How a North East Council Modernised IT for 200+ Schools
For many local councils and educational trusts, managing school IT infrastructure feels like a constant battle against time, aging hardware, and tightening budgets. The Council recently found themselves at this exact crossroads. Tasked with supporting over 200 primary and secondary schools, their legacy onsite hardware was failing, and the operational overhead was becoming unsustainable.
Here at Cyber Distribution, as the UK representatives for Cambium Networks and Securly, we partnered with the Council to completely overhaul their approach. We helped them move away from a support-intensive, costly onsite setup to a streamlined, cloud-based solution.
Here is how we achieved it, and why other councils should take note.
The Challenge: Failing Hardware and Safeguarding Fatigue
The Council’s legacy setup relied on onsite hardware-based Smoothwall proxy web filters. This approach was creating severe challenges on two fronts:
The IT Operational Drain: The hardware was persistently failing. Council IT staff were consuming hours every week simply travelling between school sites to replace hard drives in the Smoothwall devices. It was the definition of a “sticky plaster” approach—constantly fixing the symptoms rather than curing the underlying problem. With hardware replacement and renewal quotes looking expensive and well beyond council budgets, the current path was financially unviable.
The Safeguarding Blindspots: From a safeguarding perspective, the legacy technology was falling behind. It relied on outdated keyword scanning, which flooded Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) with false positive alerts. The reports generated were difficult to understand and lacked vital student context. Furthermore, with AI tools rapidly entering the educational space, the old system offered no controls to safely manage or monitor the use of AI, presenting a massive challenge for KCSIE compliance.
The council needed a solution that would eliminate the hardware headache, drastically reduce support overhead, and bring their safeguarding capabilities into the modern, AI-driven era.
The Solution: A Perfect Pairing of Cambium Networks and Securly
Working closely with the Council, Cyber Distribution designed a completely cloud-based, centralized solution that addressed every pain point without breaking the budget.
Cambium Networks NSE: Industry-Aligned Security with No Subscription Costs
When evaluating replacements, cost was a primary driver. We selected the Cambium Networks NSE firewall because it is the only cloud-managed firewall solution offering industry-aligned security features with zero annual subscription costs.
Beyond the immediate budget relief, the NSE is incredibly simple to deploy, install, and configure. This agility gave the Council the ability to rapidly swap out a failed Smoothwall device and instantly onboard the new filtering solution, minimizing disruption to the schools.
Securly: DNS-Based Safeguarding and the Safe Use of AI
With the network secured, we implemented Securly’s cloud-native, DNS-based safeguarding solution. This rapid onboarding replaced the noise of keyword scanning with intelligent, context-aware monitoring.
- Securly AIChat: Instead of forcing schools to block AI entirely or leave it unmonitored, Securly includes AIChat as part of its filtering product. This feature allows schools to put suitable controls on what can be asked of AI, ensuring safe use while still providing students with guidance and support where needed.
- Smarter Alerts: False positives dropped dramatically, saving DSLs hours of wasted time and allowing them to focus on genuine concerns.
- Clearer Reporting: Schools now receive actionable reports with the vital student information they were previously missing, keeping them fully aligned with DfE KCSIE guidelines.
The Result: Empowered Schools and Liberated IT
By replacing failing, on-premise hardware with the perfect pairing of Cambium Networks and Securly, the Council has achieved a massive operational win.
They have completely eliminated the hours wasted driving between 200+ schools to replace hardware. They have empowered their safeguarding teams with modern tools that cut through the noise. Most importantly, they have provided their schools with a secure, cloud-based environment that embraces modern education and AI safety—all while staying well within tight council budgets.
Are You Facing the Same Hardware Headaches?
If your council or educational trust is struggling with aging onsite web filters, rising renewal costs, and the growing challenge of managing AI in the classroom, you do not have to settle for “sticky plaster” fixes.
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