Built for Schools.
No Per-Device Licence.
No Renewal Headaches.
Ubiquiti brings switching, Wi-Fi, routing and cameras together on one powerful platform — without per-device licensing.
Ceidwad helps you choose the right Ubiquiti kit for your school — sized to your site, your requirements and your budget, not to the top of the price list.
Build your network once. Own it outright. Keep control.
One School or an Entire Trust. One UniFi Platform.
From a single school to a multi-academy Trust, UniFi makes managing your network simple.
Manage Wi-Fi, switching, gateways, security and cameras from one central platform — while each school can maintain its own independent network and Internet connection.
One school. Multiple academies. One clear view. One powerful platform.
Ceidwad can now help UK schools and Trusts access UniFi solutions.
Ubiquiti solutions for schools
One ecosystem, managed from one console — and the important part is choosing the right equipment for the environment, not the most expensive. These are the four things schools ask us to price.
Wireless
Reliable, high-performance school Wi-Fi, planned for classrooms, halls, offices and the shared spaces between them.
Switching
Modern switching with the performance and connectivity a school network is now asked to carry, from the core to the classroom.
Gateways & security
Network gateways that give the school visibility of its own traffic, and control over what happens at the edge of the site.
One console
Switching, Wi-Fi, gateways and cameras managed in the same place, so the network stays understandable after the person who built it moves on.
This isn’t our opinion. It’s the DfE’s.
A school network now carries teaching, safeguarding, administration and cloud services all day, every day — and two of the DfE’s six core digital and technology standards set clear expectations for how it should be built. Here’s what they ask for.
The same four standards decide who gets funded.
The DfE runs a programme that pays for exactly this work — upgrading wireless access points and network switches. Whether a school qualifies turns on the wifi standards above, which means the assessment you already have is the same test the funding uses. You don’t need a survey to find out where you stand.
available in total for 2025 to 2030, after £215m invested between 2021 and 2025
the programme funds upgrades to wireless access points and network switches
the DfE funds the work; the school procures the supplier, and the work must meet DfE specifications
Schools currently receiving targeted intervention through the RISE programme are eligible, and receive funding if they fall below the DfE’s wifi connectivity standards. The DfE contacts eligible schools directly. We have no part in that decision and cannot influence it — what we can tell you is where you stand against the four standards below, which is the half of the test a school can do something about.
Using the latest wireless network standard approved by the Wi-Fi Alliance
Whether you are on Wi-Fi 5, 6, 6E or 7 — and whether the estate still meets what staff and pupils actually need
A fully functional signal throughout the school or college buildings, and externally where required
Coverage across every teaching space, specialist room and outdoor area where devices are used, and whether a survey has proved it
A solution that can centrally manage the wireless network
Whether every access point is managed from one place, with security updates applied automatically rather than by hand
Security features installed to stop unauthorised access
Separate networks for staff, pupils and guests, WPA3, and multi-factor sign-in on the administrator accounts
The work has to meet the DfE’s specification, and the school chooses who does it. We supply the switching and wireless hardware built to those standards — and we can tell you where you currently stand against them first.
Contact us for more informationProgramme details, including selection criteria, are set by the Department for Education and change from time to time. Read the current guidance at gov.uk/guidance/connect-the-classroom.
Three ways to build it. Two survive a failure.
Three ways to build the same network. Each runs the identical failure sequence — a gateway drops, then an internet circuit — so you can watch what survives it and what only looks like it will. Two of these three are genuinely resilient; the third is the one we walk into most often.
Everything is up. Both gateways are forwarding, and traffic is spread across both internet circuits.
True high availability, with stacking. The stack behaves as one logical switch, so a member can fail and its neighbours carry on without reconverging. Fewer uplinks to buy and configure, and the stacking ring is the one thing every member depends on.
Everything is up. Both gateways are forwarding, and traffic is spread across both internet circuits.
True high availability, without stacking. Every switch is independent and runs an uplink to each core. The cores are peered, so both uplinks forward at once and losing one is a hand-off rather than a recovery. Nothing is shared between switches, at the cost of twice the uplinks and a core port per switch.
Everything is up. Both gateways are forwarding, and traffic is spread across both internet circuits.
Not true high availability, and the most common thing we walk into. With no peer link the two cores are not one logical device, so a switch’s second uplink waits rather than forwards. A failure becomes a reconvergence, and for a few seconds the classroom notices. It is the cheapest to build and easiest to reason about, which is why it is everywhere.
Resilience is a design choice rather than a product you switch on. What a school gets depends on its building, its cabling and its budget, and we will tell you which parts are worth it for your site and which are not.
The second year is where the difference shows.
Most network kit sold into schools carries a per-device licence. The hardware is a capital line; the licence is a revenue one, and it comes back every year whether the school changed or not.
Every device is a subscription, and every year is a decision.
Miss a renewal and the kit is still on the wall, but the thing that manages it stops being supported. The bill arrives whether the school grew that year or not.
You buy the hardware. The controller comes with it.
The running cost afterwards is power, support and whatever you choose to add. A capital purchase a governing body approves once, rather than a renewal that returns every August.
The configuration lives on the controller rather than in the head of whoever set it up, which matters when that was an external provider you have since changed.
CyberSecure hardens the network. Filtering and monitoring is a different standard.
CyberSecure is a paid subscription on the gateway. Proofpoint supplies the intrusion detection and prevention, Cloudflare supplies content and domain filtering, and both run at the edge of the site. It is worth having. It does not close the standard your governing body is actually held to.
What CyberSecure adds
A security layer on the network you already run.
- 110,000+ signatures Proofpoint IDS/IPS, on the enterprise gateways
- 30–50+ a week new signatures, from Proofpoint and Microsoft's MAPP
- 53+ threat categories curated to cut false positives
- 100+ content categories from Cloudflare, by user group or VLAN
- Capacity follows the model less on mid-range and small gateways, none on two
- One subscription per site covering the standby gateway in a high-availability pair
- Remote access enabled required to activate the subscription and keep it current
What the filtering and monitoring standard asks for
A safeguarding system, answering to your designated safeguarding lead.
- IWF and CTIRU blocklists that no user may disable, override or alter
- An IWF member signed up to CTIRU, updating from both
- Student and staff profiles never one blanket filter
- All internet feeds including backup connections and portable wifi
- Off-site school devices BYOD on a separate virtual network, and guests
- VPNs and proxies blocked with the other circumvention methods
- Multilingual content and images misspellings and abbreviations identified
- Child abuse and terrorist material and adult content, testable with SWGfL
- Alerts when content of concern is blocked
- Device or ID, IP, the individual with the time and the term blocked
- Safe search locked in no unauthorised browsers or plugins
- Weekly reports immediate for high-risk incidents
- Users told they are monitored on the device, at log-in
- A DPIA for any technical monitoring system
The DfE says you should already be meeting it. Filtering and monitoring is one of the six core standards, and Keeping children safe in education puts it on the governing body — which is why it is the standard an inspector asks about first.
Why buy Ubiquiti through Ceidwad?
We don’t just sell you the box. Whether you’re upgrading wireless, replacing switches or planning a complete refresh, we’ll help you make the technology fit the school — rather than recommending the highest specification available and leaving you to make it work.
Education-focused
We understand the operational realities of school IT — the budget cycle, the term calendar, and who actually runs the network day to day.
Right-sized
We recommend what your environment needs, not what costs the most — and we’ll say which parts aren’t worth it for your site.
Practical
A network is one part of a school’s technology estate. We know how the pieces fit around it — identity, filtering, safeguarding.
One supplier
The network can sit alongside the wider cyber security and assurance work Ceidwad already does for schools — one conversation, not four.
Planning a network upgrade?
Tell us what you’re working with today and what you need the network to do. We’ll come back with a specified quote against your site — or just a ballpark for the business plan, if that’s the stage you’re at.