SchoolTerm: A star pupil for Ravenscote - Research targets schools’ needs

Ravenscote’s innovative approach to learning is the result of its work with Redsixty, creators of SchoolTerm. Concerned that schools’ budgets meant they often had to make do with difficult disjointed ICT solutions, Redsixty developed a cohesive product to meet education’s diverse needs.

‘We know that schools want reliable up-to-date technology and applications to help them facilitate effective teaching and learning now and in the future,’ said Sheldon Witney, a Director at Redsixty Solutions. ‘We know that they want fully-licensed software. We know that they don’t want noisy systems which use a huge amount of power or systems that need a lot of upkeep and support. In other words, they expect the same standards as most companies and organisations. We couldn’t see any reason why schools shouldn’t have first class ICT, but it always seemed to be about cost and we know schools have limited ICT budgets.’

Redsixty director, Ian Ball, decided to develop a service to meet those needs. SchoolTerm is the result. Although similar technology is being used by a number of schools in Europe, SchoolTerm is the first hosted package of its type in the UK.

But although the cutting-edge software and state-of-the-art technology wouldn’t be out of place in a major corporate environment, they don’t come with a hefty price-tag. The service is based on a simple and innovative ‘per-user, per-month’ pricing model. As Ravenscote only pays for what it uses, its costs are reduced and its budget planning is more straightforward.

‘When Redsixty first told us about SchoolTerm, we liked the idea of using the ‘Thin Client’ approach to update our system,’ said Jennie Ratcliff. ‘We discussed it and the more we heard about it, the more we liked the idea. We could invest and meet our pupil entitlement for the number of PCs per pupil.’