Coronavirus: Our Service & Business Continuity
Wed 11 March, 2020
We at Soft Egg thought it worthwhile to send out a correspondence on maintaining continuity of our business and services, should the COVID-19 epidemic escalate in the UK.
There are a few key areas we would like to address:
Teaching From Home
If things are to escalate and school closures become more of a requirement than a case by case assessment, there is the obvious concern around the impact on teaching and learning.
As nearly all schools supported by Soft Egg are utilising cloud-based email solutions by either Microsoft or Google, there are a number of options we are look at configuring to provide additional remote teaching capabilities.
Office 365
By utilising the built in Office 365 apps, in particular Microsoft Teams, we can setup collaborative teaching and learning solutions as well as video conferencing.
Your free education licensing from Microsoft covers pupils as well as staff so we can easily get everyone set up with accounts, if needed.
There are some slight exceptions to this based on your location and local authority so please get in touch if you wish to look in to this.
Google / GSuite
Like Office 365, GSuite has a number of built in apps to aid remote teaching and learning. From video conferencing with Hangouts to teaching using Google Classroom. There are a number of options to continue providing lessons to students.
Again, your free education licensing will cover all your needs, we may just need to setup pupil accounts if these are currently not in place.
With both these solutions there is some setup required however if you’re already a school using applications like Microsoft Teams or Google classroom then you should be able to seamlessly move to teaching remotely.
If you require any further information on any of these solutions, please let us know.
Business Continuity
As a business we are already well prepared to deal with the possibility of mass isolation, if things do escalate that far.
We are currently planning to treat things, in their worst case, like an office shutdown due to bad weather. We already have the capability for all our staff to work from home with our core systems and remote management tools being fully cloud based. Additionally, we can easily provide staff with access to VOIP Phone system to ensure the helpdesk is available to continue to provide support no matter the location the service desk staff are in.
If you require any additional information on this, or have any queries, please let us know.
If things are to escalate, we believe these keys areas will help to alleviate the strain on schools and provide the continuity to get through this potentially challenging period for the nation.
Useful Links
We are currently following the latest advice from UK Government on the following links:
Updates on COVID-19:
https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
Guidance for educational settings:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-educational-settings-about-covid-19
Educational resources
https://campaignresources.phe.gov.uk/resources/campaigns/101-coronavirus-/resources
https://campaignresources.phe.gov.uk/schools
Latest Department for Education information:
https://twitter.com/educationgovuk
https://www.facebook.com/educationgovuk/
As mentioned, with this current advice we will be continuing things like normal. We will be in touch if things change and we need to put in to place the described plan.
With any of this information, please get in touch if you have any queries.