Malmesbury C of E Primary School - Dedicated ICT Access for SEN Pupils Becomes a Reality

Malmesbury Primary School caters for around 400 pupils aged 4 - 11 years, in a modern, eco-friendly building, with a specialist Learning Centre for pupils with a broad spectrum of special educational needs.

When the school managed to secure a grant for providing ICT to SEN pupils desktop virtualisation was an obvious solution, as it is low cost and environmentally friendly. Instead of installing only one or two PCs, Malmesbury could afford to provide a complete suite of twelve workstations for the Learning Centre - giving SEN pupils dedicated access to ICT.

Solution: To implement NComputing X550s, creating 12 workstations in the new SEN ICT suite.

Results: The low capital cost has enabled an entire ICT suite to be created using an SEN grant. The ongoing reduction in power used by the virtual desktop suites will save 90% of the running costs of the suite. Renewal costs are a fraction of the cost of replacing PCs, and are likely to last twice as long - a massive saving on capital expenditure costs.

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Malmesbury Primary School caters for around 400 pupils aged 4 to 11 years, in a modern, eco-friendly building, with a specialist Learning Centre for pupils with a broad spectrum of special educational needs.

The school has an excellent reputation for providing a supportive and attractive learning environment for pupils of every ability, and has also achieved the Eco-Schools Bronze Award for its efforts to provide education in an environmentally friendly way. So when they managed to secure a grant for providing ICT to SEN pupils desktop virtualisation was an obvious solution, as it is low cost and environmentally friendly. Instead of installing only one or two PCs, Malmesbury could afford to provide a complete suite of 12 workstations for the Learning Centre - giving SEN pupils dedicated access to ICT.

"Providing the best learning solution to all our pupils is extremely important to us. ICT is essential for our SEN pupils as it gives them access to interactive learning tools they simply wouldn't otherwise have. When we secured a funding grant for ICT equipment for our new SEN Learning Centre, we researched the options and realised that we could provide an entire suite of 12 workstations for the same price as we could buy perhaps 2 PCs", said Cathy Conway, Head of the Specialist Learning Centre, "This means more pupils can have access to ICT, and enables us to tailor the lesson to each child, whatever their individual need".

Cathy went on to say "Not only was it extremely low cost to install, but the runnning costs are also very low. We have one Very PC single host with 2 X550 cards serving 11 workstations in the classroom, so the environmental impact and financial cost of running the entire suite is about the same as running just one PC".

Cathy added, "We have been very pleased with the system, and the technical support given by KL Ltd has been great".

Increasing ICT at a fraction of the cost of PCs

"What originally attracted us to desktop virtualisation was the capital cost savings of the initial purchase", says Cathy, "but a real bonus is that replacement costs are massively reduced as the access device is so much more durable than a PC and so needs replacing less frequently. The running costs are a fraction of running a suite of PCs - the access device itself uses virtually nothing, so you have the cost of running one host PC, instead of 12".

"We have limited space in the Learning Centre, so having the access devices instead of CPUs on the desk has freed up so much space, and there's less for pupils to 'fiddle' with."

Another benefit Cathy has found is the reduction in time to manage the IT in the classroom. "It's so much easier than a traditional suite of PCs or laptops," she says, "I can turn the whole suite on and off at the touch of a button, instead of going from one computer to the next. This saves me so much teaching time, giving me more time to concentrate on the children".

The desktop virtualisation solutions are quieter and produce virtually no heat, making the environment for students and teachers so much more comfortable. Also, because the units are so small and can be easily hidden and secured, the likelihood of theft or vandalism - with all its resultant headaches - is massively reduced.

Desktop virtualisation works because today's PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of applications only use a small fraction of the computer's capacity. The 'virtualisation' hardware and software taps into this unused capacity so that it can be simultaneously shared by multiple students. Each student's monitor, keyboard and mouse connect to the shared PC through a small and very durable access device.

The access device itself has no CPU, memory or moving parts - so it's rugged, reliable and easy to deploy and maintain - and if the worst should happen, it's a fraction of the cost of a new PC to replace.

By spreading out the cost of the shared computer schools and colleges can provide up to five times the number of workstations for the same money.

And the Future?

"We are really happy with the desktop virtualisation system - it makes giving pupils greater access to ICT a reality. It should be something every school considers implementing as part of its ICT delivery strategy", says Cathy.