What does your ICT future look like?

Dataspire always starts the process with some questions to enable us to understand where you are and where you would like to be. With a focus on pupil outcomes, Dataspire will work with you to explore the possible, and to develop a strategy for the use of ICT to support your core vision and aims. Together with your leadership team and wider stakeholders we will create a well-defined and fully documented ICT Vision. This will include school-wide developments e.g. moving to cloud services to support formative assessment, and departmental or subject-specific responses such as the use of Linguascope in MFL. External research, including the work of the EdTech demonstrator schools, will be included to ensure best practice is considered in departmental responses.

We would expect the draft ICT Vision and Development Plan document to cover your pedagogy and curriculum intent, areas for development and a training plan. The draft plan will then be fully discussed with the SLT or IT strategy group to explain the response so that decisions can be made about prioritising departments and required investments across a three to five-year plan. Success criteria will be agreed demonstrating how investment will ensure improvements in pupil outcomes and teaching effectiveness.

Using our knowledge of delivering high performing ICT in schools, Dataspire offers an ICT Current State Analysis Service to establish whether you are getting value for money from your current ICT infrastructure. You will receive an in-depth final report that will outline the current risks, highlight areas that require further investigation and identify barriers to effective learning with recommended next steps.

One of our experienced, education technology consultants will visit the school to undertake analysis on all major areas of the existing ICT infrastructure with a focus on the following:

• Network and Server Infrastructure
• Data Storage and Backup
• Remote Access and Cloud Services
• Endpoint Devices
• System Management Tools
• Online Safety

The resulting report will enable your school to make the right investment decisions with the following considerations:

• The current state of each element of the ICT infrastructure
• How it measures compared to recognised standards and performance levels
• Recommended improvements that could be made (quick wins and longer-term)
• Benefits to teaching and learning
• Benefits to the school overall
• Budgetary investment required

Educational institutions must make cybersecurity a priority. Despite the sector facing major challenges such as staffing, funding and resources, cyber-attacks are no less frequent or severe. In fact, they are gaining in prevalence with instances of breaches in schools and higher education widely reported. Dataspire has seen first-hand how ransom attacks can cause financial damage and mass disruption to a school’s ability to use their IT. Of greatest concern are those breaches where student safety is compromised.

Our IT Vulnerability Assessment service will test and report on the security of the school’s IT estate and make recommendations to address concerns. The service covers a range of key areas within the school IT estate and an incremental scale is used to grade the threat status for each area. Overall, each of the assessed areas are combined and a score is derived which indicates the overall vulnerability profile. The higher the score, the higher the potential risk to the school.

The final report will be presented to the school with recommendations to increase system security and remove identified weaknesses.

The Data Protection Act 2018 introduced a wide range of additional considerations for all institutions with regards to the collection, storage, distribution, retention and deletion of data. Many of these changes came with the EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) which were incorporated into the Data Protection Act.

This audit considers the many different areas of data storage within a school and will identify where your school is compliant with legislation or requires measures to be taken to comply with the legislation from a technical point of view. In addition, the audit assesses the physical and logical security of your ICT provision, including safeguarding and the overall fitness for purpose from a data security point of view.

For some time now, digital skills champions, digital industry advocates and policy initiatives have recognised that it is no longer sustainable for schools to continue with the traditional use of digital technologies. Digital skills are essential for accessing products and services and increasing demands from employers for education to provide an innovative, technologically advanced workforce. Schools can now respond by creating environments in which learners can develop a range of general and specialist digital skills that are vital for learning, life and work. Dataspire helps by providing support to schools in creating a clear digital strategy which covers Digital Leadership, Remote Learning and Digital Curriculum.

Schools with an effective digital strategy ensure investment in new technology is informed by best practice research to improve pupil outcomes.

This Dataspire service assists leaders in the review and development of your digital vision and strategy and the impact of the investment. A survey is completed by key stakeholders prior to a review. Supported by evidence, a digital development framework is applied to current systems and processes to identify the status of the school on its digital development journey. A digital strategy, development plan and review process are then agreed and published.

From October 2020, schools are required to publish a remote learning plan detailing how a high-quality education will be delivered in all tiers of lockdown. Ofsted will review this plan when inspecting your school.

Our remote learning services ensure your school’s remote learning plan is fit for purpose in any lockdown scenario. A remote learning plan MOT takes place by applying the latest research guidance from the DfE EdTech demonstrator programme and published Ofsted reports. Each tier of support is rigorously tested to ensure all pupils are receiving a high-quality education. Areas for development are identified and signposted to best practice.

Your school’s curriculum intent should include digital skills for life and digital literacy. All schools should develop digital specialisms across the curriculum, a KS4 digital pathway for all pupils and opportunities for informal digital learning.

Our support package ensures all pupils leave school with the digital skills required for the next stage of their education and life. The curriculum intent statement is reviewed prior to a morning of discussions with the senior leader responsible for the curriculum, the Head of Computing, and a group of KS3 and KS4 pupils. The effectiveness of curriculum delivery model is measured against the intent and pupil outcomes. Teachers are signposted to opportunities to develop the offer at KS4 and a development plan is agreed.