OneAndOneIs2

This is an appeal for information to all my geek readers (both of you ;o)

As you may remember, I was training as a science teacher a couple years ago. One of the schools I trained at, a very large one with nearly 2000 pupils and hundreds of members of staff, I stayed in touch with, and I've been hearing a few interesting things about their computer system lately.

Specifically, they'll be changing from a state school to an academy next academic year (i.e. this September) Without going into too much detail, this is kind of like privatisation of a school, it becomes owned and run by an outside organisation rather than by the state.

Naturally, they have a lot of computers in the place, wifi pickups all around, and all the teachers have their own laptops. Everything runs Windows XP. The thing is, because their Windows licenses are all in the name of the SCHOOL and they're going to stop being a school in August, all their licenses are going to be invalidated. So every laptop has to be returned and every machine in the place needs a new license.

One or two of the teachers have taken this opportunity to sing from our choir book, and are making the argument that instead of paying out for hundreds of new Windows licenses, they should instead switch to Linux. No licensing to worry about, a new lease of life for some of the older hardware, better ability to teach COMPUTING skills rather than "This is how Microsoft does it", and so on.

The main objection being raised against the conversion is that old favourite: Windows-only applications. The school uses a system called SIMS ("Student Information Management services") which holds information about each pupil, their timetable, and the electronic registers that teachers use at the start of each class. It is (I speak from experience) a fairly dreadful application, as it crashes a lot and has a very arcane interface. But it's all they've got, and there's not really any alternatives (on any platform) that they know of.

It seems to me that most of what it does, and more besides, would be easily in the reach of any good CMS, but things like generating timetables and registers is where it starts to get complicated and outside of my experience.

So, the basic situation is, you've got a very few people calling for a conversion to Linux (mainly from Science and Maths because the IT people are all really WINDOWS people rather than COMPUTER people), and now is pretty much their only opportunity because if the new academy pays out for a Windows site license, they're going to be highly resistant to the idea of switching afterwards. They've made the case already that Linux is more reliable (vital in modern schools where most lessons run off interactive whiteboards - essentially a big touchscreen + projector), more secure (even more vital with nearly 2000 children using it daily), and more educational (no brainer), and also can draw upon the fact that the Windows app that they're told they can't live without is decidedly unpopular and unreliable.

If anyone has ANY suggestions for how those few people could overcome the Windows loyalists, I'd like to hear them. Any information of Linux-based alternatives to the SIMS application would be very helpful, as would details of any other schools that have trialled Linux successfully or of people/companies (ideally in the West Sussex area) that would be able to help with a BIG switchover. I know Ubuntu has the Edubuntu branch, but have never used it - how much support is available from Canonical/the community when it comes to large organisations switching to their distro? I've only ever encountered Ubuntu as something to install from CD to PC, not to a huge network..

Apart from anything else, the organisation behind this academy is taking over another school at the same time, and is already running at least one other school I know of, so if it works well in ONE school, they'll possibly branch it out to their others as well. Which means this has the direct potential to get a LOT of kids exposed to Linux in this county, as well as the indirect potential of being a good case study if it works.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!