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Pupils back to school in holidays to deal with fallout from cyber attack

Robbie MeredithEducation and arts correspondent, BBC News NI
BBC Daniel is smiling. He has messy brown hair and is wearing a black top. There is a set of double doors behind him. Photos of pupils are pinned to a red board next to the doors.BBC
A-level student Daniel says it was "a bit worrying" because he has coursework to do

Some schools have opened during the Easter holiday to help pupils taking GCSEs, AS and A-levels who have been affected by IT problems.

An IT system called C2K was targeted in a cyber attack, the Education Authority (EA) said on Friday.

All online and IT systems in schools in Northern Ireland are provided through the C2K network, managed by the EA.

But the problems meant pupils at schools across Northern Ireland, including those revising or completing coursework for exams were locked out of their accounts, so pupils could not access work or revision saved or put online by teachers.

Regent House school in Newtownards, County Down, was one of those to open on Tuesday and a steady stream of pupils arrived to get help to reset their passwords.

Daniel, who is 18, is taking three A-levels and said he had been planning to work on coursework over the Easter holiday.

He found he had been signed out of his account and had to change his password, but had been unable to contact his teachers online through the school account.

"I was talking to fellow pupils about it and they were all surprised, it wasn't really something that had ever happened," he said.

"It was a bit worrying to be honest, because I have coursework due very soon.

"Contacting teachers via [Microsoft] Teams and getting updates on coursework is what we use to be efficient and getting what we need to done.

"It was definitely worrying.

"Just with exams coming up and just with everything Easter's a good time to get ahead on that."

Students dealing with fallout from school cyber attack

Kaitlyn, who is 15 years old, is studying for GCSEs and said she was not able to "access the work I needed to do" due to the IT problems.

"I wasn't able to get into Teams so it means I wasn't able to access the work I needed to do for my GCSEs," she told BBC News NI.

"There was some revision sheets that I needed to do and some homework that I'd been set."

"I had missed a bit of work before the Easter holidays that I needed to catch up on for my exams."

She said finding out she had been locked out of her C2k account had been worrying.

She said she had called into school to get her password changed to let her log back on and use revision worksheets teachers had prepared.

Owen is standing in a school hallway. He has brown hair which is quite long at the front and is wearing a grey top. Behind him a school corridor can be seen including a set of double doors and a tall radiator.
Owen, who is taking AS-levels says he felt "a wee bit of panic" when he couldn't access his work

Owen, 17, is taking AS-levels and said he was not able to start any coursework which was due.

"I was hoping to access all the documents I had like power points and word documents," he said.

"That's where all the coursework is, and without it I can't actually do anything."

He said he felt "a wee bit of panic" when he found out he could not log in to his work but was hoping that the school resetting his password would "be the end of it."

"I was hoping to get some of the coursework done, and then just a wee bit of revision," he said.

Georgia is standing outside. A school building and foliage is behind her.Her brown hair is in a plait. She's wearing a fleecy jacket in blue and white.
Georgia, who's studying for her GCSEs, says she hates "being behind on any type of work"

Georgia, 16, is taking GCSEs and was also unable to get on with coursework due to the problems signing in online.

"All our notes are on Teams and I was going to finish the second half of my book, and it wasn't loading," she said.

"I thought I'd put my password in wrong."

"It was annoying, and I thought 'I can't get it done now,'"

She said she was not expecting to have to come into school on Easter Tuesday.

"But I feel like if I didn't come down, I was going to come back to school and have no work done," she said.

"And I hate being behind on any type of work."

'It was caught early'

Education Authority Eve Bremner has shoulder-length blond hair and is smilings into the camera. She is wearing a purple dress and is standing in front of a grey backdrop. Education Authority
Eve Bremner said the cyber attack was caught early

More than 300 schools attended an EA webinar on Tuesday to advise them on what steps to take, but the EA said that there was no evidence that teachers' or students' data had been compromised.

Eve Bremner from the EA said 80% of post-primary schools were back online.

"It was caught early, we've been advised it was contained, we've moved into that recovery phase now," she told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme.

"The other thing I think it's important to say is that while it is a live incident, our advice is telling us at the moment that there has been no evidence of data corruption or data leaving the system."

Bremner thanked EA staff who had worked "around the clock" to help get schools' systems up and running again.

"We're extremely thankful to them and to our schools for working with us over the weekend," she said.