The guides
Guides to school broadband
The standards your connection should meet, your filtering and monitoring duties, keeping the school online when a line fails, and how to buy. Every guide lists its sources and shows when it was last checked.
Standards & safeguarding
The DfE digital and technology standards, filtering and monitoring, and cyber security.
- The DfE digital and technology standards, explainedThe Department for Education has 12 digital and technology standards for schools and colleges in England, six of them “core”. Here is what they are, which ones are targets for 2030 and which describe things you should already be doing.
- The broadband internet standard: speeds, fibre and a backup lineWhat DfE’s broadband internet standard asks of schools in England: full fibre, at least 100 Mbps down and 30 Mbps up for primaries, capacity for 1 Gbps both ways for secondaries, a backup connection and a firewall.
- Filtering and monitoring: your duties under KCSIE 2026Schools in England must have appropriate filtering and monitoring, and review it at least once every academic year. What Keeping children safe in education 2026 and the DfE standard expect, and what to ask the company that provides your filtering.
- Cyber security for school networksThe parts of DfE’s cyber security standard that touch your internet connection: the boundary firewall, patching, multi-factor authentication, backups, training, reporting an attack — and the NCSC’s free protective DNS for schools.
Buying & funding
How schools buy connectivity: frameworks, buying help, funding and the questions to ask.
- How to buy broadband for a school in EnglandDfE tells schools to use DfE-approved buying options. Here is how Get help buying for schools works, which connectivity frameworks it lists (and when they expire), what happened to Crown Commercial Service, and where regional broadband consortia fit in.
- Funding: Connect the Classroom and other programmesConnect the Classroom has £325 million for school wifi and network switches from 2025 to 2030, but DfE chooses which schools get it. What we know about eligibility, plus Project Gigabit hubs and DfE support for Janet services.
- Questions to ask a broadband or filtering supplierThirteen questions to put to any company quoting for your school’s connectivity or filtering, each tied to what the DfE standards, KCSIE or the Welsh standards actually say.
Resilience & the network
Backup lines, the copper switch-off, the network inside the school and replacing old kit.
- Backup broadband: keeping the school online when a line failsDfE’s broadband standard asks schools to avoid a single point of failure: a second connection of a different type, automatic failover and redundant power. What that means, when to do it, and why power matters more once copper lines go.
- The copper switch-off: what it means for schoolsTraditional phone lines go digital on 31 January 2027. DfE asks schools to audit every copper line — alarms, lift phones, door entry, card machines, backup broadband and more — and plan replacements, with battery backup in mind.
- Wi-Fi, switches and replacing old network kitA fast line is wasted on a slow network. What DfE’s wireless and network switching standards ask for — Wi-Fi 7, coverage, central management, 1 Gbps to desktops, 5 years’ support — and what to do with the old kit you take out.
Across the UK
How schools in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get connected.
- School broadband in Wales: Hwb standards and PSBAIn Wales, the Hwb Education Digital Standards say PSBA should be every school’s default broadband provider, over dedicated, symmetrical, uncontended fibre with no data limits and at least 99.9% availability. Leaving PSBA needs a business case.
- School broadband in Scotland: councils and SWANIn Scotland, school connectivity is arranged by the 32 local authorities, many through the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN). There is no Scottish Government speed standard for schools like England’s or Wales’s. What we know.
- School broadband in Northern Ireland: C2k and the Education AuthorityGrant-aided schools in Northern Ireland get their ICT, including connectivity, through C2k, overseen by the Education Authority. The Department of Education has asked schools using non-C2k broadband to review it. What we know, including the April 2026 cyber attack.