Planning for ICT in new and re-furbished buildings

Nina Woodcock, Senior Managing Consultant, Academies, Becta

Mark Peate, Principal Adviser ICT, Building Schools for the Future

BETT 08Wednesday, 9 January 2008

Becta’s vision

A world where technology and innovation enable learners to achieve their potential.

There are currently several capital building programmes providing us with unprecedented levels of investment to renew and refurbish school buildings:

• we must make the most of this opportunity and ensure that the use of ICT to transform learning is fully embedded.

Major Capital Building Programmes

Building Schools for the Future

Primary Capital Programme

Academies

One School Pathfinders

Whichever programme you are involved in you need to think about ICT at the earliest opportunity.

Developing the vision

• What is your overall vision/ethos for education?• What outcomes are you trying to achieve?• How can technology help you to achieve those outcomes?

These should be the starting points for your vision NOT specific technologies.

They need to be considered well before any detailed building designs are produced.

Learner

Organisational Design

BuildingDesign

ICT

Why do you need to consider ICT early?

We are transforming learning not just putting up buildings.

ICT has the potential to:•change the way we learn (and teach)•enable personalisation•allow learning to take place off-site and outside school hours

New ways of learning and teaching can have a profound effect on the design of spaces in the school and the way we use technology in those spaces.

Changing the design later can be very expensive.

Defining the vision: further questions to ask

How will ICT contribute towards:

• personalising learning• creating a flexible learning environment• supporting and developing staff• enabling secure and reliable communications• parental engagement• environmental sustainability.

What other drivers need to be considered?

• Every Child Matters• Inclusion • Curriculum developments• 14-19 entitlement• E-safety• Workforce reform• Extended schools• Community access.

Consulting the stakeholders

• Staff (teaching and non-teaching)• Parents• Students• Governors• Local authority• Sponsors• Local community and businesses• Other local schools and education providers.

Resources to support vision development

Becta self-review framework:• help schools review and develop their use of technology in

every area of learning, teaching and management• say all schools should make use of the self-review framework

(if possible) before they enter a building programme.

ICT Quality Indicators:• helps explore stakeholders’ expectations of how technology

will be used in new school buildings.

Exemplar practice e.g winners of ICT Excellence Awards

Additional support

Becta’s Capital Buildings Programme team can provide some direct support

For Building Schools for the Future, Partnerships for Schools have a team Education ICT Advisers

For many projects additional ICT consultancy may be required

•depending on existing resources/capacity of the local authority or sponsor

•this can be procured from Becta’s Consultancy Services Framework Agreement

Specifications

Detailed specifications of the system should be developed only once the vision is established.

Becta’s functional specifications should be the minimum standard for any implementation:

•for Building Schools for the Future these are embedded in the Buidling Schools for the Future ICT output specification.

Detailed technical specifications should only be developed after functional/output requirements have been specified:

•for some programmes (not Building Schools for the Future) these more detailed requirements are needed to run the procurement.

Procurement

• For Building Schools for the Future procurement of an area-wide managed service is usually via a Local Education Partnership (LEP).

• For other capital programmes the recommended option is to procure via Becta’s frameworks unless there are already other suitable (OJEU compliant) aggregated procurement arrangements in place.

Further information

• Capital building programmes

www.becta.org.uk/schools/capitalbuilding

• Self-review framework

www.becta.org.uk/schools/selfreview

• Procurement

www.becta.org.uk/schools/procurement

• Technical standards

www.becta.org.uk/schools/techstandards

Sandwell’s ICT Vision for Building Schools for the Future

Making ICT work for us• Building on our strengths

– Broadband Sandwell• Fibre optic broadband connection to all schools, Sandwell

College campus and voluntary sector sites.• Integrated with corporate network which connects all council

buildings and libraries.• 1 Gigabit backbone on 3 nodes

– The Smethwick Test Bed• 1600 PCs supplied to families.• 800 Homes provided with broadband.

– E-Learning Services• Winner of 2007 Becta ICT Excellence Award for Support for

Schools

The development of the vision and change management

• Original LA vision was developed with schools and other stakeholders.

• There was early engagement with major suppliers to gain a better understanding of the ‘art of the possible’.

• Schools encouraged to use Becta’s self-review framework.

• We worked with Microsoft supporting the development of their envisioning guide and Building Schools for the Future Showcase and utilised the draft guide and case studies with schools to assist them in developing individual school visions.

• A series of headteacher and LA officer seminars was led by Microsoft on their Envisioning and Business Value (Change Management) guides.

The development of the vision and change management

• The development of the detailed ICT output specification for our two sample campus sites was undertaken jointly with the 5 co-located schools’ senior staff, architects, building and FM technical advisors.

• Our 2020 Leadership programme for aspiring Headteachers is addressing Building Schools for the Future and transformation of schools.

• Our 2020 programme for newer teachers and aspiring curriculum leaders is addressing teaching and learning in ‘transformed’ schools.

• A major stakeholder event was held in November for all our BSF schools and their stakeholders (governors, teaching and non-teaching staff, parents, community, students, headteachers).

What’s the big idea?

• A laptop/PC device for every student• A Learning Platform at the heart of the

Sandwell ICT provision• Smart buildings, smart services• ICT infrastructure enabling the design

and provision of flexible and adaptable physical spaces

Effective Learner Management• ICT supporting both teacher and pupil led

approaches to personalised learning.• Providing personalised learning pathways

to vocational and/or academic achievement.

• Supporting & enabling inter-agency collaboration & the ‘connected citizen’ agenda

Redefining what a school is -

• A virtual as well as a physical place

• A place where social interaction & learning takes place

• At any time and anywhere

Our aspiration for the new schools

• They should be inspiring places in terms of design and functionality, physically and virtually.

• They will be places that students will want to go to and spend time in.

• They should be the hub of student life.• They should be a welcoming place for the

wider community to come to and use.