What should schools ask their IT provider? A Guide for Multi Academy Trusts
What should schools ask their IT provider? A Guide for Multi Academy Trusts
What should schools ask their IT provider? A Guide for Multi Academy Trusts
Choosing the right IT provider for a school or Multi Academy Trust is one of the most consequential infrastructure decisions a leadership team will make. Get it right and technology becomes a genuine engine for teaching, learning, and school improvement. Get it wrong and you end up paying for a service that keeps the systems on but adds little else – a transactional relationship that never quite delivers on its early promise.
So what should schools actually be asking? And how do you tell the difference between a provider who truly understands education and one who is simply applying a standard business IT model to a school environment?
This conversation brings together L.E.A.D. IT’s Lee Jepson, Director of IT and Chris Edwards, Partnership Development Manager, recorded at MEET 2026 – L.E.A.D. IT’s annual education technology event, held this year in Derby. Between them, Lee and Chris work directly with schools and MATs day in, day out, sharing their combined perspectives on what great school IT provision really looks like – and the warning signs when it falls short.
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Chris Edwards, Partnership Development Manager at LEAD IT, sits down with Director Lee Jepson at MEET 2026 to discuss ed tech trends, the technology questions schools should be asking, and what genuinely education-first IT support looks like in practice.
Why the bar for school IT provision needs to be higher
Lee Jepson is direct about where the problem lies. Too many IT providers in education are operating on a model that has not kept pace with what schools actually need. The focus stays narrow: fix the fault, replace the hardware, close the ticket. It is a reactive approach – and for schools trying to get real value from their technology investment, it is not enough.
We’re not just boots on the ground, dropping kit off and walking away from it. It’s about adding that added value – getting the equipment in front of the teachers and showing them how to use it, and how it’s more embedded.
That distinction – between an IT provider who delivers kit and one who helps to truly embed technology into teaching – is central to L.E.A.D. IT’s identity. For Lee, the measure of success is not whether the network is up. It is whether the technology in a school is genuinely enriching what happens in the classroom.
Chris Edwards frames it in terms that any school leader will recognise: the question is not just whether your systems are working. It is whether your provider is actively helping to enrich your curriculum. Whether they are bringing ideas, connections and expertise to the table – not just engineers with laptops.
How do you enrich my curriculum? What systems have you got in place? Have you got VR headsets, 3D printing? Can you bring some support in from an ed tech innovator to show them how to use those applications and embed them into their curriculum?
That framing – placing curriculum impact at the centre of the IT conversation – is a useful benchmark for any school currently reviewing its provision. It moves the conversation away from service-level agreements and response times, and towards the question that actually matters: is this technology working for our teachers and students?
Teaching and learning, as Lee notes, is where the priority lies. Ed tech is not a bolt-on to education – it is increasingly embedded within it. That means the provider you choose needs to understand both sides of that equation.
Why the bar for school IT provision needs to be higher
What good looks like: the student test
One of the clearest indicators of an education-first IT provider is how they talk about students. Not as end users of a system, but as the reason the technology exists in the first place.
At the MEET 2026 event, students were not an afterthought. They were part of the event itself. A student performed a song they had written at the keyboard. Others spoke about their school day and what technology meant to them in practice. A group of students presented on how Magma Maths had supported their learning at Key Stages 1 and 2 – not a polished PR exercise, but a genuine account of what was helping and why.
For Lee, this was the highlight of the day.
I think my favourite part is the students being involved. Getting them to talk about how it’s supporting them is the priority.
It is a telling detail. An IT provider that centres the student experience – that asks what the technology is doing for learning, not just for the infrastructure – is thinking about education differently. That mindset shapes everything: how they recommend solutions, how they support teachers, and how they measure whether their work is actually making a difference.
Chris makes the same point from a different angle. When school CEOs and teaching staff can come together in the same space, speak to each other and to the suppliers who bring these technologies to life in the classroom, something valuable happens. The conversation shifts from procurement to partnership.
That range – leadership, practitioners, students and suppliers in the same room – reflects the kind of joined-up thinking that good school IT provision requires. Technology decisions made without teacher input rarely land well. Technology chosen without understanding what students actually need rarely makes a lasting difference.
Five questions every MAT should ask their IT provider
Grounded in LEAD IT’s experience working directly with schools and MATs, these are the questions that get to the heart of whether an IT provider is genuinely right for education – or simply repurposing a generic business IT model. A provider who understands schools should have clear, confident answers to all of them.
1. What added value do you bring beyond keeping things working?
A competent IT provider should, at a minimum, deliver reliable day‑to‑day operational support. That includes hardware and software support, network and infrastructure management, user support and troubleshooting, device lifecycle management, security patching, and ensuring core systems remain available and resilient. This is the baseline, not the differentiator.
The added value comes from what happens beyond operational stability. Does your provider actively help you make better use of technology to support teaching, learning and leadership priorities? Do they offer strategic guidance, staff training, proactive improvement planning, and informed recommendations that align IT investment with educational outcomes? If the service stops at reactive support alone, you are likely under‑served.
L.E.A.D. IT’s philosophy is built around this distinction. Keeping systems secure, reliable and well‑managed is essential – but it is only the foundation. The real value lies in working in partnership with schools and trusts to continuously improve how technology enables the classroom, supports staff and strengthens the wider organisation.
2. How do you help us embed technology into the curriculum?
There is a well-known problem in schools: teachers are often the last to learn how to use a new piece of technology, long after the students have figured it out. A good IT provider actively works against this pattern – through training, through hands-on demonstrations, and through building teacher confidence with new tools.
Ask your provider: do they have relationships with ed tech innovators? Can they bring in support to help staff understand and embed applications – whether that is VR headsets, 3D printing, or subject-specific learning platforms? At MEET 2026, students themselves presented on how tools like Magma Maths had supported their learning at Key Stages 1 and 2. That kind of student-voice evidence is exactly what good ed tech integration looks like in practice.
3. What is your cloud migration strategy for schools?
The single biggest shift in education IT right now, according to Lee, is the move away from on-premises servers and towards cloud infrastructure. This is not a trend – it is becoming the standard, and for good reason.
Cloud-based systems offer greater resilience, more flexible access for staff and students (including from home), and significantly reduced maintenance overhead. When evaluating a provider, ask specifically: do they have experience migrating school environments to the cloud? What does that transition look like in practice? What is the timeline and the support on offer?
4. How do you approach cyber security and data protection?
Cyber threats targeting schools have increased significantly in recent years. A responsible IT provider will have a clear answer to this question – not a vague reassurance, but a specific approach. Look for: a single sign-on solution that reduces password vulnerability, active cyber awareness training for staff and students, and robust infrastructure with tested recovery processes.
Cloud migration, done properly, brings these security benefits along with it. But it needs to be done right.
5. Can you show us examples of your work in similar schools?
Any IT provider worth considering should be able to point to real schools – ideally MATs of similar size and structure – where their approach has made a measurable difference. Ask for case studies, ask to speak with other school leaders, and ask what the relationship looks like two or three years in, not just at the point of sale.
Longevity and trust matter enormously in school IT. You are not just buying a service contract; you are choosing a long term strategic partner.
The ed tech trends shaping schools in 2026
Beyond the questions above, it is worth understanding the broader technology landscape so you can assess whether your provider is ahead of the curve or behind it. Based on Chris and Lee’s discussion from MEET 2026, here are the trends that matter most right now.
- Cloud migration is accelerating. The removal of on-premises servers is no longer a future plan for most schools – it is happening now. Providers who cannot support this transition confidently are falling behind.
- Cyber security is inseparable from infrastructure. Schools are high-value targets for cyber attacks. A modern IT provider treats security as embedded in every decision, not as an add-on service.
- Flexible access is a student-welfare issue. When students can access learning resources securely from home, it supports continuity, inclusion, and equity. Cloud infrastructure makes this possible.
- Ed tech needs human support to land. VR, 3D printing, AI-assisted learning tools – none of these deliver value if teachers do not feel confident using them. The hardware is only half the conversation.
- Student voice is growing in ed tech evaluation. At MEET 2026, students spoke about the tools that had made a real difference to their learning. The best schools are listening to that feedback and letting it shape procurement decisions.
Why L.E.A.D. IT created the MEET edtech event – and what it says about how we work
It is worth pausing on the fact that an IT company runs an event like MEET. It is not the obvious move for a managed service provider. But for L.E.A.D. IT, it is entirely consistent with our philosophy – and it says something important about how we see our role.
MEET 2026 brought together school CEOs, teaching staff, students, technology suppliers, keynote speakers and interactive sessions – all under one roof in Derby. It is, in Chris’s words, a space where schools can speak directly to the suppliers that bring these technologies to life in the classroom. Not a sales expo. Not a conference. Something more practical and more connected than either.
It’s a priority to keep having more and more schools come together in a larger quantity in a space where they can speak to the suppliers that bring those technologies to life in that classroom.
For Lee, the ambition behind MEET is the same ambition that drives LEAD IT’s day-to-day work: to be something more than a service desk. To be a genuine partner in how schools develop and use technology – one that understands the curriculum, the classroom and the people who work in both.
The fact that students are part of the event – performing, presenting, and sharing their experiences of learning with technology -is not a marketing flourish. It is the whole point. If the technology is not working for students, it is not working.
LEAD IT is not just an MSP. We are an education-first technology partner. For schools and MATs evaluating their options, that distinction matters more than it might first appear.
10 frequently asked questions: IT support for schools and MATs
A standard managed service provider (MSP) focuses primarily on keeping systems running – resolving technical faults, managing hardware, and maintaining infrastructure. An education-first IT provider does all of that, but also understands the curriculum context in which technology operates. They support teachers in using tools effectively, connect schools with relevant ed tech innovations, and measure their success not just by uptime, but by the impact on teaching and learning.
A good test is to ask: has our IT provider proactively brought us anything new in the last year? If the relationship is purely reactive – they simply fix things when they break – that is a sign you may be underserved. A strong provider should be ahead of the curve on cloud migration, cyber security and the latest ed tech developments, and should be actively helping you make the most of your technology investment.
Cloud migration means moving your school’s digital infrastructure – email, file storage, applications, and administrative systems – away from physical servers on-site and onto hosted platforms managed remotely. In practice, this means staff and students can access what they need from anywhere with an internet connection, your data is backed up and recoverable, and your school is less vulnerable to the kinds of hardware failures that can disrupt a whole day of learning.
A MAT needs to think at scale. Consistency of infrastructure across multiple schools, centralised management of licences and cyber security, and the ability to share resources and best practice between schools all become important factors. The right IT provider for a MAT should have demonstrable experience working across multi-site education environments, not just individual schools.
At minimum, schools should have: multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all staff accounts, a single sign-on system that reduces password risk, regular staff cyber awareness training, tested data backup and recovery procedures, and a clear incident response plan. Schools that have migrated to well-managed cloud environments typically have stronger baseline security than those relying on ageing on-premises infrastructure.
The most effective approach is hands-on, contextual training – not a one-off session, but ongoing support that embeds ed tech into teaching practice. This means IT providers working alongside teachers in the classroom, demonstrating tools in a curriculum context, and building relationships with ed tech specialists who understand how the technology serves learning objectives. Teacher confidence grows when training is relevant, practical, and followed up.
Beyond price and service-level agreements, ask: What added value do you bring beyond reactive support? How do you support the embedding of ed tech in the classroom? What is your approach to cloud migration and cyber security? Can you provide references from MATs of similar size? What does the relationship look like three years in? The answers will quickly distinguish providers who understand education from those who are simply repurposing a generic business IT model.
Evaluation is an area where many schools lack a clear process. A good starting point is to ask three questions: Are teachers using the tool with confidence, or is it being avoided? Are students engaging with it differently than they would without it? And can you point to any measurable change in outcomes or experience? The best ed tech providers will help you build this evaluation into the deployment from the start – not leave it as an afterthought. Student feedback is particularly valuable here; students are often the first to know whether a tool is genuinely useful or simply getting in the way.
Emerging technologies like VR and 3D printing have real curriculum applications – from design and engineering to geography field trips and history immersion. But they deliver value only when teachers are supported to use them confidently. The question to ask any IT provider is not just whether they can supply these tools, but whether they have the training and specialist support to help staff integrate them meaningfully into lessons.
Increasingly, the best schools are asking students what is working and what is not — and letting those answers inform technology decisions. At MEET 2026, students presented on tools that had genuinely helped their learning, including at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 level. This kind of student-centred evaluation is a healthy counterbalance to top-down procurement, and it tends to surface what actually makes a difference in day-to-day classroom life.
