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New Products & Services
SLS offers more
Where hygiene and the environment
for secondary
are on the curriculum
education I
f you were to visit the quiet Hertfordshire village of
Datchworth, you would not expect to find it the
centre of a hygiene and environmental awareness
Scientific Laboratory Supplies (SLS), the UK’s
campaign for 5-11 year olds – but it is.
leading independent laboratory supplier, has
There’s a hygiene revolution in progress and it
recently launched Select Education, a new division
originates from the All Saints Primary School led by
offering online services aimed at making the lives
its progressive Head Teacher Mary Willatt. The
of science teachers in secondary education much
result is that pupils who were already extremely
easier.
happy are now healthier too.
The Select Education website brings together all
At break apples are distributed and milk is
the relevant information and literature needed to
provided for years 1 and 2; the lunches are healthy
perform an experiment in the classroom, including
with local fruit and vegetables and there is a very
details of the products required, worksheets,
active health policy operating which covers
There was a 100% preference for the Katrin
curriculum guides and much more. This unique,
everything from head lice to loo paper.
hand towels because the previous range absorbed
one-stop resource has full e-commerce
There is also a strong hygiene and environmental
very little and pupils would take several towels -
capabilities, and allows customers to search for
theme running through most aspects of the school,
now the children said they found that only one soft
products, topics and even individual experiments,
from recycling and equipment re-use through to
Katrin towel was sufficient.
offering exceptional choice and service to
the award winning wildlife garden that the children
The new softer towels are a win-win situation.
teachers.
look after. So when Mary Willatt received
The school teaches its children to wash their hands
SLS is proud of its expertise and flexibility, and
complaints about hard, non-absorbent hand towels
after visiting the toilet, before eating and after arts
has used this experience to develop an extensive
and inadequate toilet paper she took action. In
and craft classes. With the potential for a renewed
curriculum-based product line, including
conjunction with some industry advice, and based
outbreak of Swine
innovative kits and apparatus for the 21st century
on their environmental qualifications, the School
Flu, teachers have increased their pupils’ focus on
science classroom. As part of its continuing
switched its washroom and wiping products from
personal hygiene. They have hand-cleansing gel on
dedication to the educational market, SLS is
the old hard stuff to softer, kinder products from
their desks and in all staff and administration rooms
constantly updating this range with original
the Katrin range.
and hygiene is regularly featured in school assembly.
products designed specifically to needs of its
Mary said: “With winter approaching, and the
Hand washing is now an easier task with more
education customers, so if you can’t find what you
threat of Swine Flu ever present, it was time to take
gentle towels. Time spent in the toilets has
want, SLS Select Education can help you find it.
action to do everything we could to encourage and
reduced, as hand drying is now quicker and
maximise hand washing among our susceptible young
minimises possible overcrowding at break time.
trianglertwww.science2education.co.uk
pupils. I looked for products that would be kind to
Mary said: “We expect to save money as we now
them and compatible with our environmental ethos;
know we will buy fewer towels with the children
products that would save the environment by having
taking one towel not three (or more). We have
less waste from using less product and hopefully save
chosen a range of Katrin towels that are slightly
us money too. Katrin fits the bill perfectly.
smaller and more suitable for children’s hands – giving
them adult sized towels is so wasteful. This illustrates
that our environmental awareness policy is working
Kinder Katrin for new term
because we now create less waste for disposal.”
Trials on Katrin hand towels, toilet tissue and centre
Since making the switch, All Saints School has
feed paper rolls were run at the start of the new
experienced a reduction in use of toilet tissue,
term. Staff and a selection of pupils across the
which is another example of ‘less is more’ and
school completed questionnaires to find out
provides real ‘cost in use’ savings over the lower
whether they preferred the old or new products –
quality, less effective products.
and why. White towels were perceived as cleaner
Katrin hand towel and centre feed roll dispensers
and more hygienic than the previous blue ones.
are now being installed throughout the school in
Children regarded the previous toilet tissue as flimsy
staff and pupil washrooms, classrooms, the first aid
and the Katrin product as ‘soft like cotton wool’.
room and staff kitchen.
They described the Katrin towels as easy to get out
of the dispenser, softer and not as scratchy as the
trianglertwww.katrin.com
previous brand.
trianglert020 83322 842
Babington College’s IT helpdesk improves service levels
Babington college IT department recently reviewed the time so they can take on additional work if they have the capacity,
it takes to respond to IT issues from staff and students as the helping to make the department operate more efficiently.
previous method of responding to calls was becoming The time it takes for technicians to respond to IT issues has
inefficient and unreliable. Technicians had difficulty recording been reduced by an estimated 25 per cent. Another benefit
notes each time an issue had been fixed, so it was difficult to of Sitehelpdesk-IT is the ability to report back to senior
pick up a task that another technician had been working on. management about workflow levels and how the
This made it a nightmare when staff went off sick. department is operating as a whole.
In October 2008, the department implemented
Sitehelpdesk-IT, a web based IT support software as it met all trianglertwww.sitehelpdesk.com
of its requirements and was a fraction of the cost of trianglertsales@sitehelpdesk.com
competing systems. Since implementing Sitehelpdesk-IT, the trianglert0207 419 5174
department is finding the process of logging calls far more
efficient as it stores all emails sent in by an end user so the
system knows what time the call came in and who logged it.
Bryan
It is also easier to view what other technicians have been
Taylor
working on and at what stage of the process they are up to
December 2009 www.education-today.co.uk
13
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