Britannica School

Overview

Britannica School gives schools access to high quality:

reliable digital articles
biographies
images
videos
interactive content

Through Hwb, all maintained schools in Wales have access to Britannica School.

Practitioners and school leaders can explore Britannia School resources and Hwb DigiFest recordings for step-by-step support and practical implementation.

Britannica School provides content at different reading levels:

Foundation: recommended for ages 8 to 11
Intermediate: recommended for ages 11 to 14
Advanced: recommended for ages 14 to 18 and over

How to access Britannica Education in Hwb

There are 2 ways to access Britannica Education:

Log into the Hwb website and click the Britannica Education app on the Hwb dashboard. This page gives learners and practitioners access to Britannica School and Britannica ImageQuest.
Search directly for content from Britannica School and Britannica ImageQuest in the Resources area on Hwb.

Language settings

The Britannica School homepages are currently only available in English. When you are in an article, click the translate button to choose the language of your choice.

How Britannica School can support schools

Provides high quality digital content about a wide range of common themes and topics to enhance teaching and learning across the Curriculum for Wales.
Develops learners’ research, fact checking and critical thinking skills.
Provides access to additional sources of trusted content such as journals, eBooks, news and other primary sources.
Provides a safe, filtered environment for online research.
Enhances accessibility through features like Read Aloud, adjustable reading levels and visual supports.
Helps develop digital literacy through built in citation tools and structured information sources.
Includes tools for setting research tasks and assignments into Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams directly within the platform.

Key considerations

Ensure that the use of Britannicia School aligns with wider school policies such as safeguarding, digital literacy, online safety, acceptable use and data protection.
Whilst using Britannica School, searches can currently only be carried out in English.
Britannica School includes accessibility features to support all learners. These include a 'Read Aloud' tool that narrates articles and an 'OpenDyslexic' font option. This has been designed to improve readability for learners with dyslexia. The Read Aloud feature is not currently reliable for Welsh language content.
When viewing an article, image, video, journal and so on, selecting the 'Save' option prompts the user to create a personal account. Practitioners can use their Hwb email address to set this up. Learners can create an account without providing an email address.
If a learner forgets their login details, a practitioner must contact Britannica to request a password reset.

Data assurances

Schools should consider if:

a new Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is needed
their current DPIA should be updated

Britannica Education does not utilise or store personal information or learner data.

Each user’s interaction with Britannica is independent and private. For information about Britannica’s compliance with data privacy laws and regulations, please refer to Britannica Education Privacy Policy Notice. This includes those related to learner data.

Britannica Education does not use learner data for targeted advertising or marketing, and data is not sold to third parties.

Britannica Education can integrate with tools such as Microsoft Teams and Google Classroom. Schools should ensure they understand how learner data is handled in these integrations.

Data processing

Nature of processing

Britannica Education only collects the personal information and learner data needed to provide access to Britannica School and ImageQuest through Hwb.

Practitioners and learners’ control what data is entered.
Britannica Education only shares data with third-party vendors that support the operation of Britannica School and ImageQuest.
Data is not used to market products or services to learners.
Services do not contain any third-party or targeted advertising.

Britannica Education does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from or about children under 16, unless permitted by law or contract. If it is identified that personal information has been collected from a child under 16 in breach of this policy, it will be deleted immediately.

Scope of processing

Britannica Education processes practitioner and leaner data to provide access to Britannica School and ImageQuest through Hwb.
In some cases, third-party service providers may:

support the delivery of services
have access to personal information

This access is limited to what it is necessary to provide services on behalf of Britannica Education.

Britannica Education and its authorised third-party service providers may use:

cookies
beacons
similar technologies

These are used:

to enable practitioners and learners to navigate Britannica School and ImageQuest through Hwb
for statistical purposes
to analyse and improve the use of their services
to prepare non identifiable usage reports

Data sharing

Learner data will only ever be disclosed to:

authorised Welsh Government employees
senior representatives of a school

Britannica Education will not knowingly disclose learner data to any third person without express written authorisation.

How your information is stored and kept safe

Personal information collected through Britannica Education is stored on limited-access servers. Britannica Education maintains an information security programme.

They use reasonable organisational, physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to protect their servers and the data they hold from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, loss or changes.

Security measures include among others:

encryption of data
security controls that protect against authorised access and external attack
internal policies and staff training on data protection
a data breach notification policy

Security measures are regularly reviewed, tested and updated. For further information see the Britannica Education Privacy Policy.