Dear parents and carers,

Firstly, we would like to thank you for your patience and support at this time.  I write to update you further following the recent cyberattack in school.

On 17^th January 2025, school were notified of activity on our IT system, concurrent with a cyberattack.  The school were able to react swiftly to safely close down all our IT systems, to minimise any potential risk.  We have since been working closely with a number of external agencies, including cyber security specialists and the Council’s Data Protection Compliance Team to ensure that we are secure and safe.

In addition, we have launched a full investigation into the incident and have notified the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the Department for Education and Police. We have also contacted JCQ and all of the examination boards to ensure that they are aware and that our students are not disadvantaged in any way ahead of the upcoming exams.

We would like to reassure you that at this point, the IT team and specialists have not identified any data breach. Investigations are ongoing and I will update you if any further information becomes available or if the situation changes.

We would like parents to understand what has happened and steps we have already taken in response.  This incident affected our entire school network and IT infrastructure. As a consequence of this, the school had no access to the internet which affected all of our internal systems including phone, payment, emails, access to contact information, printing, equipment and resources which subsequently led to the very difficult decision to close to students. 

I want to reassure you that we have been doing all we can to return the school’s IT systems back to normal.  We returned to school as soon as it was safe to do so and whilst staff have not had full access to all resources, we were able to continue teaching to try to minimise the impact of this on students.  Staff worked round the clock to get systems up and running as soon as it was safe to do so.  Staff and students do not have access to laptops as we are in the process of rebuilding all machines and this work is ongoing.

We understand that this incident will have caused worry for many students and families.  This type of criminal activity is designed to destabilise and disrupt systems to cause the most damage possible.  Please be reassured that we are working closely with Governors and a range of specialists to minimise the impact and to implement a robust recovery plan.  We thank you for your patience and continued support as we work to return systems to normal as part of our recovery plan but this process will take some time.

Regards,

Rachel Hudson - Headteacher