Supporting the NAHT remotely
Founded in 1897 as the National Federation of Head Teachers’ Associations, in 1906, the organisation became the National Association of Head Teachers, or NAHT for short.
NAHT is a professional association and trade union that represents school leaders in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Members include head teachers, deputy and assistant heads, school business leaders, and more.
NAHT’s work includes:
- Advocacy: NAHT campaigns for improvements to schools and influences policy at the highest levels of government.
- Representation: NAHT represents school leaders in many types of schools, including maintained, academies, independents, and special educational needs (SEND) schools.
- Training and advice: NAHT provides training and advice for school leaders.
Espria have worked with NAHT since 2015 when their server infrastructure was hosted in-house at their headquarters in Haywards Heath. Initially, Espria (then eacs) provided hardware, software and professional services covering remote access, security solutions, and Microsoft subscriptions. Following the global pandemic, and a strategic review, the organisation took the decision to close the physical HQ and become a fully remote operation.
As NAHT no longer needed on-site (deskside) support, following the successful provision of temporary support to cover staff illness, and subsequently a tender process, the Espria Managed Service team were engaged to provide a cost per user, end to end support for all staff, devices and infrastructure including an IT Help Desk to support ongoing business needs, including weekend and out of hours support for VIPs as required. This also helped to simplify both billing and budgeting.
In parallel, the organisation instigated a 2-phased approach to their business infrastructure; initially moving to an Espria hosted data centre then followed by its re-architecture to facilitate the migration to Microsoft Azure.
Today, on-going support enables NAHT to operate with complete and reliable end user support, inclusive of a Cyber Essentials compliant managed laptop service, cyber security solutions, and Azure environment. Espria continues to help inform and develop IT strategy around security, efficiency and flexibility in order to support the ongoing business needs.
The Managed Services provided by Espria managed services have been instrumental in transforming our IT infrastructure and support. Their expertise and dedication has enabled us to seamlessly transition to a fully remote operation, ensuring reliable end-user support and robust cyber security solutions. Our partnership with Espria has successfully supported our migration to Microsoft Azure, enhancing our efficiency and flexibility. We highly recommend Espria for their exceptional service and commitment to our ongoing business needs.
Andy Bone, Director of IT at NAHT
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