November 2025

If you are your school's digital lead, please complete this form

We have requested that the Flintshire Digital and Flintshire SharePoint sites be available on your Hwb Menu page.

This may appear for some users and not others as the change is applied. I will try to find out who is unable to access this in December.

You can rearrange your applications by clicking ✏️Manage your menu

Has your school started to address its cyber safety?

The start of the academic year is the ideal time to ensure that your school has taken action to mitigate the impact of a Cyber Incident.

Your school has responsibility for the data which it holds.

Cyber Incident Support

Increasingly, organisations are under threat of experiencing a cyber incident. Schools are no different; it is your responsibility to ensure that you have taken all reasonable precautions to ensure that your data is protected.

The initial part of the support is the precautionary steps which your school can take to minimise the effects of a cyber incident.

There is also access to a plan template, which can be downloaded and completed, along with access to some staff training to develop your staff's understanding of cyber safety.

This document has been created using the guidance available on the Hwb platform.

Achieving the 360SafeCymru Award

Support and guidance in the steps your school needs to take to have the procedures in place to achieve the 360Safe Cymru award. These can begin to be implemented at the start of the school year, as this will usually be when schools create their student/school committees.

Additional Cyber Safety Steps

Ensure staff are not leaving their passwords by/on their devices (yes, they are still being written on post-it notes!)
Devices need to be rebooted (turned on and off) to allow security updates
When leaving a room, ensure staff lock their computer (Windows Key and 'L'), an increasing number of Cyber Incidents are a result of learners 'hacking' their own school
All USB sticks should be encrypted, alternatively, make use of secure online cloud storage
When printing to the school network printer, use a code to print off or ensure sensitive material is not left to be collected later in the day
Shred any confidential waste

Schools should make provision for supply staff to access work that has been left; they should not be required to log in as the staff member they are covering.