NTL: Telewest Business
Big Case Studies
Hertfordshire County Council learns to get connected
Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) is the third biggest local authority in the UK, and was determined to make its schools some of the most Internet proficient and progressive in the country. Department for Education and Skills (DfES) guidelines suggested that primary schools should have 2Mb bandwidth and secondary schools 8Mb by August 2006, but HCC had been planning its own ICT initiative prior to this.
The scheme was called the Hertfordshire Grid for Learning and pre-dated the Government’s own plans in this area. It sought to interconnect schools, children’s residential homes and wider communities using high-speed links so that these groups can benefit from richer and more efficient learning programmes and content.
HCC initially turned to ntl:Telewest Business to increase the bandwidth across its Wide Area Network (WAN). Now, all 560 schools in the region are linked, around 20,000 PCs across the county are connected using high-speed links, including some PCs located at residential children’s homes.
The connection has made a real difference to schools in the area. St Luke’s and Watling View schools specialising in teaching students with learning difficulties are utilising their new broadband connections to enable video conferencing between different schools, teachers and pupils. This project has provided real benefits for the confidence of pupils who find direct face-to-face communication difficult.
Chris Seviour, ICT Technical Advisor for Hertfordshire County Council said: “ntl:Telewest Business has provided an excellent platform for all our young people to increase their educational achievements. Video conferencing in particular has enhanced the learning process for a number of our schools and that is all thanks to broadband and associated technologies.”
