Brief description of the business and what services you offer to schools
Boudica Schools Trust is a combined secondary, specialist and primary Multi Academy Trust consisting of ten schools centred around a 20-mile radius of Norwich.
This highly successful trust contains 5 primaries, 2 infant schools, 2 secondary and an all through special School. East Ruston Area Infant School and Eaton Hall Specialist Academy have been rated Outstanding by Ofsted, with six of the other schools in the Trust being graded Good.
The trust is constantly improving its offering to both parents and students and is currently undergoing multiple expansion projects across a number of schools both new to the trust and existing, meaning its safeguarding infrastructure is now more important than ever.
Jonathan Lumb, the IT Manager for the Trust, is an integral part of the team responsible for the implementation and management of a variety of safeguarding software across the schools, including cloud-based Securly.
Below we find out from Jonathan what it was about Securly that stood out against other suppliers and why they felt it was the best solution to streamline their needs as a successful and growing trust.
Whilst looking for a new safeguarding solution, what were the core hurdles you faced with either your current solution or general setup?
Our previous solution did not offer us insight into what our students were doing and therefore limited our ability to paint a picture of individual student online activity. We wanted to be able to offer a service to our schools that met their needs but also streamlined our approach as a Trust. We put a lot of work into overhauling our internal infrastructure, which meant completely removing on-premise filtering and moving towards a cloud-hosted solution. We were also keen that we moved away from the traditional approach of IT being responsible for student activity and putting the control back into the school's hands.
Compared to other solutions you looked at, what was it about Securly that made it seem a good fit?
It enabled us to move away from on-premise filtering "boxes" to a cloud solution. This aided us as a geographically dispersed MAT as we can offer support for filtering remotely. Ultimately, we wanted a cloud-and-user-based filtering system which Securly delivered. In terms of price, I think the product is very competitive, even with other providers moving towards similar solutions.
How did you find the onboarding process?
Onboarding was very simple. From start to finish to onboard all of our eight schools (at the time), it was a matter of weeks. We were able to get the solution rolled out and staff trained within three months of signing off the order. Staff in our schools have been pleased with the results and have benefitted from the more granular filtering.
How did Securly surpass your expectations?
Fast, flexible, reliable and dedicated support. If there are issues, we get responses very quickly from the support team in a matter of hours and sometimes minutes. I have been pleased with Securly's constant drive to improve the product and offer new products to suit our needs. I would definitely recommend it and I have recommended it to peers in the sector.
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