When you are buying, leasing or renting a photocopier for a school, your priorities will be on a reliable, flexible, long-term solution that can print dozens of amended worksheets at a moment’s notice.
Modern photocopiers are multifunctional devices that replace nearly half a dozen pieces of equipment in a reception, IT lab or copy room into one convenient machine that teachers, receptionists and even responsible students can use effectively.
A school’s needs for a photocopier are significantly different to those of an office or a home study, and thus the right photocopier for the school will ensure that they can meet the needs of every student and every part of the national curriculum.
Every school has slightly different priorities, but here are some features that every school needs from their photocopier.
What Is The Most Important Feature Of Any School Photocopier?
More than perhaps anything else, a school photocopier needs to have bulletproof reliability.
Whilst there is often a degree of flexibility in offices when it comes to printed materials, especially if they operate a paperless office where reliance on printed materials is limited to outright necessities, a school often needs to print thousands of pages a day.
Often, these vast quantities of educational materials need to be printed, amended or replicated from a master at very short notice, so the worst-case scenario is that a jam, drum or belt issue leaves it out of commission for hours at a time.
Working with experts in photocopiers means that you are guided towards trusted brands, ones who have spent decades creating copiers built to endure the rigours of long, hard hours.
Whilst teachers have decades of experience in adapting their lesson plans around the chaos of the school environment, a reliable photocopier lets them put their best foot forward.
How Fast Is Your School Photocopier?
One of the first lessons schools will teach is the old Aesop fable that “slow and steady wins the race”, but whilst it is true that reliable progress is much faster than unreliable speed, having a fast printer will help schools out considerably.
There is often far more that needs to be taught in a school lesson than there is time to teach it, and whilst that is a policy and curriculum issue, having a fast photocopier reduces one element of friction that can slow down or force adaptations in lessons.
It also stops bottlenecks where multiple teachers need to print worksheets at the same time.
Which Photocopier Functions Do You Need?
Whilst a photocopier in a school needs to do the basics right before you worry about additional features, modern MFDs offer a wide range of exceptional functions that can make the life of a teacher or teaching assistant far easier.
Every school and every class is unique, but here are some photocopier functions that can save considerable time:
- Double-sided printing for longer worksheets
- Collation for workbooks
- Automatic stapling to stop the arduous process of stapling hundreds of books by hand
- Multi-page scanning for convenient access to resources
- Lamination for notices
- A3 printing for posters
- Print servers for wireless printing, permissions and print tracking
Meeting with a printer expert with a list of needs can help get you a single machine that can save you huge amounts of money and reduce the manual labour needed in your reception area or print room.
How Does The Right Photocopier Save Your School Money?
Schools are constantly mindful of their budget, and are amongst the most efficient users of limited resources in the country. The right photocopier can help them save significant amounts of money even if it is not always the cheapest.
One of the simplest ways to do this is to establish responsible printing policies, something that is aided through the use of double-sided printing and environmentally friendly black-and-white print options.
As well as this, modern print servers help to minimise wasteful practices. Print budgets, administrative oversight and choosing energy-efficient and toner-efficient photocopiers will lower their operating costs and ensure that your budget stretches further.
Does Your Photocopier Have The Right Support?
Ultimately, photocopiers are service machines that have a function to play and work best when they are provided with an entire support network to tend to their every need.
Using managed print services ensures that you never run out of toner, paper and additional materials your photocopier needs to function correctly.
They also provide additional maintenance, support and advice on how to lower costs, improve performance and monitor potential issues with your printing network.