Case Study: Thomas Deacon Academy achieves HD multimedia classrooms and streamlined, low-cost desktop management with Citrix XenDesktop

Leading UK secondary school transforms teaching with updated IT

Thomas Deacon Academy, a 2,200‑pupil secondary school in Cambridgeshire, needed to update its five‑year‑old IT estate to support richer multimedia and introduce programming courses. With just a six‑person IT team, the school required a cost‑effective, low‑maintenance solution that could deliver full‑screen HD video into classrooms and scale reliably across hundreds of desktops.

Working with partner EACS, the Academy deployed Citrix XenDesktop with HDX on Windows Server/Hyper‑V and used Citrix Provisioning Services to run all desktops from a single image. The five‑week pilot of 200 virtual desktops delivered responsive HD multimedia, enabled new programming classes, allowed one administrator to manage the estate, ensured classrooms boot and are ready within 30 seconds, provided remote classroom access, extended the life of older PCs, and paved the way to migrate the remaining teaching machines.

Thomas Deacon Academy

Martin Byford-Rew

IT Manager