Can't they get their workbooks and pens out?

Quite. We didn't have computers at school at all, not even non-working ones.

Everything is IT driven in schools.

The register is online.

Lesson delivery often includes online resources (i.e. Moodle)

It can also be the fact that security, physical security, is ran through IT.

It's not all chalk and slates as it were in your day.

If the teachers can't figure out how to take register without a computer then perhaps the first lesson they can't conduct without online resources can be rescheduled as some kind of emergency-survival problem-solving session where the students come up with madcap ideas for how to write down a list of names without modern technology?

Does anybody have.. paper?

We can use my shirt!

Good! Does anyone have something to write with?

We can use my blood.

10/10 for effort, but too melodramatic.

Can we get ink from a teabag..?

etc.

If it's so easy why aren't you a teacher? Or better yet - get in touch with the school yourself and offer your services to them?

Because anyone with a brain knows that working with kids is a liability..

Back in the mists of time I was one of the part-time OU tutors, as was SWMBO who, incidentally, had been a school teacher before returning to University to do research. Th OU depended and very likely still does, on local colleges for premises for some tutorials. The OU year was very different from the traditional academic year and tutorials ran through the summer months when the colleges were normally closed.

From time to time the caretaker would fail to turn up to unlock the building and couldn't be found. What to do? Cope. It's summer, the weather's fine. We channel the ancient Grecian Academy and hold tutorials outdoors. At least I did. If it happened to SWMBO she just cancelled the tutorial and came home. I still don't know why. Maybe its a teacher thing.

I'm not a teacher but I did on many occasions a) take register as a pupil myself because the teachers couldn't be arsed, and b) fail to be present in school when register was taken and suffer no adverse consequences. So I'm aware what a completely pointless tick-box joke the whole palaver is.

To cancel an entire school day because you can't verify which pupils are not cancelling their own school day is the very definition of cutting off your own nose.

If that register is online and linked to a pile of other stuff (most our now) then it is not so easy.

Actually the register is only a small part of the issue and may not even be affected. If security systems are down then you simply don't have the staff to run the site.

Anyone who is tried to get into s school as a legitimate visitor during normal school hours should understand that.

Exactly. It's nothing to do with the register. Most likely, because the phone lines and CCTV are down there's been some legally risk-averse decision that it's just easier to have kids schooled at home for a day or two. Maybe that's rational because online schooling is a decent fall-back these days, but let's not pretend it's somehow impossible for them to open up if they wanted to.

"The register is online."

So they can't check a register. They can't take a register with the children at home - or maybe elsewhere. No effective difference.

"It can also be the fact that security, physical security, is ran through IT."

TFA says the children are allowed in to collect lunches so access is obviously not a problem.

Coping when the world lets you down is an essential human skill.

Because else Google won't be able to track everyone cradle to grave...

You're not going to deny a billion-dollar company all of your kids private data now are you ?

Things in schools likely to be controlled by computers in 2024:

The "register" (information management system in modern parlance).

Payments

Food ordering system

The secure fob/door system

All the next of kin/emergency contact/parent contact details etc

Pupil medical requirements/allergies/medication/etc

Fire/safety/risk/etc documentation

and so on...

Quite. The most prominent are registration, catering (mostly biometric) and the facilities building-management-system (heating, potentially also water). With the best teaching will in the world it's a no-go if students are unaccounted for, cold, hungry and without toilets. ^^

It's almost as though the systems controlling all those things should be air-gapped and not connected to the public internet.

"catering"

TFA says pupils were allowed to go to school to collect lunch.

So bang on the money it's shocking.

It wasn't that long ago that there was no IT medium in school unless you were exploring computer science!

IT outages are not an excuse for not delivering lessons.

There are several issues.

It depends what is broken:

Is it related to safety such is ID & door entry systems or the register?

Is it related to teaching material?

On the first is security systems are down they will have no option but to close.

In terms of teaching it all depends on what is available and working. By the sound of it the use Google Workspace and this is currently functioning. If there is sufficient material to run lessons on that platform and teacher's laptops they can function online until the first is fixed.

No business continuity plan other than, "Kids stay home"?!! No way to manually record attendance and grades, and enter them into the system after recovery or re-initialisation?

This is something I often lecture/consult on.

Reversionary Method of Operation.

It works, it takes a bit of work and planning, but if done right, is a great tool in your back up arsenal.

Not for everyone I know, but if you can't operate your business, it's going to impact customers and if you're regulated, guess who's coming next?

"Not for everyone I know, but if you can't operate your business"

Mate: can I point out the bleeding obvious, it's not a business it's a sodding school. Children are not "customers"

And you think that's an excuse?

Posting A/C for 2 main reasons here:

1) I'm a school governor

2) I work for a cyber security vendor

For both of those reasons, I speak to a shedload of schools about cyber incidents. A modern school will probably have pretty much everything computerised from the register, the lunch payment system, the phone, fire alarms, CCTV, access control, building management systems etc on their LAN. Older schools - well, they're lucky if they are in a building that isn't falling down around their ears because it's that old and has had no money spent on it by any government since it was built in 1895.

Most of them don't have much in the way of a cyber incident plan, because most schools don't believe an attack will ever happen to them, as they have nothing a cyber criminal would want, and it's incredibly difficult to persuade them otherwise - even with my own LA, where I'm volunteering my own time to talk to people, it's seen simply as an exhortation to buy stuff/services they don't need....

When I speak at conferences, every school has a physical response plan to somebody coming in with a weapon or trying to take a child, because the children are the school's focus. Not their data.

Until school leaders get this message loud and clear, schools will keep having incidents. Oh, that and having the money to properly fund and resource those plans, that might help as well.

Should all this be computerised, given the risks? If it should be computerised should some of it not be air-gapped?

> When I speak at conferences, every school has a physical response plan to somebody coming in with a weapon or trying to take a child, because the children are the school's focus.

Are schools actually able to stop someone coming in with a weapon, or taking a child? Do they have armed guards, for example? How often does this happen? Is it the case they have plans for something very unusual they cannot stop, but not for something higher risk that they can do something about.

I wonder whether it is just suspicion that they are being sold something they do not need, rather than a more general fear. I find a lot of people seem to regard cyber security, and reliability (even simple things like good backups) as a can of worms they do not want to open. Much easier to just hope it never happens.

Schools SHOULD have an Emergency Plan which deals with intruders and other pyhsical threats

I have seen suich plans in action, though more for

a) dangerous dogs in the playing fields

b) hoax gun and bomb wanings

With so much now delivered as SaaS because it is cheaper (in theory) there is simply not the resources or technical know how to air gap stuff.

In schools now it is very rare to have anything that is a traditional system running in the building. Now add in that the very limited number of IT staff are under paid, and therefore do not have the skills and over worked.

Thank you for this post. Far better informed than much up-thread.

Folk don't seem to understand how a 21st C high school runs.

The main MIS integrates student, staff and room timetables, attendance (registration), year groups, pastoral groups, subjects, finance, salaries, assessment, qualifications

Schemes of work and lesson plans will all be computerised. Many, probably most, resources will be held virtually

Catering, trips, cleaning and caretaking will all be managed on computers.

In this case I would guess the main MIS is penetrated and that there is, therefore, evidence that all systems could be at risk as the MIS has least external contact.

Yes, I agree, many schools do not have adequate disaster recovery plans and as a fellow school Governor you will be aware of the debate - every pound spent on x is a pound that cannot be spend on education, but I am wondering what is happening here.

Has the school taken the view that keeping children learning off-site (as with the pandemic) is worth it for a few days. Perhaps the MIS cannot be accessed and registers printed until the vulnerability is identified.

There clearly is something, maybe not a full blown plan because they are switching to online teaching where possible.

"Students have not been given the day off, however. Teachers set work for them to complete on Google Classroom over the two days, although they can still visit the school to collect lunch."

It is the second sentence.