Paul works as the full time network manager at Newcastle Community High School (www.nchs.staffs.sch.uk) which in September 2007 gained science status and rebranded itself as NCHS - the science college. The school is near Newcastle under Lyme in Staffordshire and is at the bottom of the hill where Keele University is located. I look after a handful of servers (admin, curriculum, mail, internet access, bad words filtering etc) plus several hundred computers and laptops, nearly all running Windows XP, but modified for educational use and called RM Community Connect 3. This makes the network much easier to look after (especially as there is only just me!) and provides tools for controlling pupil and staff work areas, their internet access, their printer useage, network security and integrity and so on. We also have maybe a hundred different programs, ranging from Microsoft Office and Photoshop to more educational related ones like Logo and Multimedia Science School. Then there are all the scanners, digital cameras, multimedia ceiling mounted projectors, interactive whiteboards, printers, printers, printers, etc....!

Although I've been working for NCHS since the early ninties, I only went full time at the start of 2007. Before then I was also running the IT systems at Trentham High School (www.trentham.stoke.sch.uk) for two days a week. However as the years went by and more and more compuers and then laptops came into both schools it became impossible for me to keep up. I was overworked so badly that THS had to replace my two days a week with two full time technicians!

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