Email dated 06/01/2026

Dear Parent/Carer,
​
I am writing to provide a further update following the cyber security incident affecting the school’s IT systems.
 
Good progress is being made in the investigation and in the safe restoration of systems, with continued support from external specialists. However, at this stage, the school will not be able to safely welcome pupils back on site this week as we had initially hoped. 
 
We are working closely with our Central England Academy Trust colleagues to explore ways in which we can start welcoming pupils back as soon as it is safe to do so. Subject to the ongoing work, we are initially planning for a phased return from next Monday 12th January. 
 
We will send out an update and further communication to families by Friday this week to confirm next steps.
 
Thank you for your patience and understanding during this challenging time. We apologise for any disruption this is causing to our community.  
 
Our priority remains the wellbeing and safety of our pupils. If you have any concerns about your child, please contact school at HLSHelp@highamlaneschool.co.uk  so that we can provide support. 
 
Yours faithfully 
 
Michael Gannon
Headteacher

 
Reminder about home learning for the remainder of this week:
 
Pupils are asked to continue with independent study:

• Year 11 and Year 13 students are strongly encouraged to use this time to consolidate their learning notes and undertake independent revision in preparation for their forthcoming examinations for GCSE and A Level respectively. 
• Students in all other year groups may also revise their existing work. In addition, we recommend the following external resources:
• BBC Bitesize: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize
• Oak National Academy: https://www.thenational.academy

Both of these platforms provide high-quality learning and revision materials. Oak National Academy also offers full lessons based on comprehensive schemes of learning. 
You can also safely access our school’s exams and revision area on our school website as this area has been confirmed to be safe; here you can find guidance and signposting to revision resources online:
https://www.highamlaneschool.co.uk/examinations-and-revision


Please ignore any pre-scheduled reminders and notifications that come through on Google Classrooms. As previously advised, please do not login to Google Classrooms or SharePoint. 

 

Email dated 05/01/2026

Dear Parents and Carers,

We are writing to provide you with an update following the recent cyber incident that has affected our school. 

As you are aware, the school will be closed today, Monday 5th January, and will remain closed tomorrow, Tuesday 6th January, while we continue to respond to this situation. This difficult decision was taken following advice from external experts. We are working closely with external agencies, including a Cyber Incident Response Team from the Department for Education, as well as IT experts from our Multi Academy Trust, the Central England Academy Trust, to fully investigate and resolve the issue.

As a matter of precaution, we are requesting that students do not log into any school systems, including Google Classroom and SharePoint, until further notice. If students have already logged into any school systems that require their school login details, they should not worry. However, to ensure maximum safety while investigations continue, both staff and students are being asked not to access any school systems until we know more.

Once we have further information and advice from the experts supporting us, we will of course provide parents, carers, and students with an update as soon as possible.

In the meantime, students can of course continue with independent study:

• Year 11 and Year 13 students are strongly encouraged to use this time to consolidate their learning notes and undertake independent revision in preparation for their forthcoming examinations for GCSE and A Level respectively. 

• Students in all other year groups may also revise their existing work. In addition, we recommend the following external resources:

  • BBC Bitesize: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize

  • Oak National Academy: https://www.thenational.academy

Both of these platforms provide high-quality learning and revision materials. Oak National Academy also offers full lessons based on comprehensive schemes of learning. Importantly, these are external websites not linked to the school network, and students do not need to log in using their school email address, making them safe to access independently on personal devices using home internet.

You can also safely access our school’s exams and revision area on our school website as this area has been confirmed to be safe; here you can find guidance and signposting to revision resources online:

https://www.highamlaneschool.co.uk/examinations-and-revision

Thank you for your continued support and understanding at this time. We would like to remind parents and carers that the school will also remain closed tomorrow, Tuesday 6th January. Please be assured that we will keep you updated regularly, and as soon as we receive further guidance and confirmation from the specialists supporting us, we will communicate this promptly.

Yours faithfully,

Michael Gannon

Headteacher
Higham Lane School

 

 

Email dated 03/01/2026

Dear Parent/Carer,

I am writing to inform you that it appears the school and sixth form has been a victim of a cyber-attack. This has taken down the school IT system. This means that we currently do not have any access to any digital services including telephones / emails / servers and the school’s management system. At present we are working alongside our insurers RPA, DFE cyber response team and external IT support partners to restore our systems.

We have a legal obligation to report any data breach identified as part of our investigation the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) in line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018 / GDPR and where possible within 72 hours. We will be working along side our Local Authority Data Protection Officer (DPO) to ensure any and all obligations are met.

In consultation with the Trust we have completed a risk assessment on the immediate impact from the ongoing cyber event taking into account the safeguarding and wellbeing of our pupils and staff.

In order to support the restorations of the schools systems and gather evidence to prevent an incident happening like this again we have taken the difficult decision to close the school to all pupils and staff initially on Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th of January. We aim to reopen on the 7th however until we fully understand the scope of the work required I am unable to confirm this opening date at present. We will update you on Tuesday morning with further information relating to the incident and how we plan to reopen the school in a safe and controlled manner.

I appreciate that this will cause some problems for parents/carers with regards to childcare arrangements and apologise for any inconvenience but feel that we have no option other than to take this course of action in order to preserve the integrity of the network.

We will continue to assess the situation and update parents / carers as necessary. Communications will be sent out via MyEd communications system, school websites and social media accounts.

Thank you for your understanding.