Most schools underutilise ICT, finds ISBA’s IT survey. So much so, that two in three Bursars question the value-for-money of their IT. The ISC Digital Strategy Group and ISBA’s recommendations to address this, emphasise the importance of deciding what you want from your school IT, putting teachers at the heart of a structured plan to get there, investing in training your teachers to use IT, using a cloud platform for more than just email and storage, sorting out your infrastructure and getting external expert help where you need it. Furthermore, the overriding advice from ISBA and the ISC Digital Strategy Group for school IT is to have a plan, involve and train teachers, and not to go it alone.
Once you have read the recommendations, it’s likely you’ll be wondering how to get started on implementing them. Where do you turn?/how will you find the time?/how much should you invest? are all probably questions you’ll be asking. Here are two ways we can help:
ICT Audit
Any credible school IT partner ought to be able to give you a simple red/amber/green summary of your current school technology. RM offers this ICT Audit as a free-of-charge service; one of our local engineers visits for a few hours and we’ll produce a summary report for you within a few days. Knowing where your current technology is at today provides a good foundation from which to begin your planning.
“RM’s free but comprehensive initial ICT audit provided us with a detailed and readily understandable review of the status of ICT in school and their consultancy has energised us to investigate alternative technologies and teaching approaches, whilst considering how to get the best value and longevity out of our current ICT,” said Rachel Friar, The Marist Schools.
Staff Impact Survey
Our popular Staff Impact Survey quickly builds up a picture of the level of ‘maturity’ of your staff’s use of IT. This gives you:
- A distribution of IT skills vs application, allowing you to plan future staff training in a more effective manner, based on where they’re starting from. This avoids one-size-(never)-fits-all training!
- Spider diagrams that illustrate which skills you have in-house and which you’d benefit from external help with, e.g. you may have in-house experts in the use of resource, but not so much for collaboration.
- A sample of attitudes surrounding the potential of IT to enhance learning outcomes and where staff want most help first. Often this is more positive than initially thought!
- A benchmark of where you’re beginning, relative to other independent and state schools, drawn from the other 6,000 or so teachers who have also completed it. Comparison can be useful motivation.
Further to the ICT Audit and the Staff Impact Survey, there are many more ways we can assist you on your journey to ICT success and the confident use of technology. Call our team on 0845 3077 832 or email to find out more about ICT support for independent schools.
We have also developed a useful online ICT Health Check Tool. If you need a quick assessment of your school’s technology click here to get started.
