Billericay School faces critical incident following cyber attack

Mr Berry added: “This attack has resulted in the school’s entire IT system being compromised and inaccessible due to complex encryption.”

The school’s principal said IT staff had made “significant progress” in resolving the problem.

He said the school would be closed to students in grades 7, 8, 9 and 12 on Monday so that teachers could prepare lessons while they did not have access to their resources in the system.

The incident followed a BBC report that revealed that 347 cyber incidents were reported in the education and childcare sector in 2023 – a 55% increase from 2022.

Government data suggests that most schools and colleges experienced cybersecurity breaches last year.

Some told the BBC that there had been temporary closures and weeks of disruption.