The brief
Astrum Multi-Academy Trust is a special needs education provider serving the London borough of Redbridge.
It urgently needed to upgrade its legacy IT infrastructure. Previously, a third-party IT provider had worked on-site, but this support was limited, unreliable and expensive. Ultimately, it was discontinued entirely.
The Trust needed a cost-conscious modernisation of its IT setup and on-site support to plug the gap left by the discontinuation of service.
The solution below was delivered in November 2024.
Project delivery
We proposed to roll out efficient, trouble-free and secure IT. We believed any initial cost of modernisation would lead to savings later, with less need for ad hoc support.
Our proposal included a 10% discount.
We recommended migrating all three different school systems to the same Microsoft 365 tenant to enhance collaboration, security, scalability and cost-efficiency. With the go-ahead, we created a tailor-made package that balanced budget restraints with security. This included discounts for the more security-focused A3 licensing.
Our multi-phase approach began with email. The school’s LFGL system, though free, was unreliable and insecure. This led to ad hoc IT costs and the threat of potentially costly breaches. We migrated to secure and reliable Microsoft 365 for Email and Teams.
The MS 365 migration included:
- Enabling tenant readiness
- Upgrading licensing
- Rolling out Conditional Access Policies
- Providing consultancy around Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, including use cases, pros and cons
- Configuring Defender for Office 365.
Our team was present across all school sites to ensure a smooth transition, helping staff quickly configure new systems.
Additionally, we provided further value with the following projects:
- Cost-conscious hardware procurement
- Cyber security needs assessment
- On-site specialist support during a last-minute Ofsted inspection
- Short-term flexible support
The benefits
Our deployment of modern, secure IT for the Trust, has provided value for money within allocated budgets.
- We suggested how the Trust could optimise licensing costs, leveraging Microsoft discounts for schools.
- Reduced hardware and infrastructure expenses from on-premises systems by moving to the cloud.
- MS 365 enabled the Trust to add new schools or scale resources without upfront investments.
While we continue to provide on-site support, the trouble-free and efficient IT set-up has led to ‘light touch’ and cost-friendly IT.
IT support is provided when required, but with modern and efficient infrastructure, it’s needed far less than before.
