Schools in Wales - Required Hwb migration

[techwizard]

We have been told by our LEA that we have to move over to Hwb entirely within the next two years. 

This includes:

using Hwb O365 and Google Edu instead of any school managed tenants

Hwb Intune for device enrolment and management instead of local domain

Migrating all onsite storage to Hwb.

 

The LEA have also said that this is a WG/Hwb decision and has been mandated by them, therefore schools must move. 

 

Is anyone else willing to share any info they might have recently been given by their LEAs about hwb, particularly is anyone else seeing told they must move to it?

 

Thanks

 

 

[3s-gtech]

I know about this, but we haven't been officially told yet. I heard mention of 2.5 years (so September 2027).

 

I intend to leave before then (giving enough notice to not screw them). Mostly, because I just can't face the job and all of the headaches, stress, compromises, restructuring and potentially loss of flexibility it'll bring.

 

Someone else can implement it, that has the enthusiasm for it. I don't, after this long.

[PotNoodleTech]

Yep I won't be here.  This will have a negative impact on teaching and learning.  After 24 years of being proud having a positive impact on teaching and learning, I am not being part of it and am happy to work in burger king instead.

[mikes]

I wonder how they will enforce this / what the consequences for ignoring it will be?  how are they going to know how we run our local domain?

We have planned to just ignore this as moving our existing google/o365 would be too much. Though if we moved, it would be nice for me at least, when our staff ask me for all the little micromanagement they want on our own domain, I'll be able to just say "can't do it, hwb domain"

 

We have been told by our LEA that the things they do regarding our domain will be gone but all they do for us now is our old main school e-mail address - any LEA hosted e-mail accounts will be gone (they used to run our dns etc but that's now external)

 

edit - but no our LEA hasn't actually told us we must do anything, they haven't said anything about our local domains that we run ourselves. Only that things they do for us will go away such as the main e-mail address. And we are happy to have that in house than rely on the LEA forwarder that always has problems anyway

Edited April 3, 2025 by mikes

[mikes]

Interesting FOI from Hwb from Dec 2024

atisn22142.pdf

 

not sure if it's linking properly sorry but it says that Hwb is not mandated and it is up to the LEA's ?  unless this has changed in the past 3 months ??  Our LEA hasn't said anything about it. Do you all run your own domains or does your LEA do it for you?  We are given a /22 or whatever  part of the LEA's network but we run the DHCP for it and basically do what we need to do ourselves

 

Schools’ Hwb domain migration – ATISN 22142 Information requested

 

Thank you for your request which I received on 27 November 2024. You asked for documentation related to the migration of schools from local domains to the Hwb domain. This includes any project planning documentation, the rationale for migration, details on the design, planning, and approval process, the methodology used for the migration, and costs.

 

Our response I have established that the information you require is not held by the Welsh Government. While the Welsh Government does not hold the specific documentation you have requested, it is important to note that the Hwb platform is already available to every learner and practitioner within maintained schools in Wales.

 

The Welsh Government is committed to delivering a national approach which provides a wide range of bilingual tools, resources and services. Since 2019 the Welsh Government has been working collaboratively with local authorities to enable schools to maximise the transformational benefits of digital and technology in education.

 

To fully embrace the benefits of this national approach, local authorities have been supporting their schools to utilise the services available through Hwb to create a personalised and safe ecosystem which prepares their learners to thrive in a global digital society Local authorities are responsible for managing and supporting their schools’ education technology strategy. The decisions around migrating schools from legacy or corporate systems to the national Hwb platform rests with local authorities.

 

Therefore, Welsh Government does not hold the requested documentation.

 

While Hwb is not mandated, the Welsh Government will continue to promote the benefits of a consistent approach across schools to maximise and leverage the advantages of a national digital platform.

 

 

Edited April 3, 2025 by mikes

[Olliekai]

We've heard that schools are expected to migrate within 2.5 years too.

[Olliekai]

1 hour ago, mikes said:

Interesting FOI from Hwb from Dec 2024

atisn22142.pdf

 

not sure if it's linking properly sorry but it says that Hwb is not mandated and it is up to the LEA's ?  unless this has changed in the past 3 months ??  Our LEA hasn't said anything about it. Do you all run your own domains or does your LEA do it for you?  We are given a /22 or whatever  part of the LEA's network but we run the DHCP for it and basically do what we need to do ourselves

 

Schools’ Hwb domain migration – ATISN 22142 Information requested

 

Thank you for your request which I received on 27 November 2024. You asked for documentation related to the migration of schools from local domains to the Hwb domain. This includes any project planning documentation, the rationale for migration, details on the design, planning, and approval process, the methodology used for the migration, and costs.

 

Our response I have established that the information you require is not held by the Welsh Government. While the Welsh Government does not hold the specific documentation you have requested, it is important to note that the Hwb platform is already available to every learner and practitioner within maintained schools in Wales.

 

The Welsh Government is committed to delivering a national approach which provides a wide range of bilingual tools, resources and services. Since 2019 the Welsh Government has been working collaboratively with local authorities to enable schools to maximise the transformational benefits of digital and technology in education.

 

To fully embrace the benefits of this national approach, local authorities have been supporting their schools to utilise the services available through Hwb to create a personalised and safe ecosystem which prepares their learners to thrive in a global digital society Local authorities are responsible for managing and supporting their schools’ education technology strategy. The decisions around migrating schools from legacy or corporate systems to the national Hwb platform rests with local authorities.

 

Therefore, Welsh Government does not hold the requested documentation.

 

While Hwb is not mandated, the Welsh Government will continue to promote the benefits of a consistent approach across schools to maximise and leverage the advantages of a national digital platform.

 

 

Useful to know

 

[Olliekai]

4 hours ago, PotNoodleTech said:

Yep I won't be here.  This will have a negative impact on teaching and learning.  After 24 years of being proud having a positive impact on teaching and learning, I am not being part of it and am happy to work in burger king instead.

but will you just work at Burger King, or will you be THE Burger King? 

[PotNoodleTech]

16 hours ago, Olliekai said:

but will you just work at Burger King, or will you be THE Burger King? 

Now that is an outstanding name for a burger van.....  *writes down*   nice one

[Olliekai]

On 04/04/2025 at 08:24, PotNoodleTech said:

Now that is an outstanding name for a burger van.....  *writes down*   nice one

I've actually seen the best burger van ever, a van called 'Two guys' outside a Five guys, done in the five guys colours. 

[PotNoodleTech]

Yep been there

[nicholab]

Why do they want take away freedom from schools?  I mean it gives you one large slow poor useless network like c2k.

[Cat_Jam148]

I also assume if the network was hit by a technical problem (or ransomware), it would affect all schools on that domain? Rather than being limited to just the one, or trust?

 

Not in Wales, but it just seems like a bad idea...

[3s-gtech]

I'd have thought that the contract with MS is pretty strong on that one, in terms of restoration and delivery of service. Still, huge potential for disruption.

 

Some muddiness in terms of separation. I believe that there are 'tenants' within Hwb despite it being one wider tenancy - this covers the DPA stuff, FOI and also management. Sub-tenancies based on our MIS data.

[PotNoodleTech]

1 hour ago, nicholab said:

Why do they want take away freedom from schools?  I mean it gives you one large slow poor useless network like c2k.

 

Yes I believe that is what they are aiming for.  Mediocrity as the benchmark for all schools to aspire too.

Edited April 7, 2025 by PotNoodleTech

[Olliekai]

23 hours ago, 3s-gtech said:

I'd have thought that the contract with MS is pretty strong on that one, in terms of restoration and delivery of service. Still, huge potential for disruption.

 

Some muddiness in terms of separation. I believe that there are 'tenants' within Hwb despite it being one wider tenancy - this covers the DPA stuff, FOI and also management. Sub-tenancies based on our MIS data.

Currently any issues haven’t been prioritised by Microsoft, or if they have it’s not seemed to. 

[techwizard]

Seems that there are more FOI requests WG FOI requests

[PotNoodleTech]

Hmm interesting.  They don't seem to "hold" any information about anything at all do they!

 

They say they don't hold any data on "The mandatory features of the Hwb platform, including any tools or services that schools are required to use." Yet personalised assessments for literacy and numeracy are mandatory are they not, we are required to use them, and can not be completed on a third party platform?

 

I have an email from them from 7 years ago saying:

 

 

"Since the announcement that the Online Personalised Assessments were to be delivered via Hwb, issuing Hwb user details to learners is now mandatory in order to allow them to access the tests (from September 2018)."

 

 

Edited May 14, 2025 by PotNoodleTech

[paulkerton]

5 hours ago, PotNoodleTech said:

Hmm interesting.  They don't seem to "hold" any information about anything at all do they!

 

 

Well their FOI is suggesting that this mandatory move Welsh schools are facing is from the individual local authorities not from Central Govt. So the answer is to FOI each of them AND the Welsh Govt at the same time with the same request, I'd suggest!

Especially as two FOIs now say "We can confirm that the Welsh Government does not hold the information requested, as the use of Hwb is not mandated in Welsh schools."

[mikes]

Yep that confirms what I heard from both our LEA and the HWB - I contacted both of them a month ago and both my LEA and Hwb said it was up to me - Hwb even said there will be caveats to moving as full data transfer isn't that easy!

 

Our LEA said what we do is on us - but they are stopping provisioning services if the Hwb do them as well to stop redundancy. So they offer us an e-mail address for our school (which is pointless) - we run our own mail so all it does is forward on to us. They are stopping it - no problem for us, but if there are say primaries with no e-mail servers / cloud mail, who use the LEA mailboxes "properly" - they need to move to Hwb.  Same with any schools who have LEA provided AD, and stuff like that.  So could that be the directive not a mandatory use of Hwb? It makes sense the LEA dropping stuff if the Hwb does it as well

 

And regards giving the users their HWB logons, we always did that more for the Adobe/Minecraft licenses we get with Hwb so each pupil knows theirs. It can be a pain having 3 different logons per pupil (here we have MS, Google and Hwb!)  but then that happens in most businesses I guess with different systems anyway.

 

We could easily move to Hwb, or even just say "right everyone will need to add their Hwb to Outlook as I'll shut down our mail server tomorrow" - but have decided against it as the management of the mailboxes doesn't seem as easy. Plus staff will need to use their mailboxes properly  not as storage mechanisms...

Edited May 15, 2025 by mikes

[techwizard]

Has anyone heard anymore on this? I heard unions were sending emails around to school IT staff. 

[3s-gtech]

38 minutes ago, techwizard said:

Has anyone heard anymore on this? I heard unions were sending emails around to school IT staff. 

If anything, it’ll be LEA or school directed. Everything we’ve heard is that there is no truly central push, which is great news. The choice should be up to schools - it can work well either way.

[PotNoodleTech]

Not heared anything from unions.

 

But your LA will be pushing for it as they want to save money on their own infrastructure and staffing so shoving everyone onto hwb is going to accomplish that dream for them.

 

HWB have now also deligated HWB support to LAs as every question I've asked recently (say the last month or 2)  the answer has been "please ask your local LA Team"

 

Also - if you ever had dreams of being able to react quickly react to changing cicumstances in order to support teaching and learning in your school then those days are over with HWB. You get what you are given.   The answer is no to everything extra you ask.

 

I needed to set something up to cater for some external training that was a bit "last minute" - I am used to these last minute requests, perviously I would have been able to set everything required up in about 20 minutes.  With HWB - 5 days of wrangling via email and then eventually the answer a flat no HWB does not support that.

 

Welcome to the brave new world Wales where innovation is removed and you will just do what they say, how they say it,  on the exact hardware and software they say you can buy.

 

It also appears the future vision for IT support in schools is having a person that can change passwords and change toner cartridges and nothing much else - all other requests will have to be sent to LA level.  This is a first line helpdesk technician role so where that leaves us network managers I do not know.

Edited June 20, 2025 by PotNoodleTech

[techwizard]

Seems this is still being pushed in some Councils. Has anything changed for anyone else?

[3s-gtech]

No change here. Last I heard, there was no central push. If your council is pushing it and claiming anything is coming from WG, push back.

 

It might be the right call for some schools, and could save money. It’d push some IT departments out though (me included).