Most multi-academy trusts didn't design their networks. They inherited them, one academy at a time. A school joining from a local authority brings connectivity that may predate the trust, while another arrives with a single circuit and no failover. A third has Wi-Fi that holds up in the main building and drops out in the block next door.
Each of those set-ups made sense to whoever put it in. But the trust has to run them as a single estate, often with a small central team. And the Department for Education's digital and technology standards apply to every academy equally, regardless of whether it joined last term or ten years ago.
What the standards ask for
The DfE has set out six core standards that schools and colleges should be working towards by 2030. Four of them shape the network directly.
Broadband: a full fibre connection. Primary schools need at least 100Mbps download and 30Mbps upload, while secondary schools, all-through schools and colleges need capacity for 1Gbps.
Resilience: a backup connection of a different type to the primary, so one fault can't take out both, with automatic failover between them and redundant power for core equipment. The DfE expects resilience to go in alongside a new connection or soon after, so a trust re-procuring connectivity has the best chance to build it in.
Wireless: centrally managed Wi-Fi using at least the Wi-Fi 6E standard.
Cyber security: measures including risk assessment, staff training, multi-factor authentication, data backups and firewalls.
The other two core standards cover network switching, and digital leadership and governance. Six further standards cover areas such as cloud solutions, devices and IT support. They matter too, but the core six come first: they carry the 2030 target and lay the foundation for the rest.
Guidance, except where safeguarding is concerned
Most of these standards are guidance. Schools should meet them and 2030 gives trusts time to plan. Safeguarding is an exception to this. Keeping Children Safe in Education, the DfE's statutory safeguarding guidance, expects schools to have appropriate filtering and monitoring systems and cyber security measures in place now, and the standards set out the DfE's recommended way to meet that. For a trust, that means every academy needs to be covered from the day it joins, including the newest.
Where to start
Start with visibility. A trust can't prioritise gaps it can't see. A real-time view of how every site is performing shows which academies already meet the standards and which don't, and turns a general worry into a plan the board can fund.
Then agree one standard design and apply it across the estate. When every academy runs on the same model, bringing in a new one becomes a repeatable process rather than a fresh project each time. The same applies to contracts: terms that let a new academy join without reopening procurement can save months.
One standard won't always mean an identical set-up at every site, though, and resilience is where that shows most. A second fixed line isn't always available, particularly at small or rural schools. The DfE's own examples of a backup include low Earth orbit satellite alongside fibre, so it's worth assessing alternatives like this before settling for a single connection.
Finally, give the work an end date. Bringing every academy up to standard works better as a defined, budgeted phase than as an open-ended task competing with day-to-day support.
Hear how one trust did it
On 18th November at 10:45, I'll be hosting a conversation on the MAT Summit Stage with Zahid Iqbal and Adam Waterfield from SHARE Multi-Academy Trust, who replaced their network across the trust in a matter of months, and Marianne Cowie from Cisco. We'll talk about what the standards meant in practice, how the trust now manages its network from one place, and where trust networks are heading.
You'll also find the TalkTalk Business team at booth K6 across both days. If you're weighing up where your estate stands against the standards, come and talk to us.