Updated benchmarking for baseload analysis – March 2023
There are a number of updates happening on the Energy Sparks platform at the moment. The most significant of these is the update to the adult advice pages and their subsequent translation into Welsh. We’ve taken this opportunity to make a few other improvements, particularly now we have a much larger number of schools within our database. This helps us to perform much more accurate school comparisons and create more representative benchmarks.
The baseload benchmark analysis is one of those updates. There were a few places where we had noticed some inconsistencies for a number of our schools. The reason for this difference was that previously the benchmarks in our school comparison tool and within the text were based on an early set of Energy Sparks schools. However, the analysis used in our charts was updated periodically with data from our ever increasing pool of schools.
Another issue was that our schools were placed into “bands” with a recommended baseload for all schools within that range. For primary schools in particular these bands felt a little too wide. There is a reason for the bands. Almost any single form entry school, however many pupils it has, will still need all the baseload facilities of a single form entry primary school i.e. 1 admin server, 1 print server, 2 fridges, 1 freezer. For primary schools, an additional server or fridge can cause a noticeable jump in baseload.
Now we have close to 1,000 schools using Energy Sparks, we have been able to develop new baseload benchmarks, which are much more closely aligned to pupil numbers once a school gets over a certain size – e.g. a small single form entry primary school.
The new baseload benchmarks have been calculated to be stretch targets. They might look quite low for some schools, but with many schools moving their servers onto the cloud and appliances becoming more efficient, they are absolutely achievable.
