Crossways Academy case study

The client

Crossways Academy is a purpose built, contemporary sixth form college in Lewisham, South London. Taking students from four separate feeder schools in the borough, the new scheme is a pioneer of the Government's 14-19 strategy to improve education in Britain and encourage more pupils to stay on at school after the age of sixteen.

Within its first year, Crossways exceeded its recruitment target of 550 students by 110 and the number of students staying on for post-16 education in north Lewisham increased by 55%.

The challenge

Crossways Academy was built to the highest contemporary construction standards and required an ICT function to match its twenty first century facilities.

In particular, the Academy required a partner with the ability to manage the entire project, including services provided by third parties, and ensure that the complete solution was fully operational prior to the opening date.

Redstone was selected as Crossways' chosen partner after demonstrating its ability to provide a converged network infrastructure and multiple services which could be easily expanded to meet the future needs of the Academy and its federated schools.

The solution

Redstone introduced the OneNET ICT network with a secure LAN as the hub and access to a variety of hosted applications on the London Grid for Learning.

In addition to a bespoke communications infrastructure providing a range of voice, data and Internet applications, Redstone installed its OneDesk solution to lock down desktops and prevent students or staff from changing the standard configuration of software on each machine. As a result, Crossways was able to reduce its risk of consuming IT resource to rectify problems caused by over-enthusiastic users and can allow greater flexibility for laptops to be taken home.

The entire network is protected with a PIX firewall and Cisco access control server and a Redstone representative remains on site at the Academy for a contracted number of days per year to provide system and end user support.

Redstone's solution for Crossways Academy included:

• IP telephony - allowing the transmission of voice and data across the same infrastructure with additional facilities for unifying messaging, auto attendant and call recording with voice recognition
• IPTV and video conferencing - allowing video and multimedia traffic to be transmitted across the network, with video conferencing and management capabilities for training, collaborative meetings and distance learning
• IP CCTV surveillance and access control - providing high levels of security and controlled access to Crossways' premises, with system administration and monitoring capabilities from any workstation within the Academy
• Wireless access - providing seamless coverage from any point throughout the Academy

The outcome

Redstone's recommendations allowed Crossways Academy to pioneer the most modern teaching techniques, prompting The Guardian to proclaim 'One day, all schools will be like this.'

Anthony Bravo, principal at Crossways Academy comments: “Redstone is unique in its proven ability to provide the education sector with the best ICT solutions to build a flexible learning infrastructure fit for 21st century teaching and learning. Because they supply ICT solutions to leading industry and commercial organisations as well as leading education establishments we get the best of both worlds. Their knowledge of intelligent buildings means that the ICT solution is integrated into the very fabric of the building and thus into the way we work."