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HELP DESK


Two separate schools in Plymouth have joined forces to share backup and disaster recovery solutions so they can deliver the best IT service for their respective staff and pupils within very tight budgets. Julia Dennison caught up with Gary Holder, head of ICT at Stoke Damerel Community College and Stuart Wilkie, the IT network manager at Marine Academy Plymouth at Bett to find out more


Box shifters


W april 2013 \ www.edexec.co.uk


hen I meet with Gary Holder, head of ICT at Stoke Damerel Community College and Stuart Wilkie, IT network manager at Marine Academy Plymouth it’s at the Bett Show in London and I’ve come after reading a press release that spoke of these two schools setting aside their professional rivalry to share backup and disaster recovery systems. But when I sit down with the two


school leaders, it becomes clear that any rivalry between the two is pretty miniscule: these IT managers understand the importance of collaboration – for everything from backup to general tech advice – and they’re not afraid to lean on each other. “Everyone thinks that,” says Wilkie, when I bring up the idea of the two schools competing. “We are geographically pretty close together, but we don’t tread on each other’s toes in terms of catchment areas. Plymouth is quite unique in that sense, that there are distinct regions to Plymouth and the secondaries have those patches and they don’t really cross each other at all. In terms of competition for pupils, it doesn’t actually really happen.” In fact, you could say, they’re more than just professional peers; they’re friends who are quick to pick up the phone when they think the other could help. “We already knew each other as colleagues anyway, before I moved to the school I’m at now,” says Wilkie, who works for the EduGeek community of IT managers and got to know Holder through his work there.


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