Last week, the Department for Education published a set of four standards intended to guide schools and colleges to use the right digital infrastructure and technology.
The standards cover broadband, network switching, network cabling and wireless.
The untrained eye would be forgiven for looking past these somewhat “techy” standards, but they are actually really significant for just about anybody working in or around our schools.
They are significant because this is the DfE’s first foray into setting out a clear and simple view of what “good” looks like when it comes to technology, and expectations have been set that more standards will come in due course, such as one around cybersecurity.
As they build up, the standards will give schools and providers to schools a common bar to work to or, indeed, beyond.
A good foundation
This should be particularly helpful to those schools and colleges (and perhaps smaller trusts) that don’t necessarily have access to a great depth of technology expertise and often find it difficult to establish where and to what extent they need to invest.
These particular standards are also significant in their own right because they represent the foundations of technology infrastructure that are (somewhat ironically) often underinvested in because of their mythical nature to those without the benefit of technology expertise.
For example, reviewing yourself against these standards will help to identify any weaknesses in your infrastructure that might be holding you back when it comes to critical teaching and learning activities.
A common example that I see is that a school upgrades its broadband but in the process makes its wireless infrastructure a bottleneck by not having sufficient access points, stopping pupils and staff from getting the most out of that upgrade and accessing things like cloud-based tools or HD video.
As the saying goes, you can’t build a house on sand, and in this case you can’t do great things with technology until you get your foundations right. The hope is that, with these standards, schools can be better placed to ensure they upgrade elements of their infrastructure to meet their needs.
The push for better broadband
However, one of the challenges facing schools is that not every element of each standard is within a school’s control.
Most notably broadband, whereby schools, particularly rural ones, are often at the whim of telecommunications providers’ ability to deliver appropriate connectivity.
That’s why it was brilliant to see that in parallel to the standards, the DfE also announced that every school in England will have access to high-speed internet by 2025, as part of the latest plans to roll out lightning-fast gigabit broadband across the UK.
The other notable thing about the release of the standards was that they came just as the Bett trade show was opening its doors.
This was good timing by the DfE and I encountered many people enjoying their overdue catch-ups with colleagues and chewing the standards over in the process.
In fact, I had the privilege of being invited to join leaders from other trusts and the DfE on a panel on Thursday afternoon to reflect on what the standards mean for us personally.
Due to the expertise that Academies Enterprise Trust schools and other large trusts benefit from, we’re fortunate to be in a position of already having our own standards that at least meet or exceed those released.
Getting the best from tech
It’s not surprising, then, that the discussion of the panel quickly turned to the work that sits on top of these standards - in particular, the CPD and support available to schools to make the most of technology.
Here at AET, we are incredibly excited to be introducing a brand new Technology Support Officer role. Based in our schools, the postholder will have the remit of helping staff to really capitalise on the investments in technology we’ve made over the past few years.
We believe that raising the bar with support to schools in the use of tech will truly help teachers to save time, pupils to increase agency, parents to engage and schools as a whole to innovate.
It will be fascinating to see if this is another area that the DfE looks to publish standards on in due course, to help schools understand what they should need staff to do when it comes to technology delivery.
For now, though, the sector should welcome the DfE starting the journey towards setting and supporting an appropriate bar for technology across our education system by focusing on the foundations.
James Browning is chief digital and information officer for Academies Enterprise Trust
