ICT Suites

As long as you have space and enough pupils on roll, a dedicated ICT suite is a superb resource. If you're a small two-class village school, then it doesn't represent best value, under normal circumstances.
The best solution of all is to have a mixed economy. Computers that belong to a class and are used by that class, and computers that are available as a bookable resource. Let's try and see how that can be achieved most cost effectively.
Starting with small schools (by which we mean under 180 on roll), we can be reasonably confident in saying that they rarely have the physical space or capitation to devote to rooms exclusively for ICT. If the investment is made, it's likely that the room will be empty for as much as half the week. From a business perspective, the less you use something, the more it costs to own. Looking at things from that angle, using laptops on a wireless network becomes a much better use of resources. Modern portable computers have batteries that last for four or five hours under normal use, and which don't mind being "topped up".
Larger schools can and should make great use of ICT suites. Having fifteen or more decent machines on a good network, in the one place, makes integrating ICT and the rest of the curriculum a breeze. You do need to plan, though. At TME, we are computer and data specialists. We don't do carpentry, or building, or install mains electricity. We do work closely with experts in those fields, but they are different skills, requiring different tools. Where all the work is done right first time, the same suite can be used for years with little alteration - contact us for relevant reference sites.
Alongside the PCs, any system with more than a couple of machines needs a dedicated server too. This provides all the management of users and computers, and gives a central site for data storage.