Southampton Schools'
ICT Technician Service
Southampton Schools' Technician Service (SSTS) is an on-site ICT Technician Service designed by XMA who are a Becta Accredited ICT Infrastructure Services Supplier.
XMA is an approved IT partner of Southampton City Council and are already working with a large number of schools. The assured quality of SSTS means that schools can transition from any other support service they currently use with complete confidence.
Under SSTS, a qualified ICT technician will make regular visits to your school to help take problems of a technical nature away from your teachers and pupils, so they can focus on teaching and learning.
By taking up the Southampton Schools' Technician Service, you can focus on embedding ICT in the Curriculum in the knowledge that professionals are on hand to help with all technical issues.
Why join the Southampton Schools' Technician Service?
• Why pay the whole cost of a full time technician, when you may only require a visit once per fortnight? You can tailor the planned visits to your school's requirements and pay only for the time you need per week or per month.
• Quick fixes by telephone and remote support are also offered as options with this service - Why wait for a scheduled visit if your problem can be solved more quickly through remote support of your network? This part of the service does not replace the familiar face of the SSTS technician during their regular visits, but complements them, so that your ICT systems are kept working at peak efficiency.
• Access to qualified ICT Consultants and Project Managers working in conjunction with the LA is also available from SSTS - to support your future ICT projects that are strategic to your schools ongoing development.
• Access to a wealth of School and Commercial expertise through your SSTS technician. Your technician will have high-level system engineers at the end of the telephone and a PC link to escalate those issues that are most challenging. The wealth of knowledge that the technician can draw upon is beyond the level that an individual school can be expected to employ through its own resources.
• SSTS will be a tool to help you raise standards. ICT is critical to enabling your pupils to achive the best results from their education. We want to help you provide ICT that works. This will help motivate pupils and teachers, as they will increasingly see ICT as an enabler and not a barrier.
• Be part of a wider ICT support community. Your SSTS Technician will be working in other local schools when they are not at your school. They will understand the needs and aspirations of the wider Southampton Schools Community and be able to openly share ideas.
•Avoid the cost of recruitment, training, holidays, covering sickness days and the cost of retention of skilled technicians (or let SSTS compliment those that you already have).
• Get 'best value' from the considerable investment you have made in ICT by ensuring it works efficiently and is being used effectively. What does the Technician Service consist of? The SSTS technician will be a trained, CRB checked, ICT engineer who is familiar with a school environment. You can ask them to undertake tasks such as:
•Support of your curriculum network and PC's including legacy equipment from ANY vendor
•Diagnosing and resolving all ICT problems
•Administering software updates, patches and firmware upgrades
•Installing new equipment and curriculum software
•Providing technical support and advice for all school staff
•Acting as a 'gateway' to more sophisticated advice for major projects
How do I start this service?
•XMA will discuss with you how many visits you need each term,and determine the service levels to be set, so you understand what the service can deliver within a budget you can afford.
•Upon joining the service, XMA will survey your site, introduce your SSTS technician and ensure you know exactly how to obtain the support you are entitled to.
•The SSTS technician will visit the school at the pre-arranged day and time.
•In between visits you could obtain support through our helpline for a more timely fix, or to help us prepare the technician for the issues they will meet when they next visit.
•For those who select the remote support option, XMA can remotely take control of your network to help diagnose and fix problems.
Service Level Options
Your SSTS technician visits your school when scheduled and completes as much work as possible in the time purchased.
All the benefits of our Gold service, but with unlimited remote-access and helpdesk support. Platinum gives the best blend of support to keep your ICT infrastructure 'healthy' so that you can create an 'e confident' school.
PLATINUM GOLD Scheduled Visit Frequency Gold Platinum 1/2 day per fortnight in term time £2,500 £3,000 Full day per fortnight in term time £5,000 £5,700 Full day per week in term time £10,000 £11,000 Extra days can be purchased at the rate of £250 per day to allow you to tackle those ‘bigger jobs’ that can’t be completed within your normal contracted time.