Microsoft 365 & Google Workspace for Schools
Whether your school runs on Microsoft 365, Google Workspace for Education, or a bit of both, we manage it, license it and migrate it as part of our managed IT support — for schools and trusts across the UK.
From admin console to classroom, your cloud platform is only as good as the people looking after it. Ours has a 75-strong team behind it.
Trusted across the UK
Cloud-first, done properly
Most schools now live in the cloud. Email, documents, homework, staff CPD, parent letters, safeguarding records — it all runs through Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. The DfE’s digital standards expect schools to be moving towards cloud-based platforms, and Ofsted expects the safeguarding that goes with them.
What the glossy adverts don’t mention is that neither platform runs itself. Somebody has to set up accounts every September and close them every July. Somebody has to decide which licences you actually need, switch on multi-factor authentication without locking out the office at 8:45am, keep pupils out of settings they shouldn’t see, and untangle the sharing permissions when a folder ends up visible to the whole school.
That somebody is us. As a full managed IT support provider for schools UK-wide, we don’t sell you a cloud platform and walk away — we run it, day in, day out, as part of our IT support service. No separate cloud contract. No per-ticket billing. Included with our service, not sold on top.
Managed for you, every day
Everything your tenancy needs, handled by the same team that answers your helpdesk calls.
User lifecycle management
New starters, leavers and year-group rollovers handled for you — accounts created, licences assigned, groups updated and old accounts safely archived. September just works, in a 60-pupil village primary or a 20-school trust.
Security baselines
Multi-factor authentication for staff, conditional access, safe sharing defaults, alerting on suspicious sign-ins and a tenancy hardened to education best practice — reviewed against the same standards we apply across our cyber security services.
Device & app management
Intune for Windows and iPad estates, Google Admin for Chromebook fleets: apps deployed, updates controlled, devices locked to your policies and lost hardware wiped remotely.
Email done right
Anti-spam and anti-phishing tuned for schools, protected send-to-parents domains (SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured properly), shared mailboxes for the office and calendars that actually reflect the school day.
Teams & Classroom for teaching
Class teams and Classrooms built from your MIS data each year, with pupil chat, meetings and assignments configured to your safeguarding policy — not the platform defaults.
Storage & sharing governance
Sensible drive structures, external-sharing rules, retention settings and periodic access reviews, so SEND records don't sit one click from a pupil share.
Licensing without the guesswork
Education licensing is a maze — and schools routinely pay for more than they use.
Microsoft offers A1, A3 and A5 tiers, with free entitlements many schools never claim and paid features many schools never switch on. Google Workspace for Education spans Fundamentals (free), Standard, the Teaching & Learning add-on and Education Plus. Buy the wrong mix and you either overspend or leave security features you genuinely need — like advanced phishing protection or extended audit logs — sitting behind a tier you didn’t take.
As part of our service we:
- Audit what you have — every assigned licence, every unused seat, every feature you’re paying for but not using.
- Right-size what you buy — staff on the tier that matches their role, pupils on free entitlements wherever they qualify, upgrades only where a feature earns its keep.
- Buy it well — education pricing through licensing channels built for schools, with renewals diarised so nothing auto-renews unnoticed.
- Review it annually — licensing is checked as part of your regular service reviews, alongside the rest of your IT spend, so costs track pupil numbers rather than history.
Illustrative example: a two-form-entry primary moving 40 staff from an all-A3 setup to a right-sized A1/A3 mix would typically release around £1,500 a year — enough to fund a classroom’s worth of pupil headsets. Figures are illustrative, not a quotation.
Illustrative licence mix
- Pupils — A1 (free) 55%
- Staff — A1 25%
- Staff — A3 20%
Illustrative mix — not a quotation.
Migration without the drama
Moving platform — or moving into the cloud for the first time — is where schools get nervous, and rightly so. Email history, decades of shared documents, staff muscle memory: none of it can go missing on a Monday morning.
Our migration process is built around term dates, not our convenience:
Discovery & audit
we map every mailbox, drive, shared area and legacy server, and agree what moves, what's archived and what's retired.
Design
your new tenancy is built to education best practice from day one: naming conventions, security baselines, teaching structures, safeguarding settings.
Pilot
a small staff group runs on the new platform first, so surprises surface with five users, not five hundred.
Migrate
mail, calendars, OneDrive/Drive content and shared files moved in stages, typically across a half-term or holiday, with the old platform kept readable until you sign off.
Land & train
floor-walking support in the first week back, staff training sessions, and quick-reference guides your team will actually use.
We handle Google-to-Microsoft, Microsoft-to-Google, on-premise-to-cloud (goodbye, ageing server in the cupboard) and trust consolidations — merging a newly joined school’s tenancy into the trust’s central platform without losing a single mailbox. It pairs naturally with AIT Cloud if you’re retiring on-site servers altogether.
Microsoft or Google? Honest answers
We support both platforms across our 249 schools, so we have no licensing axe to grind. The honest answer is that the right platform depends on your estate, your staff and your budget — and sometimes the right answer is the one you already have, run better.
| Consider | Microsoft 365 tends to suit | Google Workspace tends to suit |
|---|---|---|
| Devices | Windows laptop and desktop estates, iPad schemes via Intune | Chromebook fleets — cheap to buy, quick to deploy |
| Staff familiarity | Teams, Word, Excel and Outlook workflows staff already know | Schools that have grown up on Docs, Drive and Classroom |
| Trusts | Central governance across many schools with mature admin tooling | Fast, low-cost standardisation across primaries |
| Budget shape | Richer paid tiers; more decisions to get right | Strong free tier; add-ons only where needed |
| Mixed reality | Many secondaries run both — Office for staff, Classroom for pupils. That’s fine. We manage mixed estates every day. | |
Thinking of switching? We’ll tell you straight if the disruption isn’t worth it. Platform changes should serve a digital strategy, not a sales target.
Safe in the cloud
A cloud platform used by children is a safeguarding surface, and KCSIE expects schools to treat it as one. We configure both platforms with that in mind:
- Pupil chat, meeting and email boundaries set to your safeguarding policy — age-appropriate, reviewable, and off where they should be off.
- Sign-ins and activity feeding your filtering and monitoring arrangements, so cloud activity isn’t a blind spot.
- Admin rights restricted and audited — no shared “office” account holding the keys to every mailbox in the school.
- Staff accounts protected with MFA and covered by phishing awareness training, because a compromised teacher account is the most common way into a school tenancy.
One thing the cloud doesn’t do: back itself up
Microsoft and Google keep their platforms running — they don’t promise to recover your data. A deleted shared drive, a ransomware-encrypted OneDrive or a leaver’s mailbox purged after retention lapses is your problem, not theirs. Both providers say so in their own terms.
That’s why independent, education-grade backup of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace lives in our Managed Backup & Disaster Recovery service — the other half of a properly run cloud platform.
Part of the service, not a product on top
Plenty of providers will sell a school a “cloud package” and disappear until renewal. We’re a managed IT support company first: the same UK-wide team that fixes your Wi-Fi, installs your cabling and answers your helpdesk tickets also runs your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace tenancy. One contract, one number to call, one team accountable for the lot — from a single primary school to a multi-academy trust standardising across twenty sites.
One team, one contract
Cloud included with support
Primary to MAT scale
Frequently asked questions
Both have genuinely free education tiers: Microsoft 365 A1 and Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals cost nothing for eligible schools. The catch is what’s not in them — advanced security, extended audit logs, some device-management and analytics features sit in paid tiers (A3/A5, Education Standard/Plus). Most schools end up with a mix: free licences where they’re enough, paid licences only where a feature justifies it. We audit and right-size that mix as part of our service, so you never pay for seats or features out of habit.
Yes — in either direction, and from on-premise servers into either platform. Mail, calendars, drive content and shared files move in planned stages, usually over a half-term or holiday, with a staff pilot first and the old platform kept readable until you've signed off. We also handle trust consolidations, folding a joining school's existing tenancy into the trust's central one. The one thing we won't do is recommend a migration that isn't in your interest; if your current platform just needs running properly, we'll say so.
No. Day-to-day management — accounts, licences, security settings, device policy, email protection, September rollovers — is included in our managed IT support for schools. You pay for the licences themselves (many pupil licences are free) and, if you choose it, for independent cloud backup. There’s no separate “cloud management” line on the invoice.
Not in the way schools usually assume. Both platforms are built for availability — keeping the service running — not for recovering your data after deletion, ransomware or a retention policy quietly purging a leaver’s mailbox. Their own terms make data recovery the customer’s responsibility. Independent backup of school cloud data is covered by our Managed Backup & Disaster Recovery service.
The DfE's cloud solution standards steer schools towards cloud-based platforms with proper access control, MFA and data-protection arrangements. A well-run Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace tenancy — hardened security baselines, controlled admin rights, documented policies — is how you meet them in practice. We build tenancies to those standards by default and can walk your leadership team through where you stand today.
Ready when you are
Whether you’re cloud-first already, still running a server in a cupboard, or somewhere uncomfortable in between — talk to a team that manages Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace for 249 schools across the UK.
Existing clients: manage your service through the Customer Portal.