Overall Purpose
Canford School is an independent boarding and day school set in over 150 acres near Wimborne, Dorset. The school is part of a growing schools grouping, with a multi-site Microsoft 365 environment spanning Canford and Dumpton School, with further expansion planned.
The IT department is central to supporting learning, administration, and the safe day-to-day operation of both schools. This is a senior, hands-on role with a strong focus on delivering excellent user-facing support to staff and students, and taking responsibility for the wider technology environment including network and cloud infrastructure.
Reporting to the ICT & Services Manager, the Senior IT Technician is the primary point of contact for IT support across the school. The postholder leads the day-to-day delivery of the IT helpdesk, ensures staff and students receive a high-quality, responsive service, and takes responsibility for user account management, endpoint devices, and technology in the classroom. The role also carries operational responsibility for network infrastructure and contributes to M365 administration and IT projects.
Key Duties and Responsibilities
1. User Support and Helpdesk
- Lead the delivery of the IT helpdesk and coordinate the first-line support team, acting as the senior escalation point for all staff and student IT requests and ensuring issues are triaged, prioritised, and resolved promptly and to a consistently high standard.
- Provide high-quality reactive and proactive IT support across the school, including classroom visits, walk-the-site checks, and responding to urgent requests during the school day.
- Own the helpdesk queue: triage, prioritise, assign, and track tickets through to resolution; report on trends and recurring issues to the ICT & Services Manager.
- Maintain regular, professional communication with users throughout the resolution of their logged issues.
- Test and provide IT support for internal and external school events, including presentations, open days, and visiting groups.
2. User Account and Onboarding Management
- Manage the full lifecycle of staff and student user accounts: creation, modification, and removal in line with school joining and leaving procedures.
- Provision and configure devices for new staff and students; ensure leavers' devices are collected, wiped, and returned to stock in accordance with data protection requirements.
- Administer M365 accounts including mailbox setup, licence assignment, group memberships, Teams provisioning, and SharePoint access.
- Maintain accurate records of user accounts, licences, and device assignments in the IT asset register.
- Liaise with HR and other departments to ensure timely processing of starters, movers, and leavers.
3. Mobile Device and Endpoint Management
- Take day-to-day responsibility for the management of school-owned devices including Windows laptops and desktops, iPads, and other mobile technology.
- Administer device enrolment, configuration profiles, app deployment, and compliance policies via Microsoft Intune for both Windows and iOS devices.
- Manage the iPad fleet across staff and student cohorts, including the ongoing staff pilot and any subsequent student roll-out, ensuring KCSIE-compliant filtering is maintained on all devices.
- Support and maintain all peripherals, printers, AV equipment, and classroom technology; carry out hardware maintenance including projector filter cleaning, bulb replacement, and cable management.
- Set up and decommission hardware following the school's procedures; keep the IT asset register accurate and current.
- Assist with managed print infrastructure and liaison with the school's print service provider.
- Manage the procurement of IT sundries and consumables required by the department, ensuring stock levels are maintained and purchases are processed in accordance with school purchasing procedures.
4. Staff Technology Training and Guidance
- Provide informal and structured guidance to staff on the effective use of school technology, including M365 applications (Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook), interactive displays, and classroom AV.
- Produce clear, accessible how-to guides and quick-reference documentation for common user tasks and self-service fixes.
- Identify recurring training needs from helpdesk data and raise these with the ICT & Services Manager.
- Support the onboarding of new staff with technology inductions, ensuring they are set up and confident with school systems from day one.
- Act as a positive, approachable technology champion, encouraging staff to make effective use of available tools.
5. Examinations IT Support
- Liaise with the Examinations department to plan and coordinate IT provision for each exam series, ensuring that laptop and printing requirements are identified, resourced, and met ahead of each session.
- Manage the deployment of IT resource for examinations, directing first-line support staff as required and ensuring devices are classroom-ready and any issues are resolved without disruption to candidates. The detailed hands-on responsibilities during examination periods are set out in Appendix A.
- Maintain oversight of examination IT procedures and records, ensuring the school’s provision is documented and remains compliant with JCQ requirements.
6. Microsoft 365 and Cloud Administration
- Assist in the administration of the M365 tenant including Exchange Online, Entra ID, SharePoint Online, Teams, Intune, and Purview Compliance.
- Carry out day-to-day M365 tasks including user provisioning, licence management, mailbox administration, and policy updates.
- Assist with Exchange Online hybrid configuration and on-premises Exchange 2019 relay maintenance.
- Contribute to M365 compliance and data governance activities as directed by the ICT & Services Manager.
7. Network and Infrastructure
- Support the monitoring and maintenance of the school network, including switching, wireless, VLANs, and FortiGate firewall systems.
- Carry out routine network checks and respond to infrastructure faults, escalating complex issues to the ICT & Services Manager or specialist third parties as appropriate.
- Assist in maintaining network security policies, firmware currency, and accurate network asset and VLAN IP registers.
- Liaise with third-party suppliers and support partners on network and security matters.
8. Documentation and Projects
- Create and maintain clear documentation for IT systems, user-facing procedures, and support processes.
- Contribute to IT projects as directed by the ICT & Services Manager, including infrastructure upgrades and group-wide initiatives.
- Support the roll-out of IT systems across group schools as the grouping expands.
- Support the ICT & Services Manager in the planning and delivery of IT projects across the Canford schools group, contributing technical expertise and ideas to drive service improvements and infrastructure developments.
Generic Responsibilities
All Canford School staff are expected to:
- Work in a safe and healthy manner and promptly report hazards or unsafe working practices.
- Be familiar with and comply with the school's Health and Safety Policy and Staff Handbook.
- Adhere to the school's policies and procedures on Child Protection and Safeguarding at all times.
- Keep personal IT skills and professional knowledge up to date.
- Work in a cooperative, diplomatic, and flexible manner as part of the school team.
- Foster and maintain positive working relationships with colleagues, pupils, and parents.
Safeguarding
Canford School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. All successful applicants will be required to undergo enhanced child protection screening including a DBS check, online checks, and satisfactory references.
All ICT and other equipment required by the individual to satisfy the demands of this Job Description will be provided by the school.
Appendix A – Examinations IT Support: Hands-On Responsibilities
During examination periods the Senior IT Technician will be required to work alongside first-line support staff to ensure IT provision is in place and running correctly. Given the volume of work involved across multiple exam sessions, this is a hands-on as well as a coordinating responsibility.
Examination Period – Hands-On Support
- Physically prepare, image, and test examination laptops ahead of each exam session, working with first-line staff to ensure all devices are ready for deployment in classrooms on time.
- Set up and check printing arrangements for examination materials, ensuring printers are operational, stocked, and tested before sessions begin.
- Be available on call during examination sessions to respond to technical faults quickly and minimise disruption to candidates.
- Collect, check, and store examination devices after each session; ensure consumables are replenished and equipment is ready for subsequent sessions.
Procurement and Purchase Order Management
The Senior IT Technician is the first point of contact for day-to-day IT ordering within the department. This covers routine consumables, sundries, and small equipment needs, ensuring the team has what it needs without delay.
- Keep an eye on stock of everyday IT items — cables, peripherals, printer consumables, batteries, and similar — and reorder before supplies run low.
- Raise purchase orders for routine departmental purchases, ensuring the correct supplier and cost code are used and the order is passed to the ICT & Services Manager for sign-off where required.
- Check deliveries against orders when goods arrive and pass paperwork to Finance promptly; let the ICT & Services Manager know if anything is missing or incorrect.
- Keep a straightforward record of what has been ordered and spent so the ICT & Services Manager can track the department budget easily.
For anything outside routine consumables or above the agreed spend limit, flag the need to the ICT & Services Manager rather than ordering independently
Knowledge / Experience
- IT qualification (e.g. BTEC, vocational or degree level) or equivalent practical experience (E)
- Relevant technical certifications (e.g. Microsoft 365, Intune, networking) (D)
- Commitment to ongoing professional development (E)
- Substantial hands-on IT support experience, including acting as a senior escalation point (E)
- Experience leading or coordinating a helpdesk / first-line support function (E)
- Experience administering Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online, SharePoint, Teams, Entra ID) (E)
- Experience managing Windows and iOS / iPad devices through an MDM such as Microsoft Intune (E)
- Knowledge of network infrastructure such as switching, wireless, VLANs and firewalls (any vendor; FortiGate currently in use) (D)
- Experience supporting IT for examinations and awareness of JCQ requirements (D)
- Knowledge of a school MIS and the education environment (D)
- Understanding of data protection and safeguarding / KCSIE filtering requirements (E)
- Excellent written and verbal communication at all levels (E)
- Strong organisational skills, with the ability to triage, prioritise and plan effectively (E)
- Good analytical and problem-solving skills (E)
- Ability to produce clear user documentation and deliver training and guidance (D)
- Able to work on own initiative and as part of a team (E)
- Calm, approachable and professional manner that instils confidence in users (E)
- Energetic, enthusiastic and committed, with strong attention to detail (E)
- Willingness and enthusiasm to develop further (E)
- Flexibility to work occasional evenings and weekends (E)
- Willingness to travel to group schools as required (E)
We are committed to equity, diversity and inclusion in our workplace and encourage applications from a diverse range of suitable qualified candidates
Canford School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
All successful job applicants will be required to undergo child protection screening.
