Taihape Area School | Case Study
A Case Study for Educational Leaders
Introduction
Taihape Area School, a Year 1-13 school situated in a remote rural setting with a significant Māori roll (59%), faced unique challenges exacerbated by its isolated location. Like many educational institutions, the school grappled with an infrastructure that was not effectively supporting its teaching and learning objectives. This case study outlines how a comprehensive audit and a shift in ICT partnership, driven by a learning-first philosophy, enabled Taihape Area School to achieve significant cost savings and strategically reinvest these resources into a transformative PLD program, ultimately empowering staff and benefiting students.
The Initial Challenges
On the arrival of a new Tumuaki, Michelle Cameron, the state of the school's ICT infrastructure raised immediate concerns. The existing setup was fragmented, with staff using a mix of Google Workspace and a local server. The infrastructure was notably slow, and staff relied on poorly configured legacy laptops. These issues were amplified for students and staff who experienced significant difficulties logging in and accessing their work on under performing legacy laptops, instead of more suitable devices like Chromebooks.
Beyond the technical limitations, the school faced challenges with its ICT support. The previous support company appeared more focused on maintaining the status quo rather than proactively addressing the school's evolving needs. This resulted in low levels of trust and expectations from both staff and students regarding the technology infrastructure.
Furthermore, the school was allocating significant financial resources to this sub-optimal tech setup, including an "astronomical" cost associated with the previous provider's cloud migration. Despite this expenditure, the school was not seeing proportionate positive outcomes in teaching, administration, or student learning. The last contract also restricted the school's flexibility in charting its own course for technology development and improvement.
Time to Seek Clarity
Recognising the need for a fundamental change, Taihape Area School sought a comprehensive audit. Aligned with a strategic, learning-focused approach offered by "Learning First", the audit, conducted by Martin Hughes and Mike Stodart, aimed to identify the school's pain points, previous provider issues, and budget concerns, as well as specific ICT problems, such as outdated hardware, inefficient support, and high costs.
The audit process identified significant opportunities for streamlining the ICT infrastructure and support. This ultimately led to projected cost savings of more than 25%, as confirmed by Principal Michelle Cameron: "We’ve saved over 25% on ICT costs".
Strategic Reinvestment Fueling PLD
A critical outcome of the audit process and the key element of this transformation was the strategic decision to reinvest the realised cost savings directly into enhancing teaching and learning. With the money saved from changing ICT support companies and implementing a more user-friendly infrastructure, the demand from staff for professional learning and development increased significantly. The improved infrastructure, including better devices and upgraded Google Workspace Education Plus accounts, generated excitement among staff about the possibilities for enhancing their teaching practices.
Michelle was able to reinvest the financial savings into an ongoing professional learning and development program for staff, which was implemented and delivered by Martin. In Michelle’s own words, “The transition also gave us the opportunity to focus on our people rather than a dependent and expensive relationship that was not serving our learning community - the status quo restricted our ability to create and deliver better outcomes. We didn’t have the flexibility to map out our own journey. We needed to move at our own pace in our own direction, and the previous contract prevented this.”.
What’s more, this approach aligns with the strategic goals of Taihape Area School's 2024-2025 plan, which emphasises developing staff capability.
Impact on Teachers and the Learning Environment
The transition to new hardware, including the smooth rollout of MacBooks for staff and Chromebooks (including "Flexed" legacy laptops) for students, was met with enthusiasm. Staff were particularly pleased with the additional functionality offered by the upgrade to Google Workspace Education Plus. Crucially, student login times plummeted from 5-10 minutes to a mere 5-10 seconds, significantly reducing frustration and maximising learning time.
The improved ICT infrastructure played a crucial role in the successful implementation of the PLD program. This program empowered staff to work in more innovative ways, fostering better relationships and ultimately aiming to improve outcomes for their students. Michelle Cameron highlighted this shift, stating that the transition meant "leaving behind a relationship of dependency and moving towards one of collaboration and support," freeing up "significant funds to deliver quality PLD across the school - empowering our staff to work in smarter ways to boost relationships and outcomes for our ākonga".
Furthermore, the new ICT partnership with Support IT Ltd was characterised by a responsive and collaborative approach. The school now enjoys a service where "they listen to us and act, so we can be empowered to lead ourselves". This represents a significant departure from the previous experience, where the support company appeared unresponsive to the school's needs. “Rangitiritanga - we were suddenly able to weave together the many aspects of our learning environments, so we could self-determine our journey”.
Observed Positive Impact on Student Learning Outcomes:
While direct quantitative data on student learning outcomes post-implementation isn't available at present, the groundwork for improvement has been laid. The strategic goals of Taihape Area School's 2024-2025 plan explicitly aim to strengthen engagement in learning by building ākonga and staff capabilities in their use of digital platforms. The improved infrastructure, coupled with enhanced teacher capacity through targeted PLD, directly supports this goal.
The expected outcomes of this strategic focus on digital platforms include:
Increased knowledge and confidence for both ākonga and staff in navigating digital platforms.
Enhanced learning engagement through the appropriate use of digital platforms.
Improved efficiency in completing learning tasks.
More effective use of digital platforms by staff to differentiate and scaffold learning and provide timely, actionable feedback.
Improved accessibility to learning content.
A reduction in digital fatigue for students.
Michelle stated, “Since the transition to Learning First, we now enjoy a very responsive service - they listen to us and act, so we can be empowered to lead ourselves. At every step, they build capacity and autonomy. Dealing with tech guys who listen, not salesmen who don’t and want to impose an expensive cookie-cutter model on us”.
These improvements, driven by a strategically funded PLD program focused on leveraging the enhanced ICT infrastructure, are anticipated to contribute significantly to positive student learning outcomes over time. The focus on building staff knowledge of Google platforms to differentiate learning and provide effective feedback directly links ICT investment to pedagogical improvement.
Conclusion:
The case of Taihape Area School demonstrates the powerful impact of a strategic and learning-driven approach to ICT management. By conducting a comprehensive audit facilitated by "Learning First", the school identified and realised significant cost savings from an inefficient and underperforming ICT setup. Crucially, these savings were not simply retained but were strategically reinvested in a high-quality PLD program for teachers. This reinvestment, facilitated by a new, responsive ICT partnership, has empowered staff, improved the learning environment, and laid a strong foundation for enhanced student engagement and achievement.
This case underscores the importance of viewing technology not as a standalone expense or set of tools, but as a critical enabler of pedagogical goals, where strategic investment and a focus on learning can yield substantial and far-reaching benefits for the entire school community.
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