Wi-Fi Networking for Schools
Welcome to Warwickshire County Council, ICT Development Service, School Wi-Fi Microsite
The purpose of our microsite is to share information on Wi-Fi to the schools within Warwickshire especially as the demand for Wi-Fi (or wireless) network access has been growing year on year, the need to enable pupils and staff members to access learning and teaching information is now a number one priority with schools.
Many schools have already embraced one-to-one computing initiatives, in which pupils use either their own or school-supplied iPad’s in the classroom. Therefore it is imperative that the Wi-Fi network is reliable, secure and provides a long term investment for the school.
This is why over 100 schools within Warwickshire have invested in the WCC-Khipu Networks Wi-Fi solution, as it has enabled them to meet their short and long term goals for mobile access for teaching and learning, both in and outside of the school buildings.
What do you get for your money, what are the benefits?
That is a very popular question, which we would like to answer. Your investment into our Wi-Fi solution will provide the school with a number key benefits including:
- Reliability and Interference Management: Enabling high speed Wi-Fi access in all classrooms, staff rooms and outside areas, automatically protecting the Wi-Fi environment from interference (especially within residential areas where there are lots of home Wi-Fi networks that can cause havoc with interference. This is one of the unique features of the solution).
- Security **VERY IMPORTANT**: Ensuring the Wi-Fi environment is secure and ensures that only allowed users and their iPad’s can connect and access the schools resources.
- Scaled Coverage: Having the flexibility to either invest in school-wide Wi-Fi or select areas as an initial phase.
- Web content filtered: As the Wi-Fi solution is part of WCC’s service, access to all websites is filtered and controlled.
- Staff access to WCC resources: Again, as the Wi-Fi solution is part of the WCC service offering, staff members can access council resources securely from the school.
- Bring Your Own Device (BYOD): Enabling staff or students to bring their own iPad’s into the school and access ‘securely’ the appropriate resources.
- Installed, Project Management and Support / Maintained: Only experienced, highly skilled and enhanced CRB checked engineers, who understand school environments, are involved both before and after the installation. If there is an issue or something unplanned occurs, we address this straight away ensuring minimal disruption.
- Long Term Investment: When investing into our Wi-Fi solution, it is a long term investment not a short term one. This can only be proved by the customers who have been using it, please speak to the schools for their feedback and experiences as we have a number of customers who have been using the Wi-Fi solution for more than 6 years and are very pleased with it.
Who is using the WCC-Khipu Wi-Fi Solution?
We have over 100 primary and secondary school customers, a large number of which have been using the Wi-Fi solution for over 5 years. The solution has also been installed into WCC’s corporate and library locations, for council as well as guest access.
Wembrook Primary School, Alcester High School, North Leamington School, Southam College, Stockingford Junior and Infant School, Telford Infant School, Dunnington Primary School, Shottery St Andrews Primary School, Alveston Primary School, Milby Primary School, Cubbington Primary School, Camp Hill Primary School, Glendale Primary School, Croft Junior School, Racemeadow Primary School, The Willows Primary School, Emscote Infant School, Trinity School, Budbrooke Primary School and Water Orton Primary School.
All are exceptional references, so please do contact them to see how the Wi-Fi solution has benefited their teaching and learning capabilities. The following video explains how the School is using iPad’s over Wi-Fi to provide a wide range of education services to both pupils and staff, enhancing their user experience.
Simon Edwards, ICT Development Service Manager, Warwickshire County Council
The implementation of Khipu’s Alcatel-lucent (Aruba Networks) solution in to Warwickshire schools has brought a stable and reliable solution for the classroom allowing teachers to focus on delivering lessons and not worry about the wireless technology
David Willcox, Head of Networks, Birkbeck University of London
The implementation of Khipu’s Pro-Active Support Service ‘KARMA’ was straightforward and it highlighted potential problems the first weekend in operation, preventing a potential service outage. We welcome anything which improves our monitoring and notification capability, and KARMA has proved its worth a number of times since, while releasing staff from day to day monitoring and housekeeping tasks.
What do I do now – request a Wi-Fi survey!
If you are exploring Wi-Fi at your school, please contact us for a Wi-Fi survey. The cost is £150, which is fully refunded should you go ahead with the Wi-Fi solution. The survey involves members of the ICT DS Team and Khipu visiting the school to determine the size of wireless network for the schools specific requirements. A report is then generated showing wireless coverage and all associated costs for the solution.
Background to the selected Wi-Fi solution “Khipu Networks”
Back in 2007, Warwickshire County Council ICT Development Service went to market to select a wireless solution which was manageable, robust, reliable, secure and most importantly affordable.
After carefully evaluating a number of different solutions, WCC selected Khipu Networks solution (based upon Alcatel-Lucent / Aruba technology) for a wide range of reasons including; its range of capabilities, flexibility, intelligence, security features as well as being a long term investment for the schools. The selected wireless solution outperformed other solutions in many aspects following extensive testing and, most importantly user experience feedback.
To prove that WCC made the right decision can be only confirmed by the school customers who are using the Wi-Fi solution. One example being Wembrook School, who were one of the first schools to choose the WCC-Khipu Wi-Fi solution in 2007. The project has been a great success, enabling them to provide an exceptional user experience for both its pupils and staff by using netbooks for teaching and learning, which could only be achieved over a reliable, secure and high performance Wi-Fi network. Their investment back in 2007, 7 years on, has proved that it is a long term one, unlike many other lower cost Wi-Fi solutions on the market place.