Tarporley High School
 Communication is at the heart of education they say, and no more so than at Tarporley High School in Cheshire, thanks to a new telephone system from Avandda. A school refurbishment gave the school the opportunity to replace an antiquated phone system struggling to cope with the sheer volume of inbound traffic from suppliers, pupils, parents and staff.
Avandda carried out a thorough review of the likely requirements for the school, paying particular attention to the types of calls that were being received, what they concerned and how they were currently being handled. Particular 'bottlenecks' such as the morning calls to inform of pupils' absence, calls to teachers tied up in lessons, and calls to check on school events and pick up times, were all considered. It became clear that a more sophisticated system could alleviate a lot of these problems and allow school staff to get on with more productive activities.
Avandda recommended the introduction of ISDN lines and a Samsung OfficeServ system to improve functionality. This has allowed the school to have a much more sophisticated individual extension system with voice mail available not only to those on fixed extensions, but also the facility to maintain voice mail for each individual teacher, accessed by a small number of extensions within the staff room. This in particular has allowed a much closer dialogue between pupils and parents with relevant teachers when required.
The system also features an automated attendant system which allows incoming callers to be directed specifically either to an operator or to a number of automated services. For example, morning absences can now be left as voice mail messages on a dedicated answer phone and collected later by staff for analysis. Automated greetings can also providee 'virtual information', details of upcoming events, school trips information, diary dates etc. The introduction of ISDN has also improved Internet access to the school both for research and study but also allows the opportunity of video-conferencing with other schools, home and abroad, something increasingly popular for cultural and language studies.
Patrick Mee, Managing Director of Avandda, has been pleased with the success of the scheme. 'In the initial analysis, phone systems are seen as a necessary evil, but in the case of Tarporley School, we were able to demonstrate the real benefits of new generation systems, allowing much greater levels of staff utilisation, whilst also providing a much better service to parents and pupils. We are delighted to have been involved of the project and are convinced that other schools will be quick to follow suit.'
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