Outwood Family Catch Up...Stuart Jones

This time around we sat down with Stuart Jones, Director of Technology at the Outwood Family to discuss his Outwood journey so far and how he and his team have been dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

[Outwood.com] Hi Stuart, thank you for agreeing to take part in this little feature. Can appreciate this is a very busy time for you, so I will get straight to it. When did you first join the Outwood Family?

“Hello! Not a problem, I’m delighted to be asked to take part! I originally joined back in February 2013 as Network Manager for both Outwood Grange Academy and Outwood Academy Ripon. 

“A few months after that, in October that year, I became Director of IT for the whole Trust. As the Trust evolved, so did my role and I became Director of Technology with a wider scope of responsibilities in March 2018.”

Quite a quick jump for you then in those first 12 months with Outwood! You mention your role evolved as Outwood did, how would you describe this evolution of Outwood?

“The biggest change has been growth. It’s incredible to think that when I joined, the number of academies in the Outwood Family was in single figures. Now as a Trust, we support and provide high standard education in so many more areas and to so many more students across over thirty academies.

“Obviously with this growth, there has been the need for investment and I am lucky that the Trust has supported us with this by investing a million pounds in IT capital each year I’ve been here and since 2019 this has been increased to £1.3 million.

“From a digital perspective, the use of cloud technologies like Google G Suite has really taken off recently and I think our use of G Suite has been one of the factors that's really helped the whole organisation during lockdown.”

That is some growth and you mention lockdown. How have your team dealt with lockdown and the issues it brought?

“During lockdown my team have been working hard to keep all our systems operational, they've been providing remote support to staff working from home as well as ensuring equipment in the buildings is regularly checked and maintained. 

“We've also been preparing for re-openings and a 'new normal' by organising webcams , which are in very short supply at the moment, and visualisers to aid digital teaching. 

“Our devices for vulnerable and disadvantaged children and young people have just arrived and we're now starting the logistics of preparing those for distribution.”

Sounds like an incredibly busy time, which you’ve managed to deal with successfully and on this topic; what would you say has been your biggest success at Outwood?

“My greatest success is something that internally we call our IT model or IT blueprint, I originally designed it for Outwood Grange and it sets out a stable design for our systems that can be scaled up or down to fit any size of academy. 

“It's an incredibly flexible design that's continually evolving thanks to my team. It's supported teaching and support staff by providing secure remote access through the current COVID-19 situation.”

Well that sounds like an invaluable resource for both your team and the entire Outwood Family. So to finish, what would you say your hopes are then for your team over the next three to five years?

“Well, I am lucky to have a great team that works really hard and one of the downsides to IT sometimes is that if we've done it right, you won't know we've even done it. 

“The whole team's continuous aim is to provide a safe, suitable, secure environment to aid teaching and learning. If anything, the current COVID-19 situation has cemented our desire to get our IT model into even more of our academies.”

Thank you for your time, Stuart. Here is to you and your team achieving that aim!