It has been the policy of East Sussex County Council's to build schools on the outskirts of the town and due to the long length of telephone lines, broadband speeds are very limited in these areas. As far as we are aware, nobody has looked for any connection between the ability of pupils to learn and the internet services provided in their area. It does seem an uncanny coincidence that 3 of the main secondary schools in the Hastings area which have been put into a 'collaboration' under a private company, Ninestiles Plus by East Sussex County Council (see our earlier reports) are all on the outskirts of the town and suffer the same slow connections.

More worrying, part of the plan to improve exam results at all 3 schools, involve improving communications links for pupils between school and home. Although East Sussex County Council has equipped its schools with super fast dedicated broadband lines to cope with the future, nothing has been done to help pupils in these areas get faster speeds. In fact many are still using dial-up connections which are totally useless for any multi media experience.

Another aspect is that many families in the area are on low incomes. Many are single parents and now with the advent of mobile phones, many are choosing not to bother with the 'slow broadband' at all and choose to make a saving by not paying a quarterly fee for a telephone line to BT. The Site Manager/Caretaker at Filsham Valley School actually shares his broadband connection wirelessly with families in the area who have chosen to take this route. With some special modified equipment to his telephone line, he has achieve a 2Mbps connection and shares this speed with families in the area. Schools could choose to share their connections too, but it is highly unlikely this will happen as it raises so many issues with responsibility for the traffic passing through the network, filtering issues, cost and security.