Client story Radnor House Delivers a Full Curriculum with Remote Learning Technology
By Insight UK / 22 May 2020 / Topics: Mobility
By Insight UK / 22 May 2020 / Topics: Mobility
Radnor House is an “outstanding” co-educational day school, providing a full education for pupils from nursery to sixth form. As well as ensuring all pupils are well qualified, it seeks to instill them with the school values of excellence, perseverance, courage and respect.
Radnor House wants to stay ahead of the curve in delivering the best education for its pupils. As part of this commitment it uses digital technology to facilitate remote learning and collaboration for all its senior school pupils.
Radnor House’s IT Service Desk needed help choosing the best devices for its students, and wanted to avoid an expensive trial and error process. It was also concerned about getting the best deal when procuring over 400 top-end devices – and needed a partner that has experience in dealing with Microsoft.
Radnor House’s IT Service Desk also needed help with software licensing. Working out the best licensing model to use and negotiating the best deal requires specialised knowledge. The IT department needed a partner that could handle this, as it was already at full capacity providing IT support for teachers and pupils.
Above all, the IT Service Desk sought a partner that could deal with any ongoing software or hardware issues it might have – such as returning a damaged item under guarantee – so that it can focus on delivering an excellent service to staff and pupils.
“Whenever we’ve had any kind of issue, Insight just sort it out. Whatever is going on behind the scenes, I don’t have to worry about it.”
Dan Melbourne, Head of IT service desk, Radnor School, Sevenoaks
To ensure the sussessful implementation of its remote learning program, Radnor House turned to Insight for support. Radnor House knew that Insight could offer extensive knowledge of Microsoft products and would deliver excellent service.
When Radnor House’s IT Service Desk needed to decide which devices would best fit the needs of its students, Insight was able to make recommendations, as it has experience of working with other schools on the same journey.
Insight gave Radnor House the option to test various devices before commiting to purchase. Radnor House’s IT support department eventually settled on the Microsoft Surface Pro due to its ability to run the most demanding software – including Adobe Creative Suite.
A favourable software licensing deal was negotiated with Microsoft, as Dan Melbourne, Head of IT service desk notes, “Purchase of a large number of licenses is very much an advised sale and Insight handled the deal on behalf of my team.”
Insight continues to support Radnor House with its ongoing digital transformation. When Radnor House’s IT support desk wanted to trial Microsoft Team viewer, Insight negotiated a licensing deal with Microsoft, and came back the next day with a quote and all the information needed to make it work.
Insight also supports Radnor House’s IT Service Desk with any issues around warranties. When an item needs to be returned, Insight deal with it without concerning the Service Desk.
Radnor House has a dedicated Insight account manager who acts as a single point of contact for any IT issues the school might have.
Thanks to its adoption of digital collaboration tools, Radnor House was able to move swiftly to a remote learning environment in reaction to the need for remote working and learning.
Teachers were able to adapt their lessons for the virtual environment, and test them in class ahead of the lockdown. As a result, they were able to seamlessly continue delivering the full curriculum to senior and prep school pupils.
Using Microsoft Teams, students attend group lessons, a weekly assembly and one-to-one sessions with teachers. The scheme has been widely praised by parents, and the school has seen a spike in requests for new placements.
“My husband and I are able to work from home, safe in the knowledge that our daughter was having a full day of lessons. Amazing stuff Radnor!”
Parent, Radnor House
Radnor School equipped all pupils, from sixth form down to years seven and eight, with one-to-one devices and access to Microsoft Teams, to facilitate remote learning.
Insight supported Radnor House throughout its digital transformation, assisting with decision making, procurement of devices, and management of software licensing.
Thanks to its forsight in implementing digital collaboration tools, Radnor House was able to seamlessly continue providing a full curriculum to senior school pupils during the Covid 19 UK lockdown. Both the staff and students have adapted to new collaborative way of learning, including guest appearances from parents to deliver content to the class.
