“I think of Holker as superheroes in capes, stood in the wings looking for danger and ready to swoop in and help,” says Rachel Marsland.
Rachel, Business Manager at Denton Community College, said the proactive company understand the pressures that schools are under.
“I’ve got so many plates spinning so knowing that I don’t need to check up on them or worry about the IT means that it’s one plate I need to spin. It has taken so much pressure off me when trying to manage the school’s business affairs.”
Previously the school had a lot of automatically generated systems which were out of sync, old equipment, and lacked any real investment plan for IT in the future.
Rachel said: “One of the first things that Holker did was a full inventory of equipment and an audit of licences, software and hardware. We had about six years of old stock that they disposed of correctly and new equipment we didn’t even know we had. They installed an on-site ticketing system which has worked really well.
“Whenever they carry out any work, they make sure it looks really smart. The cables are neat, and they consider that its children using the equipment rather than adults.
“Before Holker, we didn’t have the same level of support, or the understanding of what we needed because we’re not the IT specialists.
“Having dedicated IT specialists look after your network allows us to do what we’re here to do – which is to educate and to operate a school.”
As part of the service level agreement with Holker, Denton Community College have onsite support services with Holker engineers.
Rachel said Holker take a holistic approach, considering the users and the requirements from each piece of kit.
“We have recently some refurbished some rooms and Holker took the time to figure out what we needed by talking to the teachers and seeing how the children are using the technology. They haven’t just come to me expecting me to give them a specification. It is an approach that I really admire and I know they want to find the best possible solution for our budget.”
“In a school every penny matters. We were running equipment operating systems that were out-of-date, doesn’t support software, and on slow computers. It just couldn’t cope.
“Now, we have now moved forward with our investment in educational technology like new laptops in trolley’s, invested in IT suites, music suites, we’ve done digital signage, and new staff equipment. We have also installed a cloud solution which we are looking at extending.
“We don’t have open ended funds and we need to make sure that the resources that we give it back soon are going to be sustainable and provide students with the best education we can.
“I would absolutely recommend Holker. I think it was the best decision that I have made since coming into school.”
