London Grid for Learning

Earls Court core

Park Royal core

Docklands core

Location of three main cores in Greater London

The original network laid in 2000 across the 2,600 schools, colleges and libraries was designed and delivered by Equinox Converged Solutions.

Instead of a distributed 'star' system of connections, Equinox proposed the use of two central 'core' locations and a series of nodal loops – running across a combination of 100Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s devices – providing broadband access at every connection point. It used dual 9.6Gbit/s Ethernet fibre connections between hubs in Park Royal and Earl's Court.

A third 'core' was set up in London's Docklands area to provide a local switching point for the eastern LEAs.[13] Ten million metres of fibreoptic cable were laid to create the core rings of the network.[14]

In 2011, the contract with Equinox ended and LGfL agreed a deal with Virgin Media. Virgin replaced the old legacy network with a 40Gbit/s network.[15] The new deal reduced the cost of a 100Mbit/s connection to just a third of the former price tag.[16]

On 31 March 2011, after the ten-year contract with the 2,600 schools ended, institutions were expected to negotiate IT contracts individually. This opened the possibility for schools to switch to a more affordable provider, though the great majority of them renewed their contract with LGfL.[17]

On 27 October 2015 it was revealed that LGfL had been blocking emails from a competitor firm providing broadband contracts, Exa Networks. Mark Cowgill, Exa's Chief Executive, submitted a formal complaint to the Competition and Markets Authority alleging that the block amounted to 'anti-competitive' practices, and also claimed to have evidence that unfair pressure had been applied to schools to quickly renew their broadband deals with LGfL.[18] Cowgill later added that the block had been causing schools to overspend as much as £50m, as his firm provides similar services to LGfL's for less than half of the cost.[18]

However, some school heads supported LGfL, maintaining that London Grid offers a service that is technically superior to that promised by rivals.[17]

In October 2007, LGfL rolled out software to tackle cyber-bullying across all London schools it connected. The software monitored computer activity on the internet, instant messaging, e-mail and other applications for inappropriate behaviour. If improper activity was detected, the programme stored details of the offending material for review.[19]

LGfL provides intelligent web-filtering technology for its 2,600 schools, which enables administrators and management to protect pupils from objectional content whilst monitoring and regulating internet usage throughout the schools. The filtering service is provided by NetSweeper Inc., whose Enterprise Filtering solution was chosen by broadband provider Equinox in 2002 because of its scalability, ease of use and administration capabilities. The contract was renewed in August 2005 for a further three years.[20]

Besides blocking inappropriate web content, schools use NetSweeper as a productivity tool to restrict access to non-work related sites, which consequently reduces legal liabilities.

A project to filter e-mail travelling across the LGfL network was initiated in August 2004, following revelations that 75% of the messages sent to school children through its network were spam. Half of those were selling drugs, and a further 20% of the spam was pornographic. After implementation of the filter, 98.2% of junk messages were blocked.[21]

In 2006, LGfL developed a Unified Sign-On (USO) system to provide schools with a cross-domain single log-in system to access disparate educational content from diverse institutions and providers. The solution, developed on open-source authentication system Shibboleth, allowed users to access any online learning content, regardless of the server it was stored in or the provider sourcing it, using a single username and password. The project won the Computing Awards for Excellence 2006 "Public Sector Project of the Year" award.[22]

In May 2015, LGfL upgraded its email filtering system in response to school staff concerns about radicalisation, building a system that checks emails for grooming and radicalisation signs and allows suitable staff to access flagged messages so that appropriate interventions can be made.[23] In June 2015, LGfL released a series of videos[24] in partnership with anti-extremism charity Inspire with the aim of challenging Islamist extremism as well as anti-Muslim beliefs, by exploring topics such as the narrative used by Isis, messages in Islam that oppose it, and the role played by social media in radicalisation.[25]

In July 2006, the computerised Pan London Co-ordinated Schools Admissions Scheme, which helped thousands of parents and pupils find the secondary school of their choice, was merged with the online London e-Admissions Project to form the new London Schools Admissions Service within the London Grid for Learning. The new online admissions service for both secondary and primary school pupils allowed parents to apply online, increasing peace of mind as an instant email confirmation was sent upon receiving an application, and minimising the possibility of an error as information provided was quickly validated.[26]

An MLE network was set up in June 2001, enabling more than a million pupils to do their schoolwork from anywhere. It was the result of a public-private partnership between LGfL and Digitalbrain, an online education platform. At the time, the portal was said to be the most extensive learning network in the world with collaboration and interaction between students, teachers and parents throughout the capital.[27]

As of 2015, there are over 100 resource libraries available to pupils, such as the entire Guardian and Observer newspaper archives, the British Pathé News film library, and over 50,000 professionally recorded music tracks.[15][28] The learning platform can be accessed from a computer, at school or at home, thus creating learning opportunities outside the classroom.[7]

The LGfL offers all London schools an online polling resource, which schools can use to nominate students and carry out elections for their year councils. The results are instantly available after voting takes place.[29]

In October 2007, LGfL began rolling out a project to provide more than 10,000 computers, chiefly wireless-enabled laptops, to poorer children in London, as part of a two-year £60m Government initiative to provide computers for children in the poorest 10 per cent of households.[30]

In January 2010, LGfL set up the Videoconferencing Development Group (VDG) with the aim to 'enhance learning attainment and the development of key skills by promoting and facilitating the creative and effective use of videoconferencing'. The group's functions were to offer guidance and support to local authorities to promote videoconferencing, with resources such as examples of good practice, a guide to usage, instructional videos and case studies.[31]