Amazing IT

 

XMA has helped Writhlington Business Enterprise School connect ICT to every aspect of its students’ teaching and learning experience.  The school chose to provide every student with a netbook they could use in school and take home. That meant 1,500 notebooks along with fixed computers, including 180 Apple Macs, and 80 interactive whiteboards. The school built a recording studio and TV studio. Plus, there was to be no money in the canteen and the school also introduced a system to control access to its buildings.

The entire system was run on a new Cisco wireless network, while the solution also built in fixed line back-ups in case of any issues.

 
Ms Hobbs said: “Every single piece of IT has been provided and installed through XMA. It’s all completely new and they delivered everything for us. Everything is working well and our wireless network is brilliant. We installed opportunities to hard connect because we were concerned about it but we’ve never needed them.”

 

Excellent project management
With such a major project, it was no surprise that a single point of contact was so important to Writhlington. Ms Hobbs said: “XMA’s project manager was the man we threw everything at. He was the conduit for all the information. It was a very big project but he kept on top of everything and was always on site.”

 
“A project manager can make or break a project and ours was great. We only had to go to one person to find out what we needed to know.A great team also surrounded him and I really felt XMA was keen to build an ongoing relationship with us.”

 

Teething troubles
That relationship was particularly helpful when the project experienced the inevitable teething troubles. Ms Hobbs said: “With such a big project, you can’t expect nothing to go wrong. In the beginning there were a few issues but they were ironed out quickly. I felt XMA went out of their way to make sure everything was right. When we needed more resources, they found more. They really threw everything at it.”

 
Working together
Since then, XMA staff and Writhlington staff have enjoyed a good relationship. Ms Hobbs said: “We had a service level agreement for our ongoing support. However, what was really useful was that XMA staff were happy to offer help and guidance to our team – especially with the very new technology.”

 
“Introducing the netbooks, for example, was a massive commitment and unchartered territory for us. XMA gave us 100% support with this, including attending our parent information evenings to demonstrate the technology in action and answer questions.”

 

A partner for the future
Ms Hobbs, business manager, at Writhlington Business Enterprise School about the way her school approached an  innovative project. The school had been chosen as a pathfinder school for the Building Schools for the Future scheme and was therefore subject – physically – to a massive £27 million rebuild. The new building also meant a complete overhaul of the school’s ICT strategy and the resulting solution was made up 100 per cent of new equipment.

 

“Our solution is working very well now. Basically, we have got amazing IT and other schools are keen to see what we are doing. We are about to open a sixth form centre and have again chosen XMA to deliver every aspect of IT – which I think speaks for itself”.

 

“It’s all been about what we needed IT to do for us. We didn’t decide on what we wanted from a technical perspective but from a teaching and learning standpoint.”

 
Ms Hobbs continued: “Before, the school’s infrastructure was not fit for purpose. It was a collection of 1950/60s buildings in a bad state of repair. It was a major rebuild and, from an ICT perspective, what we wanted to address was ‘anytime, anywhere learning.’

 
“It was really important for us that students have access to IT at any time both at school and at home. We wanted all the lessons to be online, and for all the students’ homework and course work to be available online too.” The school also wanted to introduce cashless catering and also knew the ICT would have to support the school’s administrative functions too.”

 
Initially, school staff worked with consultants to identify the solution required to transform its ideas into reality. Then, following a tender, IT provider XMA was chosen to provide and manage the entire solution.

 

“We chose XMA for the whole job. We wanted it delivered as a complete package even though we knew it would require many different elements.”