ICT SLA documents

We also run an annual ICT & e-learning conference which has been a popular opportunity for staff to meet colleagues, share ideas and have input from outside speakers.

Loan equipment

We have a range of equipment we loan to schools to help them evaluate technology or just supplement their own equipment. Most loans are short term, around half a term. Loan equipment includes:

3D Printers; Sphero; Ozobots; Crumble controllers; Lego Wedo; BigTrak; BlueBots; BeeBots;

Chromebooks and iPads.

Equipment loans can include a training session where necessary, for example with 3D printers.

Digital Leaders

The Digital Leader initiative is a fantastic way to embed the use of technology in your school while giving your pupils a unique opportunity to share their passion for technology with others. ICT consultants run day courses around the County where teachers and pupils attend together. During the day pupils will take part in a variety of activities, collecting ideas and learning new skills to use back at school. They will also have the chance to collaborate with pupils from other schools and establish links to continue learning from each other throughout the year.

This year we have had children from 25 schools attend a Digital leader event and have follow up afternoons, where children receive further input and also have a chance to give a presentation and feedback about what they have achieved in their first few months.

Apple RTC

The Northumberland ICT and e-Learning team is pleased to have been recognised as an Apple Regional Training Centre for 2019–2020.

Apple Regional Training

Centres deliver courses to build the skills and confidence of educators to use Apple technology inside and outside the classroom. They are a community which shares best practices and inspires excellence through teaching with Apple technology.

This year we will be running a number of courses and a showcase event at the centre for life, supported by experts from the Newcastle Apple store and Jigsaw24.

ICT SLA 2 – School360 online learning  platform

School 360 is a unique online learning platform developed collaboratively by the ICT

& e-learning team and ShooFly Publishing.

The online learning platform provides a number of key tools and resources including:

a unique bank of resources and Apps developed by the ICT & e-learning team and ShooFly publishing;

integrated Google accounts including Gmail, calendar, Drive, Docs and classroom;

classroom management, behaviour and rewards system; an early years pupil logon, interface and learning journal; class registration linked to Sims;

A full range of 3rd party Applications provided for free. Prices in brackets indicate cost to schools if bought independently. Apps provided are:

Just2easy (£999 - free through School360)

Q-Files (£250 - free through School360)

ShooFly Learning (£700 - free through School360)

Frog play (£1020/£1600 - free through School360)

Phone and email support for School360 is provided in the SLA, including basic set up and dealing with any issues. For full training and guidance in using School360 and making best use of resources, schools need to be in ICT SLA 1.

We work closely with schools in developing School360 and this includes developing new tools like those for Early Years, but also changing its look and feel. This year we are particularly pleased with pupil entries for a competition to redesign the user interface in School360 and the winning entries have now been built into School360.

Competition winners – pupil designs for new backdrops for the user interface in School360

ICT SLA 3 – Online safety and security

Pupil and Staff safety online is a paramount issue for us in Northumberland and over the years we have built up with schools a range of strategies for promoting and developing online safety in schools and also to support schools in their role of monitoring and reporting activity on their networks.

ICT SLA 3 provides:

CEOP training for Staff and Governors;

support for schools in running training and awareness raising sessions for parents;

network monitoring and custom website blocking software - including the provision of Futures Cloud, for windows (provided free in the SLA, normally

£1000 - £1500 per site);

automated weekly network reports to Senior Leadership Teams in schools;

half termly network monitoring reports to each school, reviewed by the ICT

team;

clear procedures for dealing with incidents should they occur;

support and technical guidance in investigating incidents;

half termly e-safety updates and guidance;

auditable logs should an e-safety incident occur. including screen captures for evidence;

the setting up of two Console Users for each school. to allow direct access to the logs;

individual visits, guidance and support in dealing with an e-safety or data protection incident;

forensic capability to analyse and inspect computer equipment;

a phased cycle of external e-safety & security auditor reports;

guidance materials- for example our current ‘Online safety and network security in Northumberland school guide.

We also provide Futures digital browser licenses for iOS devices at a 50% discount to schools, enabling them to link iPads to their Futures Cloud reporting and monitoring tool. This is particularly important for school iPads which go off site or are taken home.

Broadband SLA 2018 - 2021

In 2016 Information Services went out to tender for a new Schools’ Broadband supplier and this contract was won by BT, since then the schools’ Broadband network has developed massively.

All schools have been connected to BT’s 21st Century Broadband network and a high quality reporting and filtering structure has been implemented using Lightspeed Rockets.

When we introduced the Broadband SLA in 2016 the charge to First, Primary, Special and Middle schools was £2750. However, for a number of the smallest schools the implementation of this charge was phased over three years, initially starting at £2250, then £2500 last year and finally £2750 in 2018/19.

This means that, barring High School, all other schools pay £2750.

Included in the Broadband SLA are filtering and monitoring services to enable schools to meet their statutory requirements in this area. This includes Internet Service Provision through an approved DfE schools Broadband provider.

When the new SLA was set up in 2016, the Broadband SLA was set as a 3 year agreement with a requirement for schools to give 1 years notice should they wish to leave.

The reason for this was twofold.

Firstly, school connections are through our tender contract with BT and we cannot just terminate them without incurring penalty charges from BT.

Secondly and equally important, the schools Broadband service is a shared service with schools and a number of central costs, for example Internet services, central connection to the internet, central monitoring and filtering are contributed to by all schools.

If a school cancels it’s connection, then ultimately the cost of the BT connection may be stopped. But the central costs remain the same but with less schools to pay for them.

We made a commitment to keep prices stable for the three years of the agreement with schools and even managed to phase the transition to the new charges for smaller schools. This was only possible by having schools’ commitment to a three- year SLA which provided the stability of income to insure no cost changes and also to ensure we have the income to meet the associated contracts with BT, Lightspeed and Internet Service Providers.

Committing to a further  three year contract from 2018

Since we upgraded the Broadband network school usage of the internet has continued to grow significantly. Use of online services such as School360 has grown tenfold in the last two years and the movement of schools and Admin to cloud computing with Google Drive has similarly put an increased demand on the network.

In recent months the traffic on the central connection, which takes all schools on to the Internet has grown from around 60% of capacity to 90%. With this in mind Information service are in the process of upgrading the central connection and initially doubling its capacity, with a long-term strategy to increase it tenfold.

Improvements like this are expensive and involve not only funding a new higher capacity line but also upgrading all the central switches, routers, firewalls and filters to operate at these higher capacities.

In order to do this we need a commitment from schools entering  the 2018/19

Broadband SLA that they will remain for an extra two years beyond the initial contract period until 2020/21 (and hopefully longer with the improved service).

With this commitment we can, in turn, make a commitment to schools to maintain the prices at our current rate until 2020/21.

Notice to terminate  services

The Schools Broadband SLA is a three year contract running from the 1st April to 31st

March each year and covering the period 2018/2019, 2019/2020 & 2020/21.

Schools’ need to give 1 years notice of withdrawal from the SLA to enable the cancelling of contracts with BT and other providers. Withdrawal may incur penalty charges.

Notice to withdraw from the SLA and terminate services should be in writing to either

Richard Taylor or Joanne Southern.

Issues for schools wishing to terminate  services

a. If schools opt out of the centralised service they would need to organise their own services including secure email systems and web hosting. Secure access to e- business has also been raised as an issue. There will be cost and capacity issues for schools in dealing with this, as well as security issues if schools opted for cheap web based ‘free’ solutions without regard for data protection.

b. If a school opts out and seeks internet connectivity from elsewhere then they need to ensure that services provide filtering and monitoring logs which meet statutory requirements. It will be the school’s own responsibility to ensure this. Filtering is essential and schools owe a common law duty of care to take reasonable steps to ensure pupils and staff are safe from foreseeable harm and that technical measures such as filtering and monitoring are in place to safeguard children, young people and staff.

c. Perhaps the greatest issues centre around impact of individual schools opting out on the overall costs for those that remain and the management of transfer of services from NCC to a school. Current models are based on economies of scale with all schools buying in. If some schools opt out costs could potentially alter for others.

d. Transfer of services from NCC is not a simple transaction. NCC have contracts with BT, Filtering and Internet service provision, which would need to be terminated. Schools cannot just ‘adopt’ and take on charges for a current line. BT require schools

to ‘novate’ the line from one owner to another. This in effect means that schools would have to pay line installation charges before adopting a connection

and managing themselves. BT also require 60 days lead-in before a transfer can take place.

e. Internet services from other providers may not be filtered appropriately and Heads and Governors would need to ensure that services into school meet DfE criteria.

6. Contacts

If you have any queries regarding your broadband connection, charges or filtering, please contact:

Richard Taylor

ICT & e-learning Adviser richard.taylor@northumberland.gov.uk

or

Joanne Southern Information Services joanne.southern@northumberland.gov.uk