Mike Jennings 27th July 2023

Stone PCs and servers deliver wins at Winston Churchill School

The Winston Churchill Schoo l is a comprehensive based in Woking that prides itself on creating an inclusive and caring learning environment where its 1500 learners can excel academically while respecting and contributing to their community.

The school specialises in outstanding music and technology provision. It boasts the only state school-owned planetarium in the UK, which is also open to the general public, and the School also operates a local radio station.

The Winston Churchill School also has a new performance space with state-of-the-art lighting and sound installations alongside a five-metre LED screen. Technology is key at the School, so its IT provision needs to be of the same standard.

Justin Coll is the IT Service Manager at The Winston Churchill School, and he first started working with Stone when he was looking for a new IT service provider.

"I was not happy with the level of service our existing provider was giving, as support was unreliable and they no longer had a dedicated education support team" said Justin. "I had come across Stone at Bett, the education technology show, and further research found that Stone ticked many of my boxes by being a UK-based company specialising in education."

Service as important as price

Justin said that while many IT specialists can provide IT equipment, he was keen to work with a company that excelled in customer service and understood his school's needs. "Our previous supplier did give us reasonable service at the start of the contract but that started to deteriorate the longer we were with them," explained Justin. "I work with a small team so I wanted external expertise that I could rely on, and I was also keen to find a partner that understood the UK education system inside out."

Stone has years of experience working in the secondary education sector and offers bespoke circular IT solutions that provide the tools for teachers and students to succeed. Stone is listed on several key education frameworks and works with leading technology partners to offer solutions with budgets, school requirements and safeguarding in mind.

Initially, Stone provided The Winston Churchill School with thirty new PCs - which Justin said he used as a pilot scheme to see how Stone differed from his usual IT provider.

"The first difference was that Stone Group offered me their own PCs rather than third-party systems," said Justin. "However, I wasn't worried about installing Stone's PCs - the systems used Intel motherboards and processors so I was confident I was getting first-class internals. Additionally, the PC looked aesthetically pleasing and we could install the system in an all-in-one stand that locked cables away - an essential consideration in a school environment.

The Stone PC Lite is built to meet each school's specific requirements. It can sit horizontally or vertically, which increases versatility, and the Premium Stand provides cable management, extra USB and audio, desk locking options and a monitor mount.

Justin adds: "Stone were happy to provide a demonstration before we purchased, which put our mind at rest about the quality. In addition, Stone built the PCs to our specification, which included an Intel Core i3 processor and an upgrade to 16GB of RAM."

Like all state schools, Justin must ensure that any kit he buys is cost-effective. "We always get several quotes to guarantee competitive pricing," said Justin. "However, after-care service and warranty are just as important to me, especially because I've experienced poor service. Stone's five-year warranty and phone support offer great peace of mind, and being able to repurchase after five years complements our five-year IT replacement plan."

Since his initial purchase, Justin has bought around 300 PCs and laptops from Stone, including Stone PC Lite desktops with Iiyama monitors, Stonebook Pro laptops for staff and Stonebook Mini devices for students. He's been delighted with the experience.

"I can't emphasise how important it is for us to have Stone expertise at the end of the phone and on-site if I need it," said Justin. "We are a small team, so we rely on high-level professional support.

"Stone engineers offer superb telephone support and will also come to the school quickly if there are any issues. Quite frankly without this level of support we would not be able to function as efficiently as we do. I see Stone as an extension of our in-house team."

Stone Equinox server provides excellent value for money

Having proved itself as a reliable provider of PCs, notebooks and support services, it made sense for Justin to talk to Stone when he was looking to replace its VMWare vSphere system. Stone suggested its own Equinox product, which tackled the school's immediate needs while keeping pace with the school's evolving requirements.

Stone Equinox uses the latest Intel® technologies and provides a hyper-converged solution at a fraction of the cost of most competing products.

The Equinox platform is also available with Virtualisation Support Services (VSS), which allowed Justin and his team to offload the platform's ongoing configuration, maintenance, and management to Stone, which freed them up to concentrate on more focused service delivery tasks.

Justin explained: "When Stone first suggested Equinox it was something of a curveball - I was expecting a well-known brand. Equinox is very much a Stone solution and the price seemed too good to be true. However, having purchased other Stone-branded equipment and been more than happy, I decided to trust Stone's advice. The specs were excellent and offered what I wanted, and I had every confidence."

Justin says he is delighted with the new server, which has performed extremely well. In addition, he has been very well supported by the team at Stone and said that "Stone was so confident in Equinox that they offered a free year of support - another example of Stone going the extra mile."

Before the switch from the old server to Equinox, a Stone engineer installed the hardware and remotely transferred data from one system to another.

"It's always a nail-biting moment when we do the transfer," said Justin. "However, everything was seamless. Stone worked over the weekend just in case of any downtime or disruption, but everything went smoothly and people working remotely were not disturbed."

The school's previous system ran on a virtual older version of Windows 2008, but Equinox uses Windows 2019 - and Justin explained that the new server and software deliver numerous benefits.

"Equinox has provided additional memory and quicker processors so that everything is faster than before," he adds. "However, the main benefit for me is that Equinox literally runs itself. There is no disruption, but I know if I did have any issues I can rely on Stone to sort them out.

"The server comes with a five-year warranty, but we were given the option of seven years which is good news for the budget and gives us two more years grace without having to refresh. That's a big deal for any school at the moment. Thanks Stone!"