Getting Started

Introduction to Hwb

Hwb hosts a national collection of digital tools and resources to support learning and teaching in Wales.

Hwb has been developed to:

• support a national approach to planning and delivery
• enable the sharing of skills, methods and resources between teachers in Wales
• support teaching and learning in Welsh and English
• offer equal access to free, classroom focused tools and resources for teachers and learners in Wales

Hwb enables learners and teachers to access online resources anywhere, at any time, from a range of devices. It also provides:

• tools and resources created or commissioned by the Welsh Government and its partners
• tools and resources licensed or bought by the Welsh Government
• tools and resources made available by trusted sources
• resources created by teachers

Getting started

To get started with Hwb, your school’s digital champion or Hwb administrator will need to provide all staff and learners with their Hwb usernames and passwords from the User Management Portal. If your school doesn’t yet have a digital champion or if you don’t know who this is, your headteacher or a member of the leadership team will need to contact the Hwb service desk.

Once users have their login details, they can access all of our tools and services straight away.

Your regional education consortia digital lead will be able to provide further support and training. 

Before distributing usernames and passwords your school should consider its online safety provision and have current acceptable use policies in place. You can also find further acceptable use policies and guidance within 360 degree safe Cymru.

Adopting Hwb

There are many different approaches to adopting Hwb in your school. However, you need to ensure the following things are in place: 

• Identify your Digital Champions (Hwb administrators) and ensure they have the permissions needed to access the User Management Portal, containing usernames and passwords.
• Check your username and password list in the User Management Portal is correct.
• Ensure that acceptable use policies for staff and learners are up to date and signed.
• Provide information to governors, staff, parents and learners.

The 360 degree safe Cymru tool can help the school benchmark its current online safety policies and practices regarding and provides advice and templates to support your school’s approach. 

Given the wide range of tools in Hwb we recommend that schools plan their approach in line with local priorities, ideally aligned to the school improvement plan. 

Further help, advice and training is available from the regional educational consortia. 

Supported devices and browsers

The supported devices and browsers for Hwb are:

• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Safari on Mac
• Mozilla Firefox
• iPhone - latest iOS
• iPad - latest iOS
• Android mobile and tablet 4.4 (KitKat) and above

Encyclopaedia Britannica is supported on the following browsers:

• Google Chrome version 52.0 or higher
• Mozilla Firefox version 45.0 or higher
• Microsoft Edge version 25.0 or higher
• Safari version 9.1 or higher

Who can have a Hwb account

Hwb accounts are automatically created for learners and staff in maintained schools in Wales using data in your school’s MIS, for example SIMS or Teacher Centre. Hwb accounts are also available for local authority and regional education consortia staff who are supporting these maintained schools. 

Governors can request Hwb accounts from their school. 

Supply teachers can request Hwb accounts from the sign up option. 

ITE students will receive a Hwb account from their ITE provider for the duration of their course, these are referred to as ITE university accounts. ITE providers can supply you with details about these accounts. 

We are currently working on several projects to provide Hwb access to other educational institutions in Wales.

Data sharing and consent (Hwb additional services)

Data sharing

It is compulsory for all learners in maintained schools in Wales to be provided with a secure Hwb login.

For learners and staff to be provided with secure logins, schools need to share personal information about them with the Welsh Government. This will be done using the all-Wales Education Identity Provider service.

In order to facilitate the sharing of personal data with the Welsh Government, headteachers or authorised members of the school’s Senior Leadership Team are asked to review and accept the terms in the Hwb data sharing agreement.

Hwb additional services

The Welsh Government believes that it is in the public interest to ensure every learner in maintained schools in Wales has full access to Hwb so that schools can use the distance learning tools available. 

Please see our updated guidance on consent.

Find out more about data sharing, consent and acceptable use of Hwb. Please also refer to the our privacy notice and  terms and conditions.

Migrating to Hwb

This guidance outlines the options available to migrate from a school G-suite domain or Microsoft O365 tenant to Hwb.  It is suitable for migrating staff accounts only.

Please speak to your local authority or your IT support provider for advice and support with moving to Hwb.  Consider carefully what files you need to move when migrating. 

Migrating from Google Workspace for Education

Files

Staff wishing to transfer their files from their school domain to the Hwb domain can use the Google Take Out tool. This tool can be used by individual staff to transfer files directly from their school account to their Hwb account. Please consider the following when using this tool:

• Your school domain admin must configure your School Google Workspace for Education domain accordingly to allow the transfer of files.
• This tool will transfer your My Drive files only so if you are not the owner of the file, the file will not be transferred. For example, files that have been shared with you will not be moved. If you still need access to these files you can download them manually or copy to your My Drive before transferring.
• Google Classroom files will not be moved as part of the transfer. Any files you wish to keep from Google Classroom need to be copied to your drive first before you transfer.

For learners, we advise that they manually move files they wish to keep from their personal drives to their Hwb Google Workspace for Education Drive.

Gmail

Gmail is not available on the Hwb Google Workspace for Education domain.  The transfer of email files to Hwb is a manual process. Contact your local authority or IT support provider for advice on how to move your email from Gmail to Hwb. 

Moving your email address to Hwb

For staff in schools using their school domain as an email address alias, the email address can be moved to Hwb using our domain name masking process. Please read more about Domain Name Masking in the support centre. Contact your local authority or IT support provider for support with this change.

Migrating from Office 365 

Personal user files

For staff wanting to move files from their school OneDrive or personal drive to their Hwb OneDrive they can use the Microsoft SharePoint Migration Tool. Users must have permissions on both the source and destination folders to do this.

Please consider the following when using this tool:

• This tool will transfer your files only so if you are not the owner of the file it will not be transferred. For example, files that have been shared with you will not be moved. If you still need access to these files you can download them manually.
• Microsoft Team files will not be moved as part of the transfer. Any files you wish to keep from Teams need to be copied to your OneDrive first before you transfer.

For learners, we advise that they manually move files they wish to keep from their personal drives to their Hwb OneDrive.

Shared drives

Shared drives can also be transferred from your school tenant to Hwb using the SharePoint Migration Tool. Files can be moved to the Hwb SharePoint sites provided and managed by the Local Authority.  Please speak to your local authority to arrange access to this site and to assist with any migration of files.  Users must have permissions on both the source and destination folders to achieve this type of transfer.

Email

The transfer of email files from one mailbox to another can be done manually by individual staff.  This can be done by exporting .pst file from the school email mailbox in the Outlook client and importing the .pst file into the Hwb account mailbox. Contact your local authority or IT support provider for advice on how to do this. 

Moving your email address to Hwb

For staff in schools using their school domain as an email address alias, the email address can be moved to Hwb via our domain name masking process. Please read more about Domain Name Masking in the support centre. The following consideration should be given to all dependencies on your current email address before moving:

• If your email address is connected to your Office 365 tenant, you must disassociate the email from your office 365 tenant before migrating.
• You may no longer be able to sign in to other 3^rd party apps and servicesonce you move your email alias to Hwb.

Contact your local authority or IT support provider for support with this change.

Rollover of accounts to the next academic year

The process for rolling over Hwb data from one academic year to another is relatively simple. We advise all Hwb Administrators to read the Hwb rollover guide, which explains the rollover process and actions that may need to be taken to ensure all Hwb accounts are up to date.

Specific dates in relation to certain actions will be contained in the annual news article.

News: Hwb ‘rollover’ to academic year 2024 to 2025

Language settings

Language toggle

The language toggle currently controls the language for Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace for Education tools and the user management portal.

In order to change your language settings for these tools available through Hwb, you need to follow these steps.

All users can choose their preferred language.

1. Log in to Hwb and navigate to the User Management Portal.
2. In the User Management Portal, click My Profile to view your details. In the Preferred Language row click the button Change Preferred Language. There are two options.
3. Choose between English and Cymraeg to set your preferred language.

Changes made to the language toggle should filter through quickly but can take up to 48 hours in some cases.

Web browser language

Setting your browser’s default language will determine if the user management portal appears in Welsh or English when you first visit the site.  You can switch easily between Welsh and English on each page by clicking on the language in the navigation bar.

Setting your browser default language setting will also determine which language you see in other Hwb services.  Many other external sites will also use the browser language to determine which language their content is delivered.

For support with setting you browser’s default language please speak to your IT administrator or local authority IT support.

Further support

For general enquiries please contact the Welsh Government Hwb Team:

Telephone: 03000 252525 

Email: support@Hwbcymru.net 

You can also access support via your regional educational consortia digital lead. Please contact them directly for details.