Every school has a map, and it will have all the school’s important places on it. Like the hall and the library, the head’s office and the staffroom, all those places that take up space proportionate to their own sense of self-importance. If you were to characterise these spaces, the library would most likely consider itself the seat of all learning, the heart of literacy and the repository for imagination. The staffroom would claim to be the collective soul of the school, where passions and tempers run unabashed and unabated. The school hall, achingly vacuous, might lack the intellect of its neighbours but it has the capacity to curl its hair, varnish its nails and put on a bit of a show, make it the glamour girl of the corridors, available for hire and keen to please.

Further along, you’ll find the battle between the toilets and the canteen. Both vying for the position of the most essential service area. Characterised by wearing a tabard, hairnet and mop-and-bucket handbag, these two will bicker about the best brand of anti-bac spray until it’s time for a fag break. Yet further still, the brooding hulk of the sports centre looms menacingly, daring the bravest challenger to take it on, while the admin office click-clacks its high heels and tailored suit into prominence as the model of efficiency and fragrant organisational charm. It knows its future is secure, as it guards the entrances to both the Vatican of the headteacher’s office and, more importantly, the teabags.

But as you meet these larger-than-life characters, you might be fooled into thinking that size matters, that square meterage buys you rank in the powerhouse of the school map politics. But take a closer look. Down a dark corridor, most likely next to a cleaning cupboard, you’ll see a door with no nameplate, an unassuming door you may never have noticed before. It’s on the map, but it’s so small you’d need a magnifying glass to see it: it’ll probably be labelled SR. It’s the Server Room.

What is this place?

Few have ever ventured inside this Tardis-like cave. It’s opened with a key that even the site manager doesn’t have, but within this air-conditioned broom cupboard lies the beating heart of the school. Stored tightly, on racks and racks of pulsating, flickering, whirring, humming boxes, sits every single piece of information your school owns. Everything. Every single assessment grade for every student. Every phone number, every lesson plan, every piece of confidential HR information, behaviour incident, policy, SLT minute, school improvement plan, the whole absolute lot.

And before you shout, “Aha, we’re cloud-based” at me, the server also hosts your internet connection, your user profiles and all of your passwords to everything. It’s also got a copy of every email you’ve ever sent, yes, even those. Yes, even the ones you deleted as soon as you sent them. And depending on how techy your school is, it might also have the last month’s CCTV footage of you as you go about your day, and possibly a record of every phone call you’ve made in the last five years and everything you’ve had for lunch in the school canteen. Mind-blowing, isn’t it?

So, given the immensity of the trove this room enshrines, you’d naturally want its guardians to be sabre-wielding bastions of herculean proportions, yes? These immortals are surely revered and honoured among mere human folk, and ways part as they walk by, rose petals sprinkled afore them. No? What do you mean, no? Then, frankly, you’re doing life wrong.

Be nice

Those mild-mannered Hong-Kong Phooey types that live in the network office might appear to be lowly support staff, worthy of a nod in the corridor or a muttered thanks as they replace your printer cartridge, but really they’re superheroes, saving your butt every second of every day, operating under an unspoken code of allegiance and trust way beyond that of any secret society. They know all, they say nothing. It’s not written down anywhere, but the geek code is powerful magic. Lurking behind those slightly dubious Pacman T-shirts are beating hearts of honour, a fixed and north-pointing moral compass. 

So when you next see one of your network team go by, think about that email you wrote in anger about the head, or those secret notes you typed about your line manager, and ask yourself again how much you value your network team?

And next time you’re in the biscuit aisle of your local supermarket, why not pop an extra packet of Penguins in your basket as a thank-you-in-the-bank to the IT guys. You never know when you might need them to save your skin.

Hilary Goldsmith is director of finance and operations at Varndean School. She tweets at @sbm365.

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