Bristol, Bath, WSM, Yeovil, South West and UK

MULTI AWARD WINNING IT SUPPORT, SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES
School Broadband & Leased Lines
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"Soltech IT's filtered Shield broadband connection has increased speeds and produced cost savings for the school”
Lorraine Woollven, Headteacher, Churchill CE VC Primary School

Approved. Filtered Broadband and Leased Lines for Schools

Shield. Cost Effective Broadband
 
Shield Broadband for Education offers cost effective broadband solutions for schools, colleges and universities. 

When it comes to choosing a broadband solution for education, one of the biggest considerations is filtering. Schools have a responsibility to safeguard children from accessing potentially inappropriate or harmful material online. However, children still need to learn how to use the internet safely and that includes learning what to do when they access inappropriate content. 

No filtering system can ever be fully effective, or effective all of the time, however Shield's filtering solution ensures schools have the ability to satisfy relevant guidance, like Keeping Children Safe in Education.

Shield. Blocking Illegal Content
 
Shield ensures access to illegal content is blocked including blocking access to materials on the Child Abuse Images and Content (CAIC) list, provided by the IWF and materials on the police assessed list of unlawful terrorist content.
Shield. Monitoring and Reporting
 
Schools are required to monitor and report on user activity for both pupils and staff. Shield filtering provides  comprehensive monitoring and reporting with instant email notification. 

Monitoring can also be linked to your networks Active Directory providing and even more robust monitoring system.
Shield. Managing Inappropriate Material
 
Schools also need to manage access to inappropriate content, such as discrimination, extremism, self-harm, drug and substance abuse. 

Shield filtering also allows educational organisations the meet The Department for Education (DfE) requirement for schools to manage and have an appropriate level of filtering, as defined by UK Safer Internet Centre.

Shield Filtering. Keeping Pupils and Staff Safe in Education
 
  • SafeDNS and zVelo IWF Member / CAIC illegal content blocking
  • Police assessed list integration 
  • ICSA Labs certified firewall
  • Category filtering – I.E Discrimination, Extremism, Pornography and more
  • Age and role appropriate filtering
  • Ability to filter or deny access to specific content
  • SafeSearch for search engines – I.E Google, YouTube
  • Network level filtering
  • Monitoring, reporting and instant notification functionality
  • User and time based filtering (UBF/TBF)
  • Android, Apple Watch and iOS app notification and monitoring
  • Advance features of Shield filtering.
  • MAC and GeoIP filtering
  • Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) 
  • Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI)
  • Anti-Spoofing 
  • Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS) 
  • NAT mapping (inbound/outbound)
  • Guest network with captive portal
  • Virtual Private Network (VPN) functionality
  • HTTPS and Antivirus filtering
  • SSL encryption
IWF work internationally to make the internet a safer place. They help victims of child sexual abuse worldwide by identifying and removing online images and videos of their abuse. 
zvelo provides the industry’s most advanced categorisation and malicious detection for web content, traffic and connected devices. zvelo are an IWF member.
SafeDNS offer a wide selection of secure, fast and reliable solutions for content and web filtering. SafeDNS are an IWF member.
Enterprises worldwide rely on ICSA (International Computer Security Association) Labs to set and apply objective testing and certification criteria for measuring product compliance and performance.
The Hector’s World Safety Button™ is a child-activated safety tool which children can use if something on-screen upsets or worries them. A swimming Hector’s World™ character is displayed on the Hector Protector computer screen. A child can just click on Hector character, who then covers the screen with a beautiful underwater scene and gives the child a positive written message, while encouraging them to get adult help.

DfE Broadband Internet Standards

Broadband Internet Standards


Reliable broadband underpins teaching, safeguarding and everyday operations.


The Department for Education requires all schools and colleges to use a full fibre broadband connection, such as a leased line or fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP). This ensures the performance and reliability needed to support cloud-based services, online safety systems and digital learning tools.


Primary schools must meet a minimum speed of 100Mbps download and 30Mbps upload, while secondary schools and colleges are expected to have 1Gbps symmetrical connectivity. Where full fibre is not currently available, schools should have a documented plan to upgrade at the next contract renewal.


Resilience is a key consideration. Schools should operate a secondary broadband connection, preferably using a different technology, with automatic failover to maintain continuity of service. This must be complemented by a properly configured firewall and content filtering solution that meets safeguarding expectations outlined in Keeping Children Safe in Education.

Test Your Broadband Speed.

Broadband Speed Test

Reduce your Budget. Calculate your school broadband savings

  • What's needed from the school?

    Provide Soltech IT with your current filtered broadband costs and broadband connection speeds. (Test your broadband speed with our one click app link below)

  • Will costs reduce and speeds improve?

    Every school wants to reduce costs with ever decreasing budgets. However often the time, effort and understand of what's needed can make the task of reducing costs a none starter. 


    We'll take those hassels away from the school by carrying out the required investigations to source the very best speeds at the very best price, whilst ensuring the services provided meet regulatory requirements and OFSTED standards.


    98.2% of schools reduce costs by at least £327pa


    83.6% of schools reduce their costs by more than £750pa

  • What happens next?

    Once the school places it's order with us, our team of educational broadband engineers will seamlessly manage the entire implementation process, scheduling installation dates which meet with your approval, whilst ensuring all educational filtering and reporting standards are met.

  • So what do I do now?

    Let us know your current connection pricing and speeds.


    We'll provide the school with the most cost effective and best performing solution.

Calculate broadband saving

Speak to Soltech IT about your schools Broadband 
or Lease Line needs

Our IT Consultants and Account Managers are always happy to help
Get Your Free Consultation >

What schools say...

"Soltech IT's filtered Shield broadband connection has increased speeds and produced cost savings for the school. Staff recognise that the new connection provides greater safeguards and as their skills increase will be able to move forward and make use of cloud based teaching and learning, keeping the school ever evolving and able to utilise the latest online tools and technologies"

Lorraine Woollven, Headteacher, Churchill CE VC Primary School
“A powerful filtering and monitoring which complies with our safeguarding policies. Excellent value for money with significant savings when compared to our previous SWGFL and EXA Broadband connections.”
 
 Mr V Sheppard, ICT and SENCO Lead, Strawberry Line Federated Schools
Filtering. We Also Supply
Educational Filtering for 100Mb+ TrueSpeed School Connections
TRUESPEED NOW CONNECTING SCHOOLS TO ULTRAFAST BROADBAND 
FREE OF CHARGE 
Learn More
Broadband. We Also Supply
Schools Broadband and EXA Education Broadband
Shield Broadband. Performance. Security. Value.
Brochure Download
Speak to Soltech IT about your schools Broadband needs

Our IT Consultants and Account Managers are always happy to help
Get Your Free Consultation >

Meet the team

Luke Bowden

Senior IT Technician

Luke is an experienced member of the Soltech team having been with us since 2017. Luke has held a number of roles with in the company as his career has progressed throughout the years.. 


As a Senior IT Technician Luke not only gets involved in all forms of support and project installations, he also manages aspects of the IT department including scheduling and delivery of services.