RM announces a new five year extension with the WMG Academy Trust

WMG Academy Trust awards RM (@RMEducation) a five-year contract extension to help deliver world class technology to their students, teachers and administration staff

RM, a leading supplier of technology solutions to the education sector, today announced a five-year extension to its long-standing IT managed services contract with WMG Academy Trust, a Multi-Academy Trust in the West Midlands focussed upon science, technology engineering and maths.

WMG Academy Coventry and WMG Academy Solihull are University Technical Colleges offering qualifications – including GCSE, BTEC and A-level – for approximately 850 students aged 14-19 with an interest in STEM subjects. Through partnerships with the University of Warwick and local businesses such as Jaguar Land Rover they offer their pupils a unique careers-focussed education

The Trust has worked with RM as its technology partner from its inception, seven years ago.  As that contract neared its end, the Trust embarked on a new competitive tender – run by an independent procurement consultant – to select the right technology partner to continue to support their IT managed services for the next 5 years, and selected RM again.

WMG Academy were looking for a partner to support them on the next stage of their journey to adopt cloud-based infrastructure and services across the Trust.  The pandemic had shown them some of the benefits from working remotely – offering a consistent user experience across multiple sites for their staff and students to access school systems whether they were in the classroom or learning remotely – and wanted to take this one stage further.

John Baskerville, Managing Director of RM comments:

“Renewing contracts like this is not a process that starts when the tender comes out – it begins on the day we start providing the original service.  I believe WMG Academy selected us again because of the strong relationship built up over the last 7 years with both their teaching and management team, as well as our partnership approach that reassured them that we could be relied upon to anticipate and deliver what they needed.  Ultimately, I feel that our education heritage enables us to understand what is important to a Trust like this, and our uniting purpose – to enrich the lives of learners worldwide – truly resonated with them”.

Kate Tague, Executive Principal of WMG Academy Trust, said:

“Reliable IT underpins everything we do at WMG Academy.  As a technology-focussed organisation we’re always looking to the future and it was this approach that allowed us to switch seamlessly to online learning during lockdown.  We are delighted to be working with RM for another five years to help us continue to deliver our strategy as a forward-thinking Trust providing first-class education to the engineers, scientists and business leaders of the future.”

As an organisation, WMG Academy rely on technology in teaching and learning as their courses require large amounts of typed work to be submitted digitally as well as for engineering drawings and modelling – with almost every lesson delivered involving IT.  In the next phase of the relationship, WMG Academy were keen to develop this further – from providing one-to-one computer devices for all students, through to offering all students – who are all at least 14 years of age – a blended approach to learning, more akin to a University style self-study approach.

Above all they were looking for a partner who would assist them in delivering world class technology to their students, teachers and administration staff.  An organisation that could both advise them on IT strategy, whilst proactively fixing things before they went wrong.

As part of the contract, RM employs five people in the local community, and whilst a company of this size relies on staff across the globe to support a customer of this size, these people will continue to remain in the West Midlands for the duration of this contract.

A Case Study on how RM worked with WMG Academy Trust in supporting their students’ continuous learning during the pandemic can be found on the RM website.

For more information on how RM could support your school or trust, visit rm.com/education.