about different connectivity types and wide area networks, as well as safeguarding, web filtering and cybersecurity within schools – a trust our size can’t afford to get this type of contract wrong.
As we place enormous emphasis on our own in-house security, we required a company to complement our own cybersecurity approach.
“We now have a “best in breed” connectivity and security solution which also includes anti-DDOS protection as standard”
Schools Broadband prioritises cybersecurity and has received multiple awards for its solution. We now have a “best in breed” connectivity and security solution which also includes anti-DDOS protection as standard.
Our chosen provider would need to be OJEU compliant. Schools Broadband is listed on The Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation (YPO) OJEU compliant framework, and as it already provided service in a couple of our schools, it made accessing their service a lot easier. We carried out a Direct Award through YPO.
What advice would you give to other MATs planning on centralising their broadband services?
Collate information about existing school broadband services
The most challenging aspect in the early project stage was collating technical information about existing broadband services from 16 different schools. School business managers are busy people. Requesting technical information they’re not familiar with isn’t easy. It takes a lot of time and chasing.
Schools Broadband provided a spreadsheet requesting the necessary information which was very helpful. But don’t assume your schools know what type of connection or speed they receive. Nor expect them to know what securities they have in place.
This service uses a vocabulary and knowledge base few outside of the industry know about. Medium to large trusts planning on centralising broadband services will likely have multiple schools in multiple counties with multiple providers. You would probably need a project owner with admin support to manage this.
Plan further ahead than you might expect
Be warned – there is a lot of work required to install new leased lines. This type of installation is dependent on both your broadband provider and the wholesale contractor. The Good Shepherd Trust is upgrading all its schools to leased lines and we underestimated the additional time scales.
If other contractors are digging up roads nearby, the council will not let the wholesale broadband contractor operate at the same time. This caused long delays.
While Schools Broadband did everything possible to expedite the build, my advice would be to start the install process a minimum of six months, ideally more, in advance of service go-live.
Schools Broadband put contingency connections in place to cover the period of no service.
What benefits are you experiencing having just one contract for all schools?
Each school in the trust has its own individual contract end date with its existing broadband supplier. Schools Broadband has scheduled works such that as our schools come out of contract, they switch over to Schools Broadband.
Having one contract and only one supplier to manage will make a big difference. We now have a trusted go-to, secure broadband solution for our schools, with some of the best filtering and security in the industry.
This saves our school staff valuable time when sourcing a best value service as we now direct schools where to go.
Talk to Schools Broadband
Schools Broadband is a specialist internet service provider to multi academy trusts of all sizes. Providing fast, secure connectivity, cloud-hosted web filtering and cybersecurity, it is transforming multi academy trust IT infrastructures.
Call Schools Broadband on 01133 222 333 (option 3), email info@schoolsbroadband.co.uk or visit Schools Broadband.
- Understands safeguarding context around broadband
It’s important to choose a provider who understands the safeguarding context around broadband. Schools Broadband provides very good support and training around its web filtering and meets regularly with our designated safeguarding leads, ensuring they understand the filtering and safeguarding reports. Its service provides out-of-the-box reports, Prevent Duty and safeguarding alerts, and we know when all our schools are connected, each one of them will be DfE safeguarding compliant. - Easy to understand
Choose a provider who is prepared to speak your language and listen to you. While our broadband installs have been very good, our first VoIP install could have been better. The engineer did not communicate with us in plain English. To Schools Broadband’s credit, once I mentioned this, they soon put things right. They now place great emphasis on their staff speaking the customer’s language. - Accessible
Make sure your provider is accessible. Monthly project meetings with Schools Broadband track progress and if I phone, I know I will get an answer. The Schools Broadband customer service level and quality of service has been excellent, which counts for a lot. - Issues a plan
Ask for a delivery plan. Understand what different stages are involved, what they will look like and what information is needed at each stage. Know who is responsible for what, as part of your project plan.
