The Overview
The school sees the provision of high-quality printing solutions as an integral element in its stated objective of making the learning environment as engaging as possible for young people and as a key tool in helping to streamline the administration and management of the school.
To drive efficiencies and enhance the learning environment, the school decided to look at some form of managed service to carry out the printing. As a result, the school's IT team approached several independent providers of equipment finance solutions for the education sector for their recommendations.
One of these providers was The DMS Digital Group. We proposed a managed service approach, which involved standardising on printing solutions from OKI. Parrs Wood evaluated the proposal against other in-house options it had already costed up. The OKI approach worked out as being more cost effective but as importantly had the key advantage of being a managed print services offering. OKI was also able to guarantee that support could be provided as and when required and consumables delivered when needed.
About Parrs Wood High School
Parrs Wood is a state comprehensive secondary school located in east Didsbury, Manchester. It educates pupils from the age of 11-18 years. A-Levels are taught at the Parrs Wood Sixth Form Centre, which is integrated within the main school. Parrs Wood was the 4th largest school in the UK in 2008, with 2,030 students and 450 in the sixth form centre. In 2015, the governors of the school decided to embark on the process of turning the school into an academy.
The Solution
The ICT support at Parrs Wood decided to go for the OKI solution proposed by DMS. They pay a set price per page, this gives them tight cost control and predictable budgeting because they know exactly how much printing is going to cost each time. The approach also streamlines administration by giving them the option to charge back costs quickly and easily to school departments.
The Benefits
The long-term benefits of a managed print service implementation are often extensive within the education sector. Schools using a managed print service can typically reduce costs as the approach gives greater visibility into the printing process, letting whoever is in charge of IT, monitor and review, the overall number of prints and the departmental split, showing where volumes are high and allowing them to address this.
In the classrooms the printers are widely used for printing coursework, homework, and material for projects etc. The fast print speeds available with the OKI devices help teachers to overcome the end-of-class printing rush and ensure that pupils no longer need to delay the start of the next lesson, waiting for work to appear. However, perhaps the most significant impact of high-quality printers in education lies in their ability to streamline the teaching and learning experience for staff and pupils ignite the creativity of staff and pupils.