Strategic IT Services for School Trusts
Helping School Trusts Achieve Their Strategic IT Goals
Our Value Proposition
Tailored Services
Gridserve tailor services based upon need, functionality, usability, cost and how the solution fits the school or Trust at a strategic level.
Value for Money
Gridserve offer value for money in a number of ways; through assistance with procurement, Bid Management, Hardware and Software provision as well as assessing your existing partners.
Simple, Seamless & Secure Solutions
Gridserve provide a range of essential services to meet your needs such as Microsoft Office 365, Data Back-up & Recovery, Managed Print, and Network Connectivity.
Bridging the Knowledge Gap
We focus on empowering our customers through IT Support, our Remote Help-desk, Onsite Engineering, Proactive Monitoring and ‘useful’ reporting.
'First' things first
The biggest disruption to a classroom, is a teacher unable to teach. We shape the setup of our services, the implementation of technology, and the delivery of IT support, with one key philosophy - Teach First.
The simplest way for IT to support educational outcomes is to ensure it is reliable, suitably implemented into the environment, and support is provided within an appropriate SLA that reflects the urgency to teaching.
Security, Protection, and Moderation
Security has never been such an important topic within education. Stories of entire Trusts having been compromised can send you into a spin. Where are your vulnerabilities? Do your schools have a security plan? What are the legal implications of a breach? Have you considered the 'Human Factor'?
A Trust-wide approach can reduce the complexity around security whilst improving your defense against attacks. We ensure that staff, students, and data is protected both from external attacks and internal misuse. Gridserve partner with industry leaders to ensure the very best protection is provided to help combat malicious attacks, phishing, and even bullying.
Manage Trust-wide IT Budgets to
Within the annual Trust-wide budget, IT is usually a high status item, quite often dominating spend after employment costs; IT is also frequently the culprit behind 'unexpected' spend.
Whilst IT is necessary for any School Trust, consolidating services, technologies, and suppliers can provide the basis of a very cost effective strategy in gaining insight and control over Trust-wide IT spend.
Communication & Collaboration
Breaking BarriersA Communication Strategy is crucial in achieving your goals. By investing in a common platform, you provide a secure and collaborative space, where cooperation becomes spontaneous, and schools no longer feel siloed.
A Trust-wide digital platform can enable Staff, Students, and Parents, to take a shared responsibility in improving the quality of education. A unified approach also helps to reduce replication and the burden of siloed Teaching & Learning systems.
Centralised IT Support to
Our ethos to ‘simplify where possible' is reflected in the way we approach the support of our education customers. Our UK-based Service Desk provides reliable and swift remote support to all staff members. Centrally, we monitoring infrastructure and Cloud Services, whilst performing remote maintenance to systems that do not require expensive onsite presence.
If the Service Desk is unable to provide the appropriate support, our dedicated onsite engineers will be dispatched to support the user.
Establishing Trust-wide standards in technology to improve
Providing a common set of tools to improve Communication, Teaching, and Reporting sits firmly at the heart of Gridserve's approach to IT. By minimising the variety of different technologies, you reduce the burden of training, adoption and utilisation, whilst similtaneously encouraging schools to work more collaboratively both internally and within the wider Trust.
Imagine creating an environment where your staff can move freely between schools, with seamless logins, Wi-Fi, and printing.
Don't just take our word for it....
“It is refreshing to work with a likeminded organisation that values people over profits and understands that the sole purpose of the partnership is to enable schools to provide the best education and life chances for our children.”
Andrya Norris - CFO & Trust Business Manager, The Pathway Academy Trust
"Throughout the build phase of our new site, Gridserve were in regular contact and were willing to meet face to face to have more of the major strategic discussions. What we found especially helpful was Gridserve acting as the liaison between the company who secured the capital IT budget and ourselves. This allowed us to ensure value for money and put in place a sensible timeline for the IT fit-out of the building, drawing on Gridserve’s experience."
Tom Cragg - Principal, Nishkam School West London
"Gridserve and all its employees are genuinely a joy to work with - everyone I have met that works for Gridserve is personable, wants the best deal for our school and is driven to make our IT the best it can be and support its school towards its overall vision. The relationships we have with all the people at Gridserve are exceptional, and everyone is always keen to break down any IT barriers for us."
Hannah Pope - Operations Director, Reach Academy Feltham
"Moving our IT service to Gridserve has made a huge difference to us as a Trust. Feedback from staff is positive and we now feel that we have a handle on IT across the Trust rather than a different provision in each school"
Ruth Doughty - CEO, The Pathway Academy Trust
"...it has always been reassuring to me that Gridserve has been able to provide a comprehensive service from strategical planning through to implementation and on to review in such a professional manner."
Damien Kearns - Nishkam High School Birmingham
“Gridserve has enabled me to plan and build the IT infrastructure and implemented appropriate technologies at the right time. We are now a full school with a complete IT solution from hardware, software, remote/onsite support as well as providing effective platforms to communicate."
Harmander Dhanjal - Headteacher, Nishkam Primary School Wolverhampton
"It is tantamount to the quality of the service we receive across our schools from Gridserve that I rarely hear about any issues in relation to IT across our Trust.
I know I can rely on Gridserve to address anything swiftly if I do and they are always on hand for advice and support. I know my Head Teachers feel the same way and during the chaos of the last two years when teachers had to adjust to the demands of remote learning, they were able to provide an excellent teaching offer with the support of the Gridserve Team."
Deborah Westwood - NST Director of Primary Education & Principal Nisham Primary School Birmingham
"All organisations rise or fall on the quality of their people. Gridserve is well led by people of integrity who share our 'virtues led' approach to leadership."
Damien Kearns - Nishkam High School Birmingham
"Gridserve have transformed the IT experience at Reach Academy. All Gridserve staff are incredibly helpful (and patient!) and genuinely care about providing good advice, and improving the user experience. We feel much more confident and empowered to make good decisions around IT once we've had a conversation with Gridserve staff!"
Ciaran Fitzgerald - Operations Manager, Reach Academy Feltham
"The support from Gridserve has been pivotal, I feel we are at a point where everything appears to be working effectively which stems from all the work that has gone on in the past to get us to this point but equally everything that goes on in the background which we may not necessarily see."
Harmander Dhanjal - Headteacher, Nishkam Primary School Wolverhampton