Dear Parents/Carers and students,

 

Many thanks for your patience today as we have worked hard to resolve our IT issues.

 

Regrettably the severity of the cyber attack on our Microsoft servers means that we have not yet been able to restore our IT facilities.  I am sure you will appreciate the high degree of security we have on our system in order to protect the integrity of data and as such we cannot switch our servers back online until scans are able to run clear without infiltrating our security settings.  We have had numerous technicians working relentlessly on this matter for 3 days now.

 

I would like to reassure you that this is not an isolated issue with Harefield over which we have had control, rather a significant malware attack that has affected a large number of Microsoft servers nationally.  

 

We hope very much to have the issues resolved and communication capabilities restored by the end of the day tomorrow.

 

I understand how frustrating this is for you all as indeed it is for us.  There is nothing we would have wished for less then further disruption to student's education after such a difficult year.  We are most certainly doing everything possible to rectify the issue whilst maximising the number of students we are able to teach, and adequately safeguard, face to face on site in the absence of any technology or access to electronically stored data. 

 

We will regrettably need to ask a number of students to continue working from home tomorrow to achieve a manageable balance.  As such the arrangements for Tuesday 20/04/21 are as follows:

 

-Years 7, 11, 12, 13 should all attend school aligned to their usual timetable and will have all scheduled lessons face to face.

-Years 8, 9, 10 will need to remain at home for an extra day and should access Google classroom where teachers will set work according to their usual timetable.

 

Once again may I apologise for this wholly undesirable but equally unexpected situation, and reassure  you that whilst the incident was not within our control, we are taking every possible step to expedite a hasty return to normal service.

 

My thanks again for the continued support of our community.

 

We look forward to year 7 returning in the morning and hope very much to update you tomorrow with a full reopening on Wednesday.

 

Tash Hurtado, Headteacher