Supporting St Birinus School in moving from ‘Good’ to ‘Outstanding’
Civica, a market leader in specialist systems and business process services that help organisations to achieve a more cost-efficient way of working, has been appointed to deliver a managed ICT service and provide strategic ICT support to St Birinus School in Oxfordshire. The contract is worth in excess of £2m and for a duration of seven years.
With St Birinus School’s vision at the heart of everything they do, it was important for them to find a proactive partner who would collaborate with the school in developing an ICT solution that will support the school now and in the future. Civica are dedicated in supporting the school’s ultimate goal of moving from being a good school to an outstanding school by creating a solid platform for inspirational education, developing e-confident staff and providing freedom to innovate.
The contract includes:
- Managed support services. Civica will facilitate the transfer of the ICT support provision at St Birinus as well as local IT staff via TUPE
- St Birinus portal – customised online learning environment
- Continual Professional Development (CPD) for school staff
- Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to provide anytime, anywhere access to the school’s own private cloud
Civica will provide a managed support service, giving the school access to local ICT support staff as well as Civica’s service desk. Specified local ICT personnel will be transferred, via TUPE, to Civica’s employ allowing the school to benefit from continuation of service. The local technicians will be plugged into a wider network of Civica technical and educational experts, to provide a fully robust and responsive service that the school can rely on. The service will be implemented over the summer break to minimise disruption for St Birinus.
The customised portal will be designed in partnership with the school to reflect teaching practices, support ICT innovations, facilitate collaboration and maximise the use of available data to support school administration and management. Together with the proposed VDI solution, St Birinus School will benefit from flexible, 24/7 access to their school applications from anywhere, supporting new ICT innovations such as a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scheme.
St Birinus School will work in collaboration with Civica’s E-Learning Consultants (ELC) on an extensive ICT modernisation programme which will aim to maximise the use of available ICT, invest in appropriate new technologies, review the impact of ICT innovations and support teaching staff in becoming e-confident.
Alwyn Richards, Head Teacher at St Birinus School says: “'I am delighted with this hugely exciting partnership with Civica. As a school, our core focus is to provide outstanding Teaching and Learning, and to thoroughly prepare our students for life-long learning and employment within our 21st century context. Quite clearly, IT has a pivotal role to play within this. Our relationship with Civica will allow us to be at the forefront of technology-led Teaching and Learning excellence and I look forward to a future of innovation and high engagement and achievement for all of our students'”
Lee Burley, Managing Director of Civica’s education division, said: “Civica are really excited about working in partnership with St Birinus School. They have a clear vision for their ICT and need a partner to help them realise that vision. Our partnership with St Birinus School will deliver a programme of flexible ICT innovations in collaboration with the school’s teaching staff; making a real impact on learning outcomes.”
