For a large number of schools in the south west of England, the ability to offer remote learning has been assisted by the Hampshire-based technology company, Agile ICT.
Schools across the country re-opened their doors this week as the new academic year began. This comes after a statement from the Chief Medical Officers and Deputy Chief Medical Officers of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, which stated:
'We are confident that multiple sources of evidence show that a lack of schooling increases inequalities, reduces the life chances of children and can exacerbate physical and mental health issues. School improves health, learning, socialisation and opportunities throughout the life course including employment. It has not been possible to reduce societal inequalities through the provision of home-based education alone. School attendance is very important for children and young people.
We are confident in the extensive evidence that there is an exceptionally small risk of children of primary or secondary school age dying from COVID-19. The infection fatality rate (proportion of those who are infected who die) for those aged 5 to 14 is estimated at 14 per million, lower than for most seasonal flu infections. Every death of a child is a tragedy but COVID-19 deaths in children and teenagers are fortunately extremely rare and almost all deaths are in children with significant pre-existing health conditions.'
For most pupils, this week was the first time they had physically attended school since March, with the experience of remote schooling ranging wildly from school to school. While some schools kept up the full quota of lessons and homework via video-conferencing platforms and worksheets, others offered very little in this regard.
A stumbling block for many was the inefficiencies of their ICT systems but for nearly 40,000 students and teachers in the south west of England, this was one issue with which they did not have to contend.
Speaking at the beginning of the Covid lockdown period, Agile ICT’s managing director Richard G Jones was confident that the schools who used their ICT systems would be well placed to provide remote working. This is because of the remote working functionality that was already included in Agile ICT’s systems, something that must have come as a huge relief to headteachers.
Although it is perfectly normal for a computer system to be well defended against viruses, such viruses are usually of the digital rather than the biological variety.
But, as Jones explains, the logic of preparing for remote working was immediately apparent as soon as the lockdown was declared.
‘We already provided a full Remote Working capability so these measures were already in place for Agile ICT schools and we are seeing a major ramp up of users,’ Mr Jones explained, ‘this in turn can have hardware implications so we are managing this process for our schools too including physically attending site and installing the RAM for them.’
Despite this, the lockdown has had a big effect on Agile ICT’s day-to-day operations.
‘Our inhouse Installation Engineering function, where we fit the big physical things, has taken a hit but we are using the drop off in demand as an opportunity to cross train our Installation Engineers to perform basic tech support tasks and other functions.
‘We will definitely take a major hit by not getting any of the usual day to day sales and the school holiday installs of new networks, when we are usually fully booked, will be a write off.’
However, the fact that Agile ICT were able to support their schools during the lockdown process suggests that business may well pick up now that schools have reopened.
