MANAGED
IT SERVICES FOR SCHOOLS AND TRUSTS

In April 2019, following an extensive tender process, we selected eduthing to deliver a managed IT service at St Matthew’s. With a number of providers in the sector, it was crucial that we partnered with a forward thinking company to help devise a strategy to update our ageing IT infrastructure and classroom technology. Their educational experience and knowledge was key to ensure we invested our budget wisely, with  maximum impact and to best support teaching and learning. The upgrade gave us a solid platform to deploy remote learning quickly and effectively. In partnership with eduthing, we are now able to confidently take a  proactive approach to our IT.

There was only one company that we felt had the credentials to meet our exacting expectations, eduthing. The team of engineers worked above and beyond, not only in the physical transition, but in the ongoing support of staff and Senior Leaders with reassurance. The team worked above and beyond expectations, often late at night and into weekends. The online support from eduthing is available during working hours, with engineers able to resolve 99% of issues remotely and efficiently. We also have access to an onsite engineer for half a day per week. Both aspects of this support serve to reassure staff and students that we have the technology and infrastructure to achieve the world class education our students deserve.

While I am all too aware that eduthing manage the IT solutions in large schools, when it comes to a personal approach in a small special school, they are exceptional. We look forward to many more years on support.

Eduthing has transformed the IT at our one form entry primary school. A complete overhaul of the infrastructure, hardware and software has meant staff can work far more effectively and efficiently at school and at home; and most importantly, technology is now regularly used across the curriculum to support the children’s learning. The introduction of Chromebooks has transformed the way in which technology is used in lessons. Children engage in their learning through safe, easy and reliable devices and the children absolutely love them! Eduthing has been brilliant at any technical support that the school has needed- either remotely or in school, the service is very friendly, professional and helpful. Any issues are resolved quickly.

Eduthing are the third managed service provider I have had in Ash Manor School since I became headteacher and they stand head and shoulders above the others. They invested a considerable amount of time at the start of the contract ensuring that our system was dramatically improved and in less than a year the provision in the school is significantly better for staff and students.

The eduthing staff respond quickly to issues and during the school closures have been invaluable, ensuring that staff and students can work from home, are always available for anyone who needs training or advice and supporting our remote learning provision. Eduthing understand education and respond accordingly; I am very pleased that we chose them to work with us.

Eduthing had inherited and supported since uptake in April, an archaic server setup. As we are a multi-site primary school (historically 3 independent schools that amalgamated in 2011) there were a number of physical servers and domains across the sites. This meant that we had no easily accessible central storage for all staff as well as meaning that staff who worked across multiple sites had different logins for each site.

The impact this project has had is immeasurable. Staff no longer have to wait 20 minutes for machines to start up and login, have access to data from whichever site they are on and also now have the option of accessing the network remotely if working from home. Where snagging issues were raised following the rebuild, a team of technicians were sent to each of the sites and these were quickly and sufficiently rectified. We now have a network and computers that staff, teachers, support and admin, can rely on and who don’t fear things going wrong with their IT during their lessons. The difference in the support that we continue to have, compared to our previous provider, is immeasurable.

We cannot fault the support provided by eduthing. All staff take ownership of problems and stick with them through to resolution rather than them being passed around, which ultimately means issues are resolved quicker and with less input required from staff. They also have a real understanding of how a school works and that staff are not IT experts and try to find cost effective solutions that best fit staff and school  requirements. All the eduthing staff are very friendly and after only 10 months it already feels like they are all, not only a very necessary part of our school but also, a part of our school family.

Having made the decision to roll out a Chromebook 1:1 scheme for September 2020 late into the summer term 2020, eduthing did a brilliant job in supporting the school too implement the scheme in a timely and effective manner. They helped in a range of different ways, producing materials for the promotion of the scheme all the way through to the careful managed handing out of the hardware at the start of the new term.  This was a complex roll out that was fraught with many different challenges; however, eduthing were there to help us at every step of the way, ensuring the project was a great success.

eduthing have been highly responsive and incredibly supportive to our school with our IT provision, which has been ever more significant during lockdown where we have been supporting pupils remotely alongside those in school. We continue to be impressed with our designated field engineer and the Primary Schools & Academies Director, who are both flexible, proactive and extremely knowledge and who approach every task with a positive can-do attitude. We have been delighted with the rapid and responsive support we have received from the company during a wide range of situations, these have been dealt with effectively and efficiently. eduthing are able to provide creative solutions to a broad spectrum of issues. We feel completely supported with our IT infrastructure, even when inevitable issues have occurred.
We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend eduthing as a IT support provider for other schools.

We are delighted with our upgraded CCTV system installed in February 2021 by eduthing. The pictures are crystal clear and we can log in from any computer or via an app on our smart phones. The software is fairly straightforward to navigate and you can look at multiple views at one time or just concentrate on one camera. You can take stills as evidence and it has already been very useful, catching some silly behaviour from some rather red faced pupils.

The actual installation was quick and efficient. The engineers were very pleasant and worked closely with us to ensure we ended up with the best coverage of our site. They also provided and installed all appropriate signage so we had nothing to worry about.

We have been with eduthing from the outset and have always found them to be professional and responsive to our school’s needs. The engineers fit into and understand school life and we consider them part of our team. The helpdesk is friendly and well organised with many issues resolved remotely and promptly. We all appreciate the on-demand visits introduced last year, a fantastic addition to an already excellent service.

During the pandemic eduthing have continued to offer outstanding support and confirmed themselves as the right choice for our school. They ensured our remote education platform was set up and ready to go to ensure our pupils could access everything required for home schooling. This removed a huge burden from the staff and enabled them to focus on teaching. eduthing have helped to shape our future IT programme and provided advice and solutions as requested. We are in a much stronger position knowing we can rely on them and that they deliver.