Free school broadband
Founded in 2014 on a community-focused ethos, Truespeed keeps people at the heart of everything we do. Designed to leave a broadband legacy across the South West that communities can benefit from for generations to come, Truespeed proudly connect local schools and community hubs passed by our ultrafast network to free broadband for life. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce 50 schools are set to receive free full-fibre broadband for life.
Staff and students at 50 rural schools in the BANES (Bath and North East Somerset) and Somerset local authority areas are set to benefit from free ultrafast broadband connectivity for life, ensuring school-age children have fast, reliable internet access to support their education. Reliable broadband is vital in modern education, with curriculums relying on internet access to carry out effective classroom and home-based learning.
Truespeed believes every child has the right to reach their full potential when it comes to learning and pupils shouldn’t be put at a disadvantage simply because of their postcode. Many schools in rural areas or hard-to-reach and complex-to-connect cities have been left behind when it comes to connectivity, meaning they’re unable to utilise the full extent of the web to boost their learning and overarching education. With the ever-increasing shift in online curriculums, schools having access to full-fibre, reliable broadband has never been more vital.
Marksbury School, Abbot’s Way School and Churchill Academy are already connected to Truespeed’s gigabit-capable broadband service. And all 31 schools that make up the Bath & Wells Multi Academy Trust will come on stream soon, ensuring 7,800 pupils and over 1,400 staff benefit from our multi award-winning service. Reliable, ultrafast broadband is now a must-have for schools as they rely on digital technologies and cloud-based storage and services to plan and teach the curriculum. Many schools also rely on email as a cost-effective and efficient way to keep in touch with parents.
Julie Player, Head Teacher at Marksbury C of E Primary School, said, “Truespeed’s ultrafast broadband service has transformed school life for pupils and staff. Before we went live with this service our broadband connectivity was so unreliable that we couldn’t really rely on online learning resources. Now teachers can now make the most of cloud-based storage for lesson planning, as well as a whole host of valuable cloud-based teaching aids accessible via interactive smart boards during lessons. Pupils also get to do more real-world learning in class – an important part of the curriculum – by using school iPads to access the internet and connect with local businesses. We have also been able to resurrect our dedicated ICT lessons.”
Broadband in education is no longer a nice to have, it’s a necessity. Too many teachers are having to contend with unreliable classroom connectivity, which is not only hugely time consuming, but incredibly disruptive as pupils’ attention quickly begins to drift. We can’t ignore the necessity for capable connectivity outside of the classroom either. The need for secure, reliable and future-proof broadband that’s paramount in providing a sound learning platform goes far beyond technology-enriched curriculums. For school administrators and finance departments, the internet and availability of agile, cost-effective software-as-a-service tools have revolutionised the day to day running of schools. Helped extend and improve communications with parents and carers and streamline processes with school contractors, suppliers and financial services.
Gareth Wright and Hellen Lush, Joint Heads at Abbot’s Way School, commented, “Abbot’s Way is a new forward-thinking specialist school near Glastonbury. The introduction of our Truespeed connection is a vast improvement, with speeds reaching 200Mbps. For our students, assistive technology is an essential resource, enabling them to explore, discover and thrive within the world of technology and support their general learning. The installation of a fast, reliable broadband service is crucial to any educational environment and we are very happy with the Truespeed service.”
Truespeed’s aim is to provide an ultrafast broadband network that will benefit the South West for generations to come. We firmly believe the South West should have the same opportunities as the rest of the UK when it comes to connectivity, and is why our work to close the digital divide is so important to us. The long-term prosperity of our future generations should be a top priority for telecoms providers, as access to the internet plays such a vital role in carving out our children’s future. With IT curriculums such as coding being introduced to primary school pupils, now is the time to truly focus on providing our education systems with a robust broadband infrastructure that allows pupils to flourish.
Evan Wienburg, CEO of Truespeed, added, “Our vision goes beyond delivering full fibre gigabit-capable broadband to businesses and homes in harder-to-reach areas; we’re also pledging free broadband for life to schools passed by our network. With our free service, teachers and school children in parts of the country left behind by the national providers are benefitting from reliable connectivity and ultrafast broadband speeds that are vital for education today.”
Truespeed is focused on connecting communities and all types of organisations located in harder-to-reach areas of the South-West underserved by the national broadband providers. Our community-focused ethos also extends to providing free broadband for life to local community hubs passed by our network.
If you know a school or community hub that would benefit from free broadband for life, simply contact us at ultrafast@truespeed.com or call us on 01225 300370 for more information.