This review is offered free of charge to all secondary and special schools in advance of them going through the BSF Program. The information obtained during this review is likely to be required by the MSP (Managed Service Provider) with regards to legacy kit they will take over.

The purpose of this review is to obtain a clear picture of the current condition and performance of your school’s ICT infrastructure. As schools move forward they rely increasingly on the ICT systems working reliably and efficiently across all aspects of school life. The backbone of all of these systems is the school’s infrastructure, but like most hidden systems they are often not considered when looking at adding new developments and expansion. Regular reviews of this core system can often help as ‘A system is only as fast as its slowest part’.

To help your school in creating a consistent measurement against a set of levels, the CLC and LA have created set of measures that will allow schools to standardise core technologies and methods across the LA.

This review will focus on the schools ICT infrastructure and will include both curriculum and admin systems. (NOTE: Both systems will be assessed separately).

Areas to be covered include:

• Cabling (Backbone and device links)

• Servers (including a basic configuration review)

• Key resource locations (servers, network equipment, cabling, etc)

• Wireless Access points

• Switches, routers, etc

• Backup solutions

• IP Addressing and allocations

• Resource Availability and locations (including support)

• Printing

• Review related processes and procedures

As part of the review we will be using the BECTA FITS (Framework for ICT Technical Support) model as a benchmark. FITS looks at four distinct areas:

• Reactive processes

• Proactive processes

• Change processes

• Strategic processes

Once the review has been undertaken, the schools will receive a summary report. It is recommended that this is used to identify future school actions to address any identified issues, as appropriate. This more detailed action plan can be developed by the CLC Support Team, at an additional cost. In addition, any technical support for improvements to the infrastructure is a possibility from the CLC should the school wish.