Connectivity, Communications, Security and Safeguarding Services Partner

Overview

At Academy Transformation Trust (ATT), our ambition is that every person who passes through our schools and colleges becomes an educated person - able to take a rightful place in the community of educated people and to join what Robert Maynard Hutchins called "the Great Conversation." An ATT education stresses history, the scientific mode of thinking, the disciplined use of language, a wide-ranging knowledge of the arts and religion, and the continuity of human enterprise. We aspire for everyone, regardless of their starting point, to leave us capable, competent, and confident. Our cross-phase group of academies was founded in 2011 and, since that time, we have grown to our current family of 22 academies (primary, secondary, post-16 and FE) operating across 10 English local authority areas. The Trust's current connectivity contract is coming to an end in July 2026. The Trust has taken this opportunity to review its requirements in terms of: • Internet connectivity and, • in the current climate of increased focus on cyber attacks in education, security at each site and across the wider Trust network. • The safeguarding of students (but all users in general) as they use Trust ICT services and equipment With increasing emphasis and use of moving to cloud based platforms to deliver key services, the Trust needs secure, reliable connectivity to these cloud services and the wider internet. The Trust is in the final stages of moving as many services as possible 'off-site' and into the cloud - indeed, by the end of this academic year this project should be complete, though some services will need to remain local such as access control. To support this outcome, the Trust will require the successful bidder to provide a centralised hosting platform for key Trust services and applications to be delivered to/accessible from all sites. With the majority of services moving into the cloud, connectivity between the school sites is minimised, but will still be required. In addition to a secure network and central hosting there needs to be a comprehensive safeguarding solution, providing web filtering and activity monitoring to DfE KCSIE and other relevant DfE standards. This solution will deliver proactive and reactive filtering and monitoring, managing false positives and allowing Trust staff to be alerted so that they can manage effective and timely interventions when issues and/or concerns around how students (or other users) using Trust services and/or devices may arise. Following internal review and due diligence, the Trust has decided that it wants to test the market to find the most advantageous partner to work with them to deliver the above outcomes The Trust requires the following: - Secure Broadband/Internet connectivity for the Trust sites meeting, at a minimum, the DfE Digital and Technology Standards in Schools and Colleges - The Trust is in the final stages of moving as many services as possible 'off-site' and into the cloud - indeed, by the end of this academic year this project should be complete. To support this outcome, the Trust will require the successful bidder to provide a centralised hosting platform for key Trust services and applications to be delivered to/accessible from all sites. - Central hosting of key Trust-wide applications on Windows-based Virtual Machines - A full safeguarding solution covering both Internet filtering and device/activity monitoring that, at a minimum, meets DfE KCSIE guidelines, but allow the Trust to proactively and reactively manage behaviour and safeguarding issues across its network. - Detailed management information and reporting is required across the entire solution so that the Trust is aware of what traffic and activity is happening at the edge of the Local networks and across the Wide Area network at any given time.