Key Points Form LA ICT Steering Group 04

Key Points form LA ICT Steering Group 04.06.13

Proposal that £50,000 will be taken from schools budget to enable 1gb upgrade – paper will go to Compact Executive about this, meanwhile there is already funding to upgrade to 600mb to ease internet traffic.

School improvement tool now includes a pupil premium tracker—Gavin Richards happy to present to SAHSP/Deps on this if required. SIT (school improvement tool) no charge as available in slp but if you want it customising cost £183 for ½ day or £330 for whole day.

SWOne updates

There has been a positive reduction in calls, most of which have been dealt with within time sale. No major incidents and few unplanned outages/downtimes

Assyst—the new helpdesk still 01823 355090 number—should improve service—part of Avon and Somerset Police so don’t be alarmed to see that come up on emails.

Solarwinds will enable schools to monitor their internet consumption, fault records etc if they wish.

Outlook mailboxes can be increased to 1gb for Head/key office with 500mb for nominated power users, 100mb for standard users (current capacity)

Remote access to replace Juniper is in hand and solution should be in place by end of term fo implementation in Autumn—cost approx £27 pa.

Sharing of servers is moving forward including some remote hosting. Trialled with PRUs at present—case study to follow. Should be ready for Autumn, there will be charge quarterly or annually.

New staff Paul Simmonds will be responsible for SWOne approach to school.

Curriculum Development

West of England Conference 27.06.13 in Bristol

Somerset Technology Conference 24.10.13 at Junction 24 (M5) called CompsFest. May be worth attending as a group.

Curriculum changes within computing draft programmes of study will be out Sept 2014. Computing at Schools—master teachers to be recruited to work with 40 other schools. There are a very few secondary ones in place—no special schools. Look at Elim website for Developing programming in a primary school and the Primary ICT leader updates.

Infrastructure/SLP

All schools should be migrated over to new Sharepoint 2010 by end of term. Allows school portal-secure area. School website templates are now being built. So schools can have own web address through slp. Schools who have paid for slp will also have access to SIMs tab.

Elim can support schools in procuring ICT support from outside providers. Have a register of local companies used by other schools/county.

Learning Zone pilot

Further development is not a priority but will continue to support schools currently using. Could be chargeable in future.

SIMs update

 Primary tracking package to show individual pupil progress- can identify vulnerable groups. Provides series of SIMs.net reports. Ready now if you use Tracking Package.  Training courses being developed in data ie understanding key data, RaiseOnline etc  Capita have Parents Evening system to allow booking of appointments, monitor attendance of parents. Cost £199 pa up to 250 pupils.  Also online payment system Agora links with SIMs £395 pa for primary, discount available for clusters of schools or a 3 yr commitment.  Room booking system £288pa up to 10 rooms/30 staff.  Performance management enhancement to existing Personnel module can design/record staff appraisal and link evidence £200—also available through SIT (see beginning of notes)

MIS Evaluation

Looked at other market leaders as well as SIMs. All were given same brief—mixed results. Will need to be followed up, any replacement would need massive WOW factor for County to move away from SIMs

School facing services

Shouldn’t be any changes before Sept 2014 but seems to be basic choice between  One in house unit at County  More remote service not directly under SCC