Best Practice Update

Photo of children working, 'Meeting Digital Standards in Schools and colleges in White and orange on a blue background

Update to the DfE Digital Cyber Security Standards for Schools and Colleges (May 2024)

The DfE have announced a new update to the DfE Digital Cyber Security Standards for Schools and Colleges.
The updates are to address tasks that should be completed by the senior leadership team (SL) and IT support.  Cyber security is not something that IT teams can carry out alone, it is a shared responsibility between multiple roles and teams.

The new cyber security standards contain the same key information that the previous cyber security standards held, but the format of this has changed to make them more accessible to staff without cyber expertise.  From a data protection point of view, the new updates contain twice as many references to data protection and the DPO, so we may speak to you about this when you meet with us.  The update can be viewed here: Meeting Digital Technology Standards in Schools and Colleges

If you're unclear about where to start with this, we would advise initially assigning an SLT digital lead in your organisation and work from there. The responsibility of meeting the standard lies with the school, it is up to you to ask your IT provider if you are meeting the standard and how to meet the standard.  The DfE Digital Standards are a series of standards in document form that help you work towards being cyber resilient in all aspects of the organisation.

We've listed all the standards below:

1.Broadband Internet

2.Cloud Solutions

3.DfE Cyber Security

4.Digital Leadership and Governance

5.Filtering and Monitoring

6.Laptop, Desktop and Tablets

7.Network Cabling

8.Network Switching

9.Servers and Storage

10.Wireless Network

11.Accessibility

Many aspects of the data protection references are included in the data protection compliance we already work on with you.  We would advise starting with this checklist on the Knowledge Bank:

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