You’ve navigated the procurement minefield, secured the budget, and levelled up your broadband. It feels like a victory, and it is. But upgrading your broadband without reviewing your internal infrastructure is essentially paying a ‘speed tax’ for performance you can’t actually use. If you want your schools to feel the speed you’re paying for – and comply with the Department for Education (DfE) standards - it’s time to look under the hood.
1. The DfE Digital Standards
The DfE have set clear Digital and Technology standards that MATs are expected to meet by 2030. Wireless and switching are two of the core six standards that the DfE want schools to achieve. If you’ve just upgraded your broadband, you’ve hit the first milestone, but the DfE standards for network switching, cabling, and wireless are the dependencies that make that broadband work. Ignoring these doesn’t just mean slow internet; it means your Trust is technically non-compliant with the baseline for modern education.
2. Get what you’re paying for
Fast internet doesn’t always mean fast classrooms. Your internet speed is only as fast as the slowest component in your network. The DfE now expects a minimum of 1Gbps connectivity to desktop devices and multi-gigabit for modern devices that require faster speeds, such as access points. If your current switches are old 100Mbps units, you are effectively throwing away bandwidth you are paying for.
3. Is your cabling holding you back?
Many MATs are still running on Cat 5e cabling. To truly maximise modern broadband, Cat6 or Cat 6A will help ensure your network can handle the traffic volume without overheating or dropping packets. The DfE standards expect Category 6A for copper cabling and OM4 for fibre backbones.
4. More than just speed
When the internet is fast, teachers are more likely to use high-definition video, AV/VR tools, and cloud-based collaboration simultaneously. The DfE expects schools to use Wi-Fi 7. The standards also mandate centralised management – if your IT teams has to log into 20 different access points individually to fix a dead zone, you aren’t just losing speed, you are losing expensive technician time.
Take our free Infrastructure Health Check
Upgrading your broadband is a fantastic first step, but it’s the internal network that carries that value back to the classroom. And by aligning your hardware lifecycle with your connectivity upgrades, you ensure that your Trust’s capital expenditure (CapEx) meets DfE compliance and translates into a frustration-free classroom.
That’s why we’ve created a free Infrastructure Health Check, a unique service for schools, local authorities and MATs – helping you build a clear picture of your digital readiness and where to focus. Take your health check now for a clear, expert view with personalised, jargon-free recommendations on your next steps.
