Kent Community Network – Response to DfES Guidance
DfES guidance (below in italics.) Kent response (standard text).
Please note that some Kent responses apply to more than one DfES requirement.
To connect all Kent schools to a broadband national educational network with appropriate educational and administrative resources to ensure:
2. The target announced by the Prime Minister in November 2002 is for all schools to have a broadband connection by 2006 at bandwidths appropriate to their particular circumstances and needs. Typically, our expectation is that primary (including primary special) schools should be connected at a minimum of 2 Mbps and secondary (including secondary special) schools at a minimum of 8 Mbps by 2006. All connections should be “symmetric”, i.e. the same speed in either direction. These connections should be supplied through an LEA or a Regional Broadband Consortium (see paragraph 4 below).
2) Connectivity targets
Kent targets for connectivity are 2 Mbps symmetric for primary schools and 10 Mbps symmetric (with options up to 100 Mbps) for secondary schools. These targets are to be achieved by 2006, with minor variations agreed where educational requirements dictate. The poor telecommunications infrastructure in Kent means that achieving the targets by 2006 will be a major challenge. A wide range of strategies is being developed, including additional Kent funding, which is discussed later. Broadband connectivity is procured via the South East Grid for Learning framework contracts negotiated under European Union rules and available from April 2004.
| Aug 2003 | Aug 2004 | Aug 2005 | Aug 2006 | |
| Secondary 10 Mbps | 0 | 12 | 25 | 104 |
| Secondary 2 Mbps or better | 90 | 95 | 104 | 104 |
| Primary 2Mbps symmetric | 43 | 120 | 333 | 495 |
| Primary ADSL | 12 | 50 | 80 | 0 |
| Primary satellite | 1 | 6 | 26 | 24 |
3. Connectivity should be delivered within a framework that is sustainable and achievable for all schools. The focus is to place minimal administrative and support burdens on schools. Funding has been allocated to LEAs by a formula based on school numbers adjusted by a measure of relative population density to recognise the differing costs of connectivity.
3) Sustainability
Schools will receive a fully designed and managed broadband service through the Kent Community Network (KCN) with a minimum of administration and technical complexity. Schools are required to contribute to the costs of the broadband service at a range of levels which encourages uptake and balances connecting schools with sustainability. Where schools collaborate to host broadband hubs or share connectivity, the contribution is adjusted. The table shows the school contribution for a 2 Mbps, symmetric high quality service. Reasonable additional school contributions will be payable if schools require higher service levels such as increased bandwidth.
Sustainability of a fundamental service such as broadband Internet access is essential. Ideally such services should be funded by the school in a similar way to electricity or water. However the high operational costs in Kent mean that school contributions will need to be subsidised for longer, but still on a reducing basis.
| School Contribution - Full 2Mbps symmetrical broadband | |||||
| 2001/2 | 2002/3 | 2003/4 | 2004/5 | 2005/6 | |
| Secondary | 3k | 5k | 8.7k | 6k | 7k |
| Primary / special | 2k | 3k | 3k | 3.5k | |
RBC’s Role and Regional Aggregation Boards
4. The ten Regional Broadband Consortia (RBCs) have grouped together to manage the process of procuring broadband connections and network management for schools within their regions are the key partners of the DfES in implementing this policy. The RBCs’ role is to work with schools to define their connectivity and network service requirements. The RBCs will work with the Regional Aggregation Bodies (see paragraph 6) and with Network Management service providers in the delivery of services to their schools. RBCs/LEAs will monitor and ensure that service levels are met to ensure the best possible broadband service is provided to schools.
RBC’s Role and Regional Aggregation Boards
4) Kent will continue to take an active part in our RBC, the South East Grid for Learning, through the Steering Group, Management Group and educational projects. In particular Kent will contribute to the specification of connectivity and network service requirements through the SEGfL procurement and through discussions with the Regional Aggregation Board. Delivery by suppliers will be carefully monitored and suppliers managed to ensure service levels are met. With the poor telecommunications infrastructure in Kent, we will take measures to ensure service levels are met and will develop further monitoring tools and procedures in liaison with network management service providers and the RAB. These processes will be shared with other LEAs in the SEGfL and nationally.
RBC Promotion of Broadband Benefits
5. RBCs have a major role in promoting the benefits of broadband and embedding its usage within schools and should provide services to support this aim. RBCs also are a vehicle for LEA collaboration and the sharing of expertise. LEAs should aggregate procurement of content and other ICT and educational products and services, for example video-conferencing, technical support, portals through the RBCs unless they can demonstrate alternative approaches that will bring greater benefits to schools. This may allow a range of services and scale economies which otherwise might not be achievable.
RBC Promotion of Broadband Benefits
5) Kent will continue to work with the SEGfL LEAs in the sharing of best practice and expertise. Video conferencing will be promoted through a Kent gateway which will be linked through the joint SEGfL and SWGfL project through the National Education Network to other RBCs. Kent will work with Hampshire and other SEGfL LEAs in the specification and procurement of a learning platform. Broadband technical support will be provided within Kent as an integrated part of school ICT support, conforming to and promoting the national networking standards. RBC procurement of content will be explored for projects including digital mapping, historical content with the National Archive and the British Pathé archives. The development of specialist on-line applications such as EISite will be continued.
Regional Aggregation Bodies and Best Value for Money
6. The DfES has recently joined with the Department of Trade and Industry and the National Health Service in a project to aggregate the procurement of broadband across the public sector. Regional Aggregation Bodies (RABs) have been set up in each of the English regions to get best value for money and to increase broadband availability and sustainability.
7. It is a condition of funding that RBCs and LEAs should demonstrate best value for money. It is expected that this will be achieved through purchasing new connectivity through the RABs. Additionally RBCs and LEAs should investigate whether existing connectivity contracts could be transferred to the RABs to offer better value. Only in cases where an LEA or RBC can clearly demonstrate to DfES that it can achieve better value for money for connectivity through another procurement route will the requirement to use the RAB be waived.
Regional Aggregation Bodies and Best Value for Money
6) and 7) Kent Education and Libraries, with wider KCC projects, will continue to explore the best methods of aggregating and procuring broadband connectivity through discussions with our suppliers and with the SE Regional Aggregation Body, Adit SE. The new SEGfL Framework Contracts, negotiated through the European Union rules (OJEU), contain procedures to include the RAB in connectivity negotiations to ensure best value for money. These procedures require network services suppliers to procure connectivity via the RAB, where best value for money is demonstrated.
Connecting to the National Education Network
8. The Regional Broadband Consortia have created a National Education Network through agreements with UKERNA ( United Kingdom Education & Research Networking Association, the UK university network manager) to use SuperJANET (the network that links HE and FE institutions). The National Network will enable pupils and teachers in any broadband connected school to access digital resources and collaborate without being subject to the vagaries of the Internet. This grant provides funding to ensure that RBCs and LEAs maintain their connection to the National Education Network.
8) Connecting to the National Education Network
The Kent Community Network has a connection to the National Education Network via SEGfL and the Super JANET network to enable pupils and teachers in any broadband connected school to access digital resources and collaborate without being subject to the vagaries of the Internet. This connection will be further developed and will be integrated with the main Internet feed as soon as economically viable.
9. The requirement for networking standards has been identified in order to ensure that schools across the country are able to communicate and collaborate with each other and their LEAs and make use of more advanced applications such as video-conferencing.
10. A project led by Becta in consultation with the RBCs, Local Authorities, UKERNA and the DfES is currently defining the standards for broadband networks for services required by schools. Guidance will be made available in April 2004 which will include detail of the proposed monitoring process. All broadband networks providing connectivity to schools must meet these standards by March 2005.
9) and 10) Networking Standards
Kent supports strongly the DfES requirement that all parts of the network must comply with industry standards and the Becta guidance and has taken an active part in their production via SEGfL. Kent will continue to contribute to the development of these standards at regional and national levels and ensure that the KCN is in full compliance.
Schools have been advised of the importance of the new standards and, where requested, Kent will help schools monitor their own networks for compliance. The impact of these standards on some schools, where the network is not well designed or managed, could be considerable and training and advice will be required. The Kent Schools Security and Internet Access Policies will be revised in the light of the national standards.
11. Schools should consider investing in a cache server to optimise usage of their Internet connection. Use of a cache should enable any external bandwidth constraints to be overcome and therefore enable the use of online multi-media content. After the initial access/download, schools can access a single locally stored copy of a piece of content rather than repeatedly requesting the same content from the origin server. This results in little or no extra network traffic over the external link and increases the speed of delivery. Content delivery works on the principle of delivering content to the local network before it is required, rather than the ‘on-demand’ approach of reactive web caching.
12. Research published by Becta demonstrates that the use of web caches, whilst not an alternative to increased connectivity, can optimise the usage of available bandwidth. An appropriate mix of broadband and caching will be required to enable a school to make full use of collaborative working and the digital curricular resources promoted through the Curriculum Online initiative.
13. For effective content delivery, it is essential that the content delivery and caching service in a school is compatible with the equipment installed by the LEA or the RBC. Therefore schools should seek guidance from their LEA or RBC when choosing a system to ensure compatibility with the systems implemented elsewhere in the broadband network for performance benefits to be maximised. Becta’s recommended specification should be followed and the cache should support the use of manifest lists for pre-loading content. The DfES is working with publishers to ensure that content they produce complies with the manifest specification as defined by Becta
11), 12) and 13) Content Delivery and Caching
Content delivery and caching make an important contribution to the users’ perception of network speed, particularly with media rich materials. The Kent Education Network has dual Microsoft ISA server caches located at each of the 10 area hubs which provide a measured increase of over 30% in network throughput. DNS caching is also used and schools are encouraged to configure their LAN network to make the best use of DNS.
Monitoring evidence shows that patterns of Internet usage, such as Internet Radio, can result in major bandwidth usage. Schools need to make decisions about the effectiveness use of finite and expensive bandwidth. A guidance leaflet for schools was produced by Kent in March 2003 which examined content delivery and caching, this will be revised in the light of new developments such as the BBC Digital Curriculum.
Guidance from Becta and other agencies will be brought to schools’ attention through the broadband forum, the Web site, conferences and newsletters. SEGfL is currently carrying out a project to investigate cache products. Schools will be discouraged from purchasing individual cache servers.
Funding from Grant 31b must first be used for connectivity, so is not generally available in Kent for school-level caching except where only inferior broadband links are available in some rural areas. Kent is investigating content delivery through the redesign of the schools network currently being undertaken.
Rural and Hard-to-Connect Schools
14. LEAs or RBCs should identify all schools that are hard-to-connect and have a plan to ensure that these schools are supplied with a broadband connection by 2006.
14) Rural and Hard-to-Connect Schools
Kent Education and Libraries Directorate, through the KCN and Kent Connects will continue to work with BT, the main telecommunications provider, and other agencies to improve availability of broadband to schools and communities. This work has taken Kent from well behind the national average for ADSL enabled exchanges to above the average. However there are about 10% of schools that are unlikely ever to obtain 2 Mbps ADSL services for either BT economic reasons or due to distance from the exchange.
Kent will continue to explore with industry methods of connecting remote schools including the use of satellite and licensed and unlicensed wireless links. The availability of relatively new connectivity services such as SDSL and local loop unbundling will be monitored, but are unlikely to be economic in Kent in the medium term.
The issues in connecting rural and hard-to-connect schools will be explored in projects such as the Rural Action Zone. This will enable Kent to advise schools on an individual basis as to the best strategy to obtain broadband connectivity. As many of such schools are relatively small, the cost of 2Mbps symmetrical connectivity will have to be balanced with educational benefit.
15. For those schools not scheduled to be upgraded to broadband until towards the end of 2006 interim solutions, including “asymmetric connections” (such as ADSL or satellite) or lower than 2Mbps links, (such as some DSL products) should be used where available and affordable, to improve schools’ current connectivity, principally as a replacement for ISDN. Normally these connections should be provided by a specialist educational connectivity and service provider whose network connects to the National Education Network. These schools will need to provide a plan to upgrade to true broadband.
15) Asymmetric Connections Policy
Kent agrees that, in due course, all schools should have a robust broadband connection that is symmetric and of low contention in order to take advantage of media-rich materials and advanced facilities. However the current cost of this approach will exceed the Standards Fund grant 31b. For many primary and special schools of below average size, ADSL or satellite at 2 Mbps is an appropriate level of connectivity for an interim period. The Kent Community Network has negotiated with RM, a specialist educational connectivity and service provider for these services and Kent adds technical support and other facilities including the link to the National Education network.
Detailed information has been provided to schools on the merits of each of the broadband services. Copies are available on the KCN Broadband Web Site:
www.kent.gov.uk/eis (broadband link).
16. Local Education Authorities in partnership with their RBC must agree targets individually with the DfES for increased broadband connectivity to schools. The DfES/Becta is looking to LEAs and RBCs to consider the overall connectivity picture in formulating their local strategies for content delivery and therefore will require all connectivity solutions for schools to be reported in one bi-monthly return (including broadband, ADSL, ISDN etc). The return should include schools whose connectivity is currently provided through contracts with commercial Internet Service Providers.
17. The DfES is currently undertaking an analysis of the broadband grant drawn by LEAs and RBCs and their performance in achieving connectivity against this. The DfES will expect LEAs and RBCs to be prepared to account for progress to-date and provide their forecast roll-out schedules to 2006.
18. Each RBC/LEA will be expected to agree targets for implementation of national networking standards with the DfES/Becta. These will be reviewed on a six monthly basis.
16), 17) and 18) Targets and Monitoring
This Kent broadband strategy will be agreed with the SEGfL and be submitted to DfES as required. The reporting will include achievements to date against broadband grant and a roll-out forecast to 2006. Kent will agree targets for implementing the national networking standards with DfES/Becta.
19: Where Connectivity Targets have been met
1. The department appreciates that some authorities have used additional funding to ensure their schools are connected to broadband earlier that the governments target and as a result will not be able to spend all their allocation on broadband connectivity.
2. Where a Local Education Authority has connected all of its schools at the minimum standard of 2 Mbps symmetrical and has plans to connect those schools that require higher bandwidths (typically secondaries at 8 Mbps) by 2006, then it may apply to the department to use the funding in one or more of the following:
- a. Use the funding to accelerate the connectivity at higher bandwidths
- b. Use the funding to implement content delivery and caching services in schools
- c. Improve the infrastructure and services offered by the broadband network to meet the standards e.g. improved video-conferencing facilities
- d. Use the funding to improve broadband usage and availability
- e. Use the funding to contribute to costs incurred in migrating existing connectivity contracts to the new Regional Aggregation Board (RAB) framework
3. If the Local Education Authority wishes to apply to use the funding as indicated above then the it should, in the first instance, contact Daren Egan ( darren.egan@dfes.gsi.gov.uk) with the following information:
- a. Confirmation that every school is connected at appropriate bandwidths
- b. Plans for connecting schools to higher bandwidth (if appropriate)
- c. How they plan to meet the standards for broadband connectivity
- d. Details of how the finances are to be reallocated
- e. Impact of their proposals on future years' funding
4. All Local Education Authorities applying to use grant 31b funding in this way should keep a complete record of documents in case these are needed for auditing purposes.
Where Connectivity Targets have been met
19) Kent will be using additional funding to ensure targets are met. After this date Kent will contact DfES as required.