05 November 2024

Leverhulme Church of England and Community Trust (LCECT) is a multi-academy trust based in Bolton. Its schools - Rivington & Blackrod High School and Harper Green School - operate as secondary phase teaching environments.

Both schools had ten-year old legacy Meru wireless networks with a mixed estate of HP switches, which were struggling to cope with the throughput and density required by classroom environments. The wireless performance was poor with slow connectivity speeds and the networks were difficult to manage. The Meru Wi-Fi support was also end of life which meant the trust’s central IT team had no technical assistance in place for network troubleshooting.

Beyond legacy networks

LCECT wanted to improve the wireless performance with better security and control over school devices and improve network autonomy and management.
“With the existing network limitations, we required a more sophisticated network with better performance that could be managed easier at a trust level,” said Richard Pycroft, ICT manager at LCECT. “I’d worked with Redway Networks before, so reached out to them to conduct technical Wi-Fi surveys at both school sites to review the networks and provide us with a comprehensive report for a future-proofed solution suitable for the next ten years.”

Following the findings of the surveys - which included a detailed report of the network gaps - it was evident that both schools would be eligible for a Department of Education (DfE) Connect the Classroom (CtC) grant to upgrade the existing Wi-Fi and switching.

“With the documentation of works in place it was of strategic importance for us to upgrade our networks so we could support the direction of our technology plan,” said Pycroft. “We asked Redway Networks to help us with the application process for campuswide networks that would support our future technology needs. Redway Networks provided us with a wealth of knowledge around CtC and looked after the whole process from start to finish and we were delighted to be awarded the grant.”

Enabling security and control

With futureproofing in mind and to unify the networks, Redway recommended two separate Cisco Meraki WLANs, with a single trust-level login, to deliver reliable, fast wireless networks that would be easy to manage through the Meraki cloud dashboard. The solution was designed to manage and optimise the network for improving security and compliance.

Redway Networks’ designed Meraki solution includes 16 x enterprise-grade MS355 and MS425 cloud-managed switches with a 10-year enterprise licence and support agreement. The switches are managed through Meraki’s intuitive cloud-based interface, providing full 10G multigigabit access switching for demanding high-density classrooms. Redway’s engineer deployed the switches as an overlay solution to increase density and PoE availability and provide easy power utilisation for future ICT projects and additional IoT network devices.

“With Meraki’s switches we now have 10-Gigabit links so both schools are now benefitting from ten times the wireless speeds they had before. This means we can have more users on the network simultaneously accessing high-speed content which has created more inclusive learning styles,” said Pycroft.

The MS switches serve 200 x high-performance Meraki MR46 wireless access points, designed to deliver exceptional Wi-Fi performance and efficiency, with enterprise-grade security and management. With Meraki, the schools now have different login flows for users with one SSID for teachers and admin staff, one for students with restricted access and one for guests. Meraki’s Wi-Fi is, according to Pycroft, delivering more bandwidth and the network is more secure. Both schools are now benefitting from secure access to a high-speed wireless infrastructure with vastly improved wireless coverage and speed.

Indeed, school Wi-Fi speeds increased tenfold, asserts Pycroft: “Meraki is worlds apart from what we had before in terms of network reliability and speed. We now have a sophisticated, secure network which is the backbone to future learning. Meraki has improved delivery uptime, capacity, and coverage and users are now enjoying fast, reliable wireless connectivity. We now have the confidence to remove the wired network in our IT suite and lean on the Wi-Fi, meaning we can use our bank of laptops and Apple Macs which has saved on buying new IT equipment.”

With Meraki, the schools benefit from reduced network complexity and increased control. All devices are visible in the Meraki dashboard enabling the IT team to resolve any issues easily which saves considerable time on network monitoring. The network is more secure and can now scale up new group networks based on distinct levels of access and security quickly. Staff can now login using their username and password instead of a pre-shared key and guests have a onetime-use password that’s only usable for a day.

“Redway Networks was a great partner to work with and went above and beyond to install the networks out of school hours, so lesson time wasn’t interrupted. From an IT perspective we can handle the day-to-day functions, but with a large wireless infrastructure project like CtC, it was great to have a trusted and knowledgeable partner like Redway Networks to work with,” added Pycroft.