Background
The Manchester Grammar School, a leading independent school, leverages technology to deliver an exceptional learning experience. To achieve this, each of its staff and students require a high-quality personal device.
To avoid the risk of increasing failure rates, and also ensure devices stay current, the school upgrades devices every three years, relying on a technology partner to ensure a seamless rollout.
Challenge
The biggest challenge faced by the school’s IT team was ensuring that the rollout of new devices did not impact students’ learning experience. With approximately 1,600 students issued with devices, previous hardware upgrade sand configuration took over four weeks to complete. This resulted in some age groups being without devices at the start of the school year.
With laptops an essential component of a student’s learning experience, the school’s IT team also needed to ensure lost or broken devices were replaced quickly. It required a partner that could effectively manage stock to ensure lost, faulty or broken devices were replaced quickly and efficiently.
“The entire process with the Insight team was faultless. We were kept informed at all times and key milestones in the project were met without issue. We maintained a constant flow of communication and knew exactly when we could expect the deliveries. The result was an accelerated rollout of the new devices with minimal disruption to teachers and pupils. Furthermore we have successfully established a streamlined process for device maintenance and replacement for the coming years”
Richard Wilcock, Strategic Director of IT at The Manchester Grammar School
“Technology plays a crucial role for teachers and pupils who rely on their devices for teaching and for learning, therefore a quick and efficient rollout was critical in ensuring a prompt start to the academic year. Insight delivery of services allowed us to do this with ease.”
Daniel Lacey, Deputy Head (Teaching and Learning) at The Manchester Grammar School
Solution and Outcome
Insight’s team of specialists advised The Manchester Grammar School on a range of hardware options, resulting in more than 1,600 Microsoft Surface tablets with detachable keyboards, ruggedised cases, and stylus pens being purchased. Before being dispatched, each device was configured and installed with relevant software. This ensured that devices arrived ready to be issued to students and teachers, with minimal disruption to teaching and learning.
This approach led to a notable decrease in device rollout time. The IT team efficiently distributed all 1,600 laptops to students in just two days, a process that previously took up to four weeks due to the need for individual device confiiguration. This not only saved the IT team approximately 104 hours of resources, which can be equated to £10,000 in cost savings, but also minimised disruption to lesson time, enabling students to collect and start using their devices at the beginning of the school year.
Insight partnered with CHG-MERIDIAN to improve the school’s device lifecycle management. Previously, guardians had to manage insurance and damages themselves. Now, CHG-MERIDIAN’s Protection Scheme offers a one-stop-shop portal, saving time for the school and guardians. Additionally, students have access to temporary devices, minimising disruptions to learning. The leasing program also enables carbon offsetting and residual value investments for cost savings and a structured rollout.
Why Insight?
Over the last few years, The Manchester Grammar School has maintained a strong working relationship with Insight, leveraging the organisation’s expertise across a variety of different projects.
From licensing queries to questions around core infrastructure as a leading Solutions Integrator, Insight, has been able to provide the school with guidance from the relevant experts and appropriate solutions to manage any request that comes their way. Throughout the project, Insight provided the school with the appropriate knowledge and insights to understand what devices would be most beneficial to the students’ learning.
