Free curriculum server for schools to keep staff safe and ease impact of Coronavirus

Schools struggling with staff working from home during the Coronavirus pandemic, while their IT systems remain on site, are being offered a free lifeline from a Wiltshire IT company.

Currently, head teachers and business managers are putting themselves at risk from catching Coronavirus by having to work on site where their servers and data are based. The alternative of working from home is hampered or made impossible by slow broadband speeds or an inability to connect remotely.

CloudHappi, which has offices in Pewsey and London and specialises in IT solutions for the education sector, is offering to migrate key applications and data to a secure, superfast Cloud-based solution. It has teamed up with Access - one of the largest suppliers of educational finance and HR software in the UK, which supports more than 8,000 schools – to launch the free Curriculum Server Service. This allows head teachers and business managers speedy and remote access to their School Information Management System (SIMS) and finance information systems, and removes the need to go into school and put their health at risk.

The free migration process is simple, speedy and straightforward, with almost no downtime. At the end of the summer, ready for the new academic year, CloudHappi will simply reverse the process and return all the applications and data to the individual schools’ servers, free of charge.

“In these difficult and unprecedented times, the challenge schools face is finishing the academic year with their management information and finance systems up to date and ready for the new school year,” said Nigel Jones, Pewsey-based Managing Director of CloudHappi.

“The issue is the majority of schools’ servers are on site, while staff are working at home during lockdown. They are finding it difficult to connect to their servers remotely and the slow broadband speeds are making it hard or impossible to use their SIMS and finance systems.”

While under CloudHappi’s guardianship, all the data is stored in the secure London Docklands Telehouse data centre, which is trusted and used by some of the UK’s leading brands and Access’s Cloud. It is all backed up to an equally impressive and secure data centre, 26 miles away. Unlike other solutions, the data and applications never leave the UK.

The free Curriculum Server Service is available until the 31st August, at which point the data will be swiftly returned to the schools’ servers unless schools wish to retain a partnership with CloudHappi and Access. Already, schools across the UK are taking advantage of this service.

Nigel added: “Schools using this service are seeing speed improvements of 35-40%, without having to change the computer they use or their hardworking broadband service. There is little or no downtime during the migration process, and the service is completely free up to the end of August.

We will then migrate data and applications back again to the schools’ individual servers unless they decide to remain with CloudHappi as a preferred supplier.”

The free CloudHappi Curriculum Rescue Service applies to Schools’ SIMS and financial management systems, and does not apply to any of the teaching data held. For more information email [email protected], call 0845 834 0300 or visit cloudhappi.com.