Most schools think about IT support in terms of “Can they fix things when they break?” But the Department for Education just raised the bar.

On 19 November 2025, the DfE added IT Support as the 12th standard in their Digital and Technology Standards framework, repositioning IT support as a strategic partner in your school’s digital transformation.

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The Five IT Support Standards

According to the DfE’s guidance, schools must ensure IT support meets five specific standards:

Standard 1: Make sure IT support helps you meet the digital and technology standards

IT support must actively contribute to meeting all six core Digital Standards (broadband, wireless networks, network switches, cyber security, filtering/monitoring, and digital leadership). This isn’t optional participation for schools, it’s a set of defined responsibilities that must be met by 2030.

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Standard 2: Make sure IT support actively maintains and improves your digital technology in line with your digital strategy

IT support must understand and work within your documented digital technology strategy, and support your strategic planning.

You are advised to keep an up-to-date record of all IT support services your school uses, including who provides them and what they cover. This will help you understand how your technology is supported and make more informed decisions about priorities and investment.

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Standard 3: Make sure your IT support is responsive and meets agreed service expectations

Most IT support organisations will provide key performance indicators and share service level agreements that outline clear, documented service expectations covering:

• Response and resolution times
• Priority levels for different issues
• Escalation procedures for complex problems
• Clear support channels
• Tracking and recording all support requests
• Regular reviews of service performance

If you use external suppliers for IT support, check your contract to understand the service levels they’re required to provide. This will help you set realistic expectations and avoid unnecessary costs.

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Standard 4: Review your IT support at least once a year

The Digital Leadership and Governance Standard reinforces this requirement as it states that schools should ‘have a digital technology strategy that is reviewed every year’.  This annual review should assess:

• How well IT support helps meet Digital Standards
• Whether support meets your needs and supports digital strategy
• If IT support has the right skills and capacity
• Value for money and contract effectiveness
• Procurement compliance and budget alignment

Findings will need to be reported to governors/trust board to inform decisions about contracts, procurement and investment.

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Standard 5: Make sure staff get clear guidance and training on using technology

Training staff to use technology safely, securely and effectively helps them make better use of it to support teaching, learning and school management and so your IT support must contribute to:

• Induction training for new staff
• Regular cyber security awareness training
• Clear documentation and self-service guidance
• Training when new technologies are introduced
• Maintaining technical documentation for business continuity

As the DfE states, “Having effective IT support is essential to maintain your school, plan improvements and enable your digital technology strategy.”

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Who this standard applies to:

The standard intentionally covers all IT support models:

Internal Support: Staff members or teams employed directly by your school or MAT. This might be a single network manager, a small IT team, or technicians across multiple sites.

External Support: Services provided by outside companies, managed service providers, or local authorities. This covers everything from break-fix contracts to comprehensive managed services.

Hybrid Models: Combinations of internal and external support, which many schools use, perhaps an internal technician supplemented by external specialist support.

Regardless of which model you use, the same five standards apply.

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A strategic overhaul

Previous digital standards focused on infrastructure, broadband speeds, wireless coverage, network architecture, security protocols. Those are technical specifications that can be measured and verified objectively.

This standard is different as it’s about relationships, processes, and strategic alignment.

For example, the first standard requires schools to, “Make sure IT support helps you meet the digital and technology standards.” This assumes your IT support understands the six core standards, knows how your school currently performs against them, is identifying gaps that need addressing, and is actively working to close those gaps. That goes beyond your normal break-fix technician work, and more like strategic consultancy.

And how about the requirement for annual reviews to be reported to governors? This positions IT support as a strategic service requiring governance oversight similar to curriculum provision or safeguarding.

The DfE isn’t just setting technical standards here. They’re defining what professional IT support in education looks like.

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Why this matters now:

The timing of this standard follows several significant developments in education technology:

DfE Cyber Security Standards: Schools now have specific cyber security requirements. IT support must actively contribute to meeting these, not just react when breaches occur.

Connect the Classroom Programme: Government funding for digital infrastructure upgrades means more schools are making significant technology investments. The DfE wants assurance that IT support can properly manage these investments.

MAT Digital Transformation: Multi-academy trusts increasingly operate central digital strategies across multiple sites. IT support must align with these strategic approaches, not work in isolation.

Growing IT Support Market: The education IT support market has expanded significantly, with varying quality levels. This standard provides schools with clear criteria for evaluating providers.

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How much could non-compliance cost your school?

Ok, so if your IT support doesn’t meet the standard, there isn’t an inspection specifically checking IT support arrangements, but non-compliance does have costs:

Strategic Risk: If IT support doesn’t understand or contribute to meeting Digital Standards, your school won’t meet those standards. That creates compliance risks with other DfE requirements.

Operational Risk: Without clear service expectations, documented response times, and tracked requests, you lack evidence of IT support effectiveness. When systems fail, you can’t demonstrate you had appropriate support arrangements.

Financial Risk: Annual reviews identify whether IT support offers value for money and whether contracts should continue. Without structured reviews, schools often continue inadequate arrangements simply because “that’s what we’ve always done.”

Governance Risk: Governors and trust boards need assurance that major operational services like IT support meet professional standards. Without annual reviews and clear performance data, they can’t provide this oversight.

The DfE’s guidance on this is clear: “Without effective IT support, your school or college is more vulnerable to risks, such as outages and cyber security incidents. These can cause systems to be offline for long periods, make important data unavailable and disrupt core functions, potentially leading to temporary closure.”

This is a fact as schools have closed due to cyber-attacks that effective IT support could have prevented. This standard provides the framework to demonstrate your IT support is genuinely effective.

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What this means for procurement:

Schools procuring new IT support contracts (or reviewing existing ones) now have a clear DfE framework for evaluation.

For RFP/Tender Processes: Requirements should explicitly reference the five IT Support Standards. Bidders should demonstrate how they’ll meet each standard, not just provide general capability statements.

You could ask these specific questions:

• How do you help schools meet the six core Digital Standards?
• What qualifications and certifications do your engineers hold?
• What is your process for aligning support with our digital technology strategy?
• How do you document and track support requests?
• What are your proposed service level agreements and response times?
• How do you conduct annual reviews and report to school governance?
• What training and guidance do you provide to school staff?

For Existing Contracts: Review your current contracts against the five standards. Identify gaps between what your contract states and what the DfE expects.

Many older IT support contracts focus purely on technical service delivery, E.g. “Provider will maintain network infrastructure and respond to support tickets.” They say nothing about strategic alignment, Digital Standards contribution, or governance reviews.

Contract renewal presents the opportunity to require mandatory compliance with the IT Support Standard.

For Internal IT Teams: If you employ internal IT staff, this standard provides a clear job description framework as your IT support roles should include:

• Contributing to Digital Standards compliance
• Maintaining asset and activity registers
• Working within digital technology strategy
• Meeting documented service expectations
• Conducting annual reviews
• Providing staff training and guidance

Performance appraisals should also assess performance against these criteria.

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IT Support and Digital Leadership and Governance Combined

Digital strategy sets direction, IT support delivers against that strategy, annual reviews assess effectiveness, governance provides oversight.

Schools attempting to implement digital transformation without effective IT support will struggle to demonstrate progress or justify investment.

Combined, the standards provide:

• A documented digital technology strategy reviewed annually
• Regular reporting to governors/trust board on digital technology
• Clear leadership responsibility for digital transformation

Practical Implementation Steps

Step 1 (February 2026): Document exactly what IT support you currently have, internal staff, external contracts, hybrid arrangements. Create a register of who provides what services.

Step 2 (March 2026): Establish clear service expectations. Document response times, priority levels, escalation processes. Even basic documentation is better than informal arrangements.

Step 3 (April 2026): Assess whether IT support has appropriate qualifications. For external providers, request evidence of certifications. For internal staff, identify training needs.

Step 4 (May 2026): Review IT support’s contribution to Digital Standards. Identify which standards IT support actively contributes to and where gaps exist.

Step 5 (Summer 2026): Conduct first formal annual review. Use findings to inform budget planning and contract decisions for 2026/27.

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The Dataspire Approach

We’ve built our managed service model specifically around these principles and not just because the DfE standard was created, but because this is what effective education IT support requires.

Strategic Digital Standards Alignment: Every Dataspire engagement begins with assessment against all six core Digital Standards. We identify gaps, prioritise fixes and repairs, and build roadmaps aligned with your budget and strategic priorities.

Proactive Maintenance and Improvement: Proactive monitoring identifies issues before they disrupt teaching and learning. Monthly reliability reports demonstrate upward performance trends. Regular health checks prevent problems rather than just reacting to failures.

Clear Service Documentation: Documented SLAs covering response times, resolution processes, escalation procedures. Every support request tracked from initial report through resolution. Monthly service reports showing performance against agreed expectations.

Annual Strategic Reviews: Structured annual reviews assess IT support effectiveness, identify technical and strategic gaps, evaluate value for money, and provide governance reporting suitable for trust boards and governors with lighter reviews each term.

Staff Training and Guidance: Induction training for new staff, regular cyber security awareness training, clear documentation and self-service resources, training when new technologies are introduced.

Appropriate Qualifications: Education sector specialists with school operational experience, regular continuing professional development.

Most importantly, we’ve been doing this for 20 years and have delivered over 100 projects for the DfE so we know exactly what it takes to deliver digital strategy and compliant IT support. The DfE’s IT Support Standard reinforces what we’ve always believed, IT support should be a strategic partner in digital transformation, not just a technical outsider.

If your current IT support relationship doesn’t align with these principles, the new standard provides clear framework for what you should expect instead.

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Looking Ahead

The IT Support Standard is new as it was only published in November 2025. Many schools aren’t yet aware it exists, let alone actively implementing it.

That creates both risk and opportunity.

Risk: Schools continuing with IT support arrangements that don’t meet the standard will face increasing pressure as awareness grows. When something goes wrong, a major outage, a cyber incident, a failed Ofsted inspection citing inadequate digital infrastructure, lack of compliance with the IT Support Standard will be difficult to defend to governors.

Opportunity: Schools implementing the standard now position themselves ahead of expectations. They can demonstrate professional governance of their IT services, reduce operational risks, and build a foundation for digital transformation.

This term is the ideal planning window before budgets are confirmed and summer projects are locked in with IT suppliers.

Now is the time to assess your IT support against these five standards.

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IT Support You Can Trust

Whe you begin reviewing your IT Support, consider Dataspire. We’ve been supporting schools with their IT since 2005.

We work with primary schools, secondaries and multi-academy trusts across the UK, providing managed IT services, cybersecurity and digital transformation support that’s built around how schools actually work.

When you’re ready, we’re here. No sales pitch, just a conversation with people who understand schools.

Sources:

• DfE: IT Support Standards for Schools and Colleges
• DfE: Meeting Digital and Technology Standards in Schools and Colleges
• DfE: Digital Leadership and Governance Standards
• DfE: Plan Technology for Your School service
• Academy Trust Handbook procurement guidance