SoftXpand Education

Oriel High School

Introduction to the MiniFrameUK SoftXpand deployment by Mark Woolner, Network Manager Oriel Specialist Mathematics and Computing College

The Team

Oriel Specialist Mathematics and Computing College is a forward thinking dynamic secondary learning establishment which benefits from a positive leadership team focused on delivering “Excellence in Learning” with an “Every Child Matters” attitude. It‘s a community minded establishment that stays active well into the evening (the site manager can often be seen locking up around 10 pm.)

The Challenge

When I first started back in November 2007, I saw the all too familiar 25 – 30 beige boxes, crammed into a room, with a mismatch of CRT monitors perched on-top of the PCs to allow just enough room for an almost complete QWERTY keyboard and ‘rugby balled’ ball mouse. With each station pumping out around 1KW of heat, the central heating was surplus to requirements.

The Attitude

Playing catch up

I first worked at the school for 2 days a week, which meant I was always playing catch-up with a lot of time spent investigating faults caused by students either “sticking things IN” ( pens, paper, sandwiches) or “taking things OUT” (network, monitor & power cables along with CD drive belts). The network would often be taken down because a student, unable to see through the spaghetti junction of wiring, had inadvertently caused a loop back by plugging a network cable into two network points!