The background

South West Communications Group provides Poole High School with a new telephone system and digital lines to cope with its house-led organisational structure, along with significant savings on its telecommunications bills.

Poole High School is a comprehensive school on the Dorset coast. It is over-subscribed with around 1,650 students on the roll with more than 350 in its sixth form. The School has benefitted from an extensive, multi-million pound new buildings programme in recent years and was awarded Specialist School status as a Business and Enterprise college in September 2009.

Poole High School has 7 houses with each house acting as a mini-school within the main school. Each house has its own head of house, house officer, tutor team and house office with a direct telephone line. The aim is to ensure that even though Poole High School is large, every student feels they are known and valued as part of a smaller unit within the whole school community.

The challenge

Poole High School had been using an obsolete BT Meridian telephone system which was very restrictive and could not meet the needs of a forward-thinking establishment where message-taking alone had become a challenging daily task.

More worryingly, the School was trying to run 66 telephone extensions using just 3 lines. When all these lines were busy, callers were met by the engaged tone which was hugely frustrating for parents and other callers. Furthermore, School staff could not ring out either which was potentially dangerous in the event of an emergency and a situation that could not continue. The School also had separate lines running to each of its houses and this was proving to be very costly.

The size of the School meant its main communications tool had become impractical and the arrival of a new headteacher and business manager prompted the search for a new system.

The solution

South West Communications Group advised Poole High School to invest in a new Toshiba Strata CIX670 telephone system solution that provided:

• ISDN30 connectivity with 8 lines
  
• Voicemail as the main form of message taking
  
• Out of hours messages
  
• Automated attendant
  
• Call recording
  
• Project management
  
• Lines & Minutes provision
  
• Maintenance and support
• User and administrator training

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