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Case Study

Winchester College

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Winchester College is a leading UK independent boarding school for 13-18 year-olds. Founded in 1382, it’s home to some 700 pupils, employs more than 600 staff, and prides itself on providing an unrivalled combination of intellect, culture and pastoral care.

“Centrality created confidence from the beginning of our engagement, with their open-minded, consultative approach and relevant experience. They made it clear early on that the people were as important as the technology.

Steven Little, IT Director
At the start of the engagement, the College’s IT infrastructure was no longer capable of supporting these high standards, as part of a 21st Century educational institution. Teachers and pupils alike felt that technology facilities were growing ‘long in the tooth’ and in short, its IT was lagging behind an increasingly digitised world. Swift and extensive modernisation was required.

Centrality was introduced to Winchester College via a referral from a previous customer. It was immediately well received, due to the reassurance of its industry-relevant experience and more importantly, its approach to projects of this nature.

Centrality put Winchester’s needs first, and focused on delivering a customised solution to meet them – as opposed to simply trying to sell products. On this basis, the College chose Centrality to carry out its IT transformation

Identifying the issues

First, Centrality completed an existing user assessment, to discover current pain points and understand what the people closest to the technology themselves wanted.

Once unearthed, it was able to offer expert advice on appropriate options on the market, and how to best deploy them. Critical challenges were seen as:

• A lack of wifi
• PCs in need of modernisation and security updates
• Complex IT network, with some two hundred hubs/switches
• Not enough machines to meet pupil demand
• Inadequate IT governance

“Most impressive for us, has been Centrality’s ability to keep an eye on the end goal throughout the process. Their focus on delivering our original objective of improving the learning experience for our pupils has been reassuring.”

Before addressing the infrastructure itself, Centrality proposed a new itinerary for IT governance. It explained that because a large-scale IT change was going to happen, with implications for every one of the college’s teachers, pupils and staff, then this must be clearly communicated to a wide group to ensure adequate preparation.

The existing 30-minute weekly meetings were replaced with monthly two-hour ones, and membership was expanded to create a more robust forum for decision-making.

Establishing IT insights

Armed with these insights, Centrality set out to realise four objectives:
1. Modernise IT
The existing system was not trusted by those using it. Crucially, and unlike in the workplace, you can’t make up lost time in school classrooms. If IT doesn’t perform, that lesson is lost and everyone involved is left feeling frustrated. This had to change.
2. Make wifi widely available
There was no wifi, meaning that pupils had to access educational tools and resources by plugging in devices and using network cables to access the internet.

This meant that many ended up using their 4G smartphones to access these resources and apps wirelessly - giving teachers no visibility of what content they were looking at, or when. This clearly had security implications, jeopardising their role as parental guardians.
3. Enable flexible teaching
By creating the infrastructure for a fully immersive, mobile technology experience, teachers are able to provide a higher quality educational experience in turn - both inside and outside the classroom.
4. Allow worldwide information access
By enabling pupils to access relevant data wherever they are - in overseas locations or during holidays - teachers can offer ongoing resources and support, communicate freely and be confident that everyone has the materials they need to complete assignments

Opening the door to an enhanced education

Centrality delivered this major overhaul in two main phases. First, it installed full wifi access throughout Winchester’s boarding houses, delivered over an advanced physical network and numerous, conveniently-situated access points. Security and usability was improved thanks to a comprehensive roll-out of Windows 10 across all school PCs. In addition, all pupils and staff were migrated to Office 365 maximising the potential of this new IT capability.

Now, pupils could work, using their own devices, in their own study areas - without queuing for shared PCs and sharing resources. This was nothing short of a revolutionary development for the College, from an IT education perspective.

The second phase is still ongoing at the time of writing. It involves completing further wifi deployment and modernisation of the College’s core server infrastructure with a move to Microsoft Azure. Ultimately, this will provide the foundation for a fundamental shift in teaching capabilities. This comprehensive campus mobility is being trialled using Microsoft Surface Pro and wireless technology.

The College is satisfied that everything is on target, meeting objectives, and delivering the value it set out to achieve. From September 2018, all fixed PCs will be permanently removed and boys will use a Microsoft Surface Pro when they join the school

“Centrality is an extension of our team, jointly we’ve revamped our IT infrastructure and digitally transformed the college. We trust them as experts to leverage the right solutions, allowing us to focus our own time on creating the finest end user experience.”

Outstanding ROI - and experiences

Winchester College has achieved - and continues to achieve - this IT revitalisation for an investment of less than £1m, which is significantly less than its an original suggested investment proposed by an alternative supplier.

In fact, a full digital transformation is being delivered for less than the cost of the original proposed wifi implementation.

Both pupils and parents are delighted with the response to the digital challenge, and Winchester is now well-placed to compete with the best educational institutions in virtual learning for 13-18 year-olds. As the Headmaster himself puts it:

“We used to educate the literati. Now we educate the digerati.”

Centrality’s technical expertise, consultative approach and ongoing support has proved invaluable for all at the College. Seen as an extension of Winchester’s own IT team, Centrality provides off-site helpdesk support which can be called upon when needed.

Because IT is now managed as a service, and bought according to demand, users enjoy an up-to-date, reliable and integrated experience which also reduces the burden on IT support staff so they can focus on providing users with improvements rather than being tied up with cumbersome maintenance and equipment issues.

Teaching is now more innovative, forward thinking and fluid, and teachers can use their initiative to create truly outstanding classroom experiences that benefit the entire school community.
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