Cyberattack forces British high school to cancel classes and delay reopening

A high school in Britain, shuttered by a cyberattack over the Christmas holiday, has pushed back its reopening date due to the challenges posed by the incident.

Higham Lane School in Nuneaton, a town in central England, told parents earlier this week that a cyberattack “has taken down the school IT system,” leaving staff without access “to any digital services including telephones / emails / servers and the school’s management system.”

Headteacher Michael Gannon initially told parents that instead of classes for its roughly 1,500 students resuming on Monday, he was pushing back the first day of term to Wednesday. However he cautioned that “until we fully understand the scope of the work required I am unable to confirm this opening date at present.”

In a new email on Tuesday, Gannon confirmed that the school was now aiming to reopen next week. “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.”

The restart will be a “phased return” he told parents, with an update and further communication to be sent to families by Friday confirming the next steps.

“Thank you for your patience and understanding during this challenging time. We apologise for any disruption this is causing to our community,” Gannon wrote.

The school — which enrolls about 1,500 between the ages of 11 and 18 —said it has implemented incident response protocols and brought in independent cybersecurity specialists to investigate, as well as notified the relevant authorities such as the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The nature of the incident hasn’t been confirmed. It follows more than 80 ransomware attacks against the education and childcare sector reported to the ICO in 2024.

A series of schools were forced to close that year, including the Charles Darwin School in London, Wymondham College, the largest state boarding school in the country, and Tanbridge House School in West Sussex, with cyber extortionists threatening to release stolen data unless a ransom fee was paid.

It is not clear if any data has been exfiltrated in the Higham Lane incident. A spokesperson said: “The school takes the privacy and security of its community seriously and is taking all reasonable steps to manage the incident and restore systems safely and as quickly as possible,” they added. “As this matter remains under investigation, no further comment can be made at this time.”