Astrea Academy Trust, which runs secondary and primary schools, set up its Doncaster hub just before Christmas, bringing on experienced printer David Smiles to head up the hub system.
Arriving late December, the hub’s Ricoh Pro8310s mono production printer and two C8000 MFPs have now processed more than 3m clicks in the Doncaster hub, with documents dispatched by courier to the schools’ network.
Following the initial hub’s success, the trust has now commissioned the establishment of another print hub for its Cambridgeshire schools, which will be running by the end of July in anticipation of the new school year.
The new hub will also start with a Pro8310s and C8000, with the level of demand dictating whether another C8000 is installed after that.
Smiles told Printweek that the Pro8310s had proved its worth: centralising much of the schools’ print through a production press had made print far more efficient for Astrea.
“A lot of schools are outsourcing their print – so this is saving [our network] thousands of pounds because it’s internal,” he said.
These gains, he added, are only accelerating as more and more teachers learn to rely on the new hub.
“I’m very happy with how it’s going – like anything, once people start to know we’re here, the schools will use us. We’re getting the message out.”
Richard Wordsworth, HR and business director at Astrea Academy Trust, told Printweek that the in-house print model had helped the trust improve students’ learning experience.
“Our teachers adapt the booklets, using them as one resource among many, using their creativity and craft in each lesson. Printing the booklets centrally also reduces workload and panic printing on a Monday morning!
“We can also build in dyslexia friendly font, good line spacing, line numbers all which will help to ensure that our most vulnerable learners are supported.
“Developing a centralised print hub whose sole purpose is to facilitate this removes the printing burden from schools will help improve the educational experience of students within our family of schools.”
While for now Smiles is concentrating on the new Cambridgeshire hub, he said he would soon be looking at whether the print hub might take on a wide-format machine, too.
“The schools have posters [printed], and they have the Ofsted banners outside the schools. There’s no reason why we can’t have wide-format – in fact, one of the schools has a 36-inch printer, so I’m planning on getting over there to find out what it is,” Smiles said.
