Setting up Hwb in your school

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

Setting up Hwb

Identify your 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 is correct in the User Management Portal.
Ensure that acceptable use policies for staff and learners are up to date and signed.
Consider your schools online safety policies before distributing usernames and passwords.
Provide information to staff, parents, learners and governors.

You can find acceptable use policies and guidance within 360 degree safe Cymru. This tool can help the school benchmark its current online safety policies and practices. It 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.

Start using Hwb

You need to give all staff and learners their Hwb usernames and passwords.

All maintained schools in Wales have received Hwb login details for staff and learners. Your digital champion can get these from the User Management Portal on the Hwb home page.

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

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 any later versions

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

Hwb data sharing and consent

Data sharing

All learners in maintained schools in Wales must be provided with a secure Hwb login.

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. This ensures that schools can use the distance learning tools available.

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.

Please see our guidance on consent.

Find out more about data sharing, consent and acceptable use of Hwb.

Please also refer to the privacy notice and terms and conditions.

Migrating files and email from Google Workspace for Education to your Hwb account

This guidance outlines the options available to migrate from a school Google-suite domain 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.

Moving files

Staff

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.

What to consider when using this tool

Your school domain admin must configure your School Google Workspace for Education domain accordingly to allow the transfer of files.
It 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.

Learners

We advise that learners 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. Contact your local authority or IT support provider for support with this change.

Migrating files and shared drives from Microsoft 365

This guidance outlines the options available to migrate from a Microsoft 365 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.

Personal user files

Staff

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

What to consider when using this tool

It 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.

Learners

We advise that learners 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. You 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. 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 third party apps and services once 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.

Find out more about Hwb rollover to academic year 2025 to 2026.

Hwb 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.

All users can choose their preferred language.

Log in to Hwb and navigate to the User Management Portal.
In the User Management Portal, click My Profile to view your details. In the Preferred Language row click the button Change Preferred Language.
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.