Class ICT Projects
Across all phases of education and in all sectors, Class Technology is committed to supporting education to build upon on existing good practice and drive through innovation. The Class Technology approach to EdTech is develop technological solutions that can address the key areas of where technology can facilitate a step change.
Our ICT solutions are devised to address the major obstacles to Infrastructure Services, Skills, Safety and Security, GDPR and Procurement.
Infrastructure Services
CTS can provide consultancy across a range of key infrastructure requirements. As more schools move to Cloud First Approach, the importance of a high performing and reliable infrastructure becomes even more important. Our dedicated consultants can look at the entire 360° of your infrastructure requirements.
With the growing number of devices in schools, colleges, universities and other providers, the demand for robust and reliable local networking and high-speed Wi-Fi has grown exponentially. Poorly implemented local networking and Wi-Fi networks adversely affect schools and Colleges as teaching is interrupted by lengthy buffering, sluggish login upload, and download times.
CTS can advise on the complete renewal of your server farm – from implementing energy-saving, cost saving virtualisation techniques to implementing a hybrid cloud using a number of cloud platforms. In addition to this, education have some great free to use tools that can be utilised to, ultimately, drive down cost. For example – Office 365 or Google Drive to store files (driving cost down on hard disk replacement) or Sharepoint/Teams or Google Classroom to host key classroom content.
So if you’re interested in seeing how CTS can help you improve your infrastructure or would like a free cloud readiness assessment, please get in touch.
Skills
An essential pre-condition for the introduction of technology, is that it is best implemented at a strategic level by skilled staff that are both familiar and confident with the technology. All schools increasingly recognise how technology can improve the processes of teaching and learning as they continue to cultivate digital capabilities in their schools, colleges and universities.
CTS understands that the twin barriers to the adoption of digital technologies are both confidence and willingness, and it is crucial that teachers, and senior leaders have the adequate training to overcome these difficulties. Many educational leaders and professionals are frequently assailed by competing and conflicting information, and often struggle to know where to start with technology and which forms would best improve their teaching and learning outcomes.
Class Technology Solutions places a strong focus on showing how technology can improve the processes of teaching and learning by providing consultancy and training on the usage of digital technologies in the classroom.
If you want to see how CTS can help you please get in touch.
Safety and Security
Invariably, with the introduction of new forms of technology raises concerns of privacy, security and safety. Two recent BESA survey’s (EDtech & ICT 2018) found that 25% of both secondary and primary schools cited E-safety or data protection as a key barrier to using more EdTech and 50% of primary and 39% of secondary schools cited security concerns as a major barrier to adopting cloud-based storage. In the independent school’s sector, a recent ISBA survey of its membership found that two out of three school Bursars are not very confident their data was secure and only being accessed by authorised persons.
At its core, mitigating the risks concerning cyber security and information hinge on a thorough understanding and wide-spread acknowledgment of an institutions potential exposure and devising a plan to methodically reduce them.
Class Technology can help you achieve this by providing a free ‘security audit’ – looking at the plethora of key security items (such as Firewalling and filtering) that will leave your school, college or university with a clear understanding of your next steps and highlight where improvements can be made as the adoption of technology grows
GDPR
Now is a good time to review your GDPR Compliance Journey.
We are concerned to learn that Solicitors are jumping on the GDPR case, by offering individuals no win/no fee cases where schools have been negligent with personal Data. Not only this, Ofsted, are already taking increasingly dim views of data protection breaches, and this is likely to be a major criticism now that the GDPR is in force.
One of the major factors of GDPR was not only to set out on a journey of compliance before 28th May 2018, but critically, to be able to demonstrate ongoing compliance and due diligence when handling personal data.
We can help you to do this, with an informal soft audit carried out by our trained GDPR Practitioner. A one-day site visit will help you review all of your GDPR compliance journey to where you are today by using the ICO Data Protection Advisory Report format. This is an ideal opportunity for your DPO to ask questions and to implement any extra measures which might help to lessen the chances of your school suffering data breaches, investigations and fines.
Most DPO’s have found the compliance journey a lonely task, generally being the only nominated person within an organisation. This is therefore a golden opportunity to refresh knowledge, share thoughts and ideas and experiences now that the GDPR is in force and most importantly, to ensure that the GDPR topic is always top of the agenda for Board Meetings and Senior Leadership Teams.
Our trained GDPR Practitioner has a vast library of tools and help to share with you to promote continued awareness throughout your school and to help minimise the chances of data breaches.
Act now to keep on track with GDPR compliance.
Procurement
As a leading EdTech company, Class Technology Solutions Ltd is ably equipped to meet your technology requirements. Our ‘Education First, Education’ Only approach has enabled us to understand the needs of education and deliver solutions across the breath of IT projects, within budget and on-time.
Whether you’re a prep school looking to reduce costs through intelligent software licensing solutions (Google’s G Suite for Education and Microsoft’s Office 365 or a Large Multi-Academy Trust attempting to centralise ICT procurement and leverage economies of scale and the opportunities of price that this produces, Class Technology is the right partner for you. Let us help you to understand, plan and manage your IT investment’s.
CTS have and continue to provide an excellent ICT managed service. Not only does CTS give daily support for students and staff, there is a clear focus on ensuring that ICT is a real benefit as a teaching and learning resource in the classroom and the community. Clear and positive guidance is given to assist the school in utilising ICT resources to the full, working closely in partnership so that budgets are adhered to. The relationship has flourished, and nothing is too much trouble.
Parm Thind, Assistant Head Teacher
Chislehurst & Sidcup Grammar School
Prep & Choir School