Copleston High School

Copleston High School in  Ipswich is an oversubscribed, mixed comprehensive school for students aged 11 to 18. It has 1803 students, 371 of whom study within the Copleston and Holywell Sixth Form. The Sixth form also acts as the post-16 centre for a neighbouring secondary school. The school achieved specialist Sports College
status in September 2001.

The challenge for Copleston came in the wake of disaster. Two days before the start of the school year 2006, a fire started directly above the communications room, destroying most of the IT equipment and a major part of the infrastructure.

Keith Morton, ICT Manager at Copleston High, recalls the time vividly, "It was pretty scary. All our telecoms and data networks were completely taken out as the seat of the fire was above our main comms room, so in addition to fire damage, there was a lot of water damage too. Our immediate challenge was to establish some communications before the academic year commenced".

The challenge was to rapidly establish communications and to plan a state-of-the-art network to meet the current and future needs of this progressive school.

Excell arrived on site within hours of the schools request for support. Keith recalled, "Excell were fantastic. They responded immediately, I was expecting to wait a couple of days, but to have guys on site the same day was a real lifesaver".

Phase one was to establish voice communications within the school. VoIP, using the surviving data network, together with a new fibre backbone was the only option, given the urgency of the situation.

Phase two is in progress now, consisting of the installation of a new communications network to meet the current and future needs of the school. The new infrastructure will include over 400 Cat 5e cables together with a fibre backbone linking 15 data cabinets. The core of the new system recommended by Excell is the Avaya Office IP switch. Avaya IP Office is a highly modular system providing a high level of scalability, allowing  the system to grow economically as required.

Communications were rapidly reestablished. The use of VoIP technology allowed voice communication to be reestablished across the school within days, utilising the surviving elements of the data network and digital phones meaning the school was able to open for the new term.

Rebuilding work at Copleston High School continues. Currently the ICT team at the school are fully involved in the implementation of the new voice and data system. Keith is emphatic that however ICT at Copleston High develops in future, it will involve Excell. "They have given me impartial advice throughout this project; they offered me a range of solutions and then advised me on the best way to exploit them. Their enthusiasm, expertise and support have been phenomenal. I believe that Excell are probably one of the best service providers I have dealt with in over 30 years".

For more information about the services and solutions Excell can provide for Education establishments, visit our dedicated Education section. 

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