The company
Based in Cambridge UK, Precedence Technologies provides products and services for schools and businesses across the UK who want to get more out of their networks and websites. Formed in March 1999, Precedence Technologies had a strong customer base at its inception following the inheritance of products from its founder's previous employer. Historically, our focus has been UK education and we know of no other supplier with such a wide ranging knowledge of both historical and modern educational ICT equipment, from both a support and a development point of view. We won't tell you to throw away equipment that is serviceable and educationally relevant.
Many of our products and services are based on leading open-source technologies, bringing you powerful, secure solutions at sensible prices. This also means we can provide an excellent support service, of which we are justifiably proud.
With our staff having been involved in the first thin-client system in UK education in 1997, we have unparalleled experience in Citrix and thin-client technologies and their application to education. We are Citrix-certified for the sale and administration of server, desktop and application virtualisation solutions and have been since 1998.
We've helped develop some major e-commerce sites, creating custom CGIs, tools, tailored shopping carts and much more in C, Java and PHP.
Precedence Technologies Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 3725626.
Mission Statement: We aim to provide well-supported, low-maintenance systems by working in conscientious partnership
We aim to provide the best support possible. We strongly encourage remote server administration so, in many cases, problems can be fixed as soon as an email or phone call is received.
Education is seen by many suppliers as a get-rich-quick scheme. We won't sell you things you don't need. We won't tell you to throw away equipment that is serviceable and educationally relevant. We are sad to see many schools throwing away perfectly good hardware. In a lot of cases, the replacement does not offer as many facilities and costs more. We have seen PC suppliers who have reduced the ICT provision at schools to a fraction of what it was previously in terms of reliability, support, connectivity and security (email/web access, for instance) in the name of progress.
By being conscientious and providing well-supported, low-maintenance networks, we strive to work together with schools and businesses to develop their ICT over a number of years. Our products are enhanced in response to customer feedback and requests. Because of our flexible systems and custom development, we can build software tailored to your individual needs.
We are located on the left-hand side of Union Lane when driving from the Milton Road end. The driveway is opposite the hospital and is clearly signed on the entrance. Our office is set back from the road through a gateway.
Cranbourne Business and Enterprise College
Clackmannanshire Council maintains nineteen primary, three secondary, four nursery and two special schools along with two pupil support services. John Munro, Clackmannanshire Education IT Team Leader, is one very satisfied customer of Precedence Technologies and this is what he had to say about the NetManager package:
"I have been using server solutions from Precedence Technologies since their development in the Xemplar Network Computer systems of the mid 1990s. Two years ago we upgraded to the Precedence NetManager, which provides e-mail and web services to the 8,000 users (students, teachers and administrators) across Clackmannanshire, using a wide range of different computers and software to access the system. The stability of the software throughout that time has always been very impressive: it just sits there and works.
"One of the key factors with any software, particularly one dealing with this number of clients, is the support that you get. And the support we have had from Precedence Technologies has been first class; it was a major factor in deciding to use their NetManager when developing a solution for our schools.
"The system is based on a very sound architecture and is extremely flexible. Indeed it is a feature of Precedence Technologies that they are willing to create solutions tailored to your local needs rather than simply deliver a black box and let you get on with it. The ongoing development of the system has seen a big improvement to the range of management tools available and these are complemented by the overall functionality, excellent support and keen pricing.
Unlike most ICT suppliers, we personally actively develop our products. As such, we are ideally placed to customise the products we supply or even do contract development. Try going to a regular PC supplier and asking them to do the same! As an example, for one of our schools, we have developed a pupil behaviour monitoring system which is completely web-driven.
Springfields School is a school for children with behavioural problems. They have a NetManager and its email filtering has proved very useful. In many schools, a system is in place to put pupils "on report" whereby a report card is filled out at the end of each lesson. At Springfields, every single pupil is on report! Both positive and negative behavioural aspects are recorded. Each pupil is given a number of codes per day (as many as 30-40) each of which correspond to an issue (such as "Physical abuse to staff" or "Completes extra work"). Each issue has a points value (-99 and +80 in the above examples). Until recently, someone had to enter all these points by hand into a spreadsheet which was a major task. Pupils had no way of seeing how they were doing and it was a long and tedious process generating reports for parents. With our help, they entered the information age and can now do the entire job on-line.
Wendy Hall, ICT Coordinator, comments, "The new system has really worked. It has made the children much more aware of where they are and their level of behaviour, it can really help to change behaviour. Not only can we see the overall scores and trends, but we can also see the predominant type of behaviour and this helps in planning strategies to improve the situation."