Primary
Schools
The ongoing energy crisis is impacting almost every industry due to escalating costs, none more so than the education sector.
Schools have been through a tough time recently. Per-pupil funding fell by 9% between 2010 and 2020 and having just about navigated their way through the last acute crisis of the pandemic, the next is already upon them.
Undoubtedly, headteachers will have been spending the summer months recasting budgets, working out what cuts can be made to accumulate for rising energy costs without having a negative impact on their pupils.
For most, these budgeting tactics to cover the increasing prices are simply not available and some are already saying they may be required to turn off IT equipment to conserve energy. Allowing this to happen would be a travesty to the progress made to digitise classrooms over the past decade.
The energy crisis has accelerated the importance of buying greener and more energy-efficient tech. Already, the DfE is following a sustainability and climate change strategy which highlights, “the area we have most work to do is reducing our environmental footprint, particularly in the drive to achieve net zero”.
In April, when the first cost increase in energy was enforced, schools and colleges were looking into greener tech solutions to reduce overall energy consumption and expenditure. Now with the more recent rise in costs, it’s further enhanced the need for better, more efficient technology.
The good news is we’ve been hard at work to find solutions that reduce your energy bills. We believe pupils should still have access to the best technology and teaching methods, all while reducing energy consumption and costs. We’ve done our research into the energy difference between a traditional projector system and a new Clevertouch interactive screen. You can use our energy calculator to estimate your savings over a typical school year.
By replacing just one projector system you will save up to 896.8kWh over a 38-week school year. This results in a cost saving of up to £400 per year, which is quite staggering when you consider that the upgrade in technology will not only benefit teaching and learning but also push you towards your sustainability goals.
Not only is the data there to support upgrading to greener tech, but the features of Clevertouch screens add to this too. Jack Garratt, Head of IT at Benton Park School, explains “We’re very hot on sustainability at our school. A big bugbear of mine was going into rooms and finding projectors left on at 16:30 and nobody had been in there for hours.
With our new Clevertouch screens, I know that none of these can be left on overnight because they all automatically switch off at 16:00, which saves us a lot of wasted energy.”
As you can see, there are a lot of ways schools can benefit from replacing their old and out-of-date projector systems with the latest technology. To find out how much you could save from a cost and energy perspective, follow this link.
