As part of PSD Group, Broadband4 has been delivering High Speed Broadband Services to the education sector. Whilst the growth of high speed broadband for schools has been exponential with more and more schools opting to leave their Local Education Authority (LEA) provision for a faster more reliable service, some schools do have their hands tied by their LEA because they host their MIS solution.
Many LEAs are either moving away from providing broadband services or they are simply unable to offer the high speed services which a modern school requires. In some areas schools are receiving between 10 and 50 Mbps in the primary sector and 100Mbps in the secondary sector. Broadband4 are frequently providing both primary and secondary schools with services between 300Mbps and 1Gbps and are seeing this available bandwidth being utilised. This thirst for bandwidth is being fuelled by the widespread use of online services such as Office 365 as well as the wealth of High Definition Video content delivery services.
With the need and want for more bandwidth schools are increasingly looking for alternative provision and many are finding that access to their MIS platform is a barrier to entry. Some Local Education Authorities block “off net” access entirely on technical or security grounds and some do allow “off net” access but with expensive multi-factor solutions or complicated login solutions making their use impractical for schools. This behaviour in turn makes it difficult for schools to seek service from an alternative provider.
Since the rise of the Multi Academy trusts, schools are given far more control over their choice of services and products, which includes MIS and Broadband. Broadband4, along with SchoolCare (also part of the PSD Group), have worked with schools to implement High Speed Broadband services for schools which offer significantly better value that LEA offerings whilst assisting schools with the migration of their MIS platform to cloud offerings such as Arbor.
Arbor Education widely regarded as “best of breed” in the cloud Management Information System (MIS) sector and their solution delivers a simple, smart cloud based MIS solution for Primary, Secondary and Special Schools. The Arbor solution was also designed from the outset for the Academy Trust Model allowing a top level view of all the key information for schools within the trust to be accessed at the trust level offering a complete overview.
Because solutions like Arbor exist and the migration paths are simple especially when working with organisations like Arbor and SchoolCare, MIS systems should no longer be considered a barrier to allowing your school to benefit from high speed broadband services.