Common questions,
straight answers.

Cloak for Schools is an online cyber-safety learning platform for secondary students — used the way schools already use platforms like MyMaths or Cognito, but for online safety. Students log in and work through interactive lessons at their own pace; teachers assign tasks, track progress and get a lesson plan on every lesson through a teacher dashboard. It is licensed to schools as a per-school annual subscription.

Cloak for Schools is built for secondary schools. The content and tone are aimed at students aged 11 to 16, with activities focused on the platforms, behaviours and online risks that age group is more likely to encounter. It is not designed for primary-age pupils.

Cloak for Schools is student-facing, with teacher support built around it. Students log in, complete lessons and activities at their own pace, while teachers assign tasks and track progress from a dashboard. Every lesson also comes with a teacher-facing lesson plan: objectives, discussion prompts and teacher notes. Cloak for Schools is not staff training, CPD or an in-person workshop programme.

Yes. Lessons are mapped to the online-safety content of statutory RSHE (Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education) — the Online safety and awareness and Wellbeing online strands — and to Computing online-safety outcomes. They teach the technology side of online safety: spotting scams and fake messages, recognising deepfakes and AI-generated content, using AI chatbots critically, evaluating what’s real online, and managing privacy, data, security and digital footprint. They don’t teach the relationships, sex or health content of those strands; see what we leave to your RSE. Several activities also build media-literacy and critical-thinking skills: telling real from fake, evaluating sources and spotting manipulation. Those skills support wider Citizenship and personal-development work at key stages 3 and 4. The aim is to help schools show clear evidence of online-safety teaching across RSHE, Computing and wider personal-development work. A statement-level mapping to the 2026 RSHE guidance and Computing outcomes is available for school due diligence — just ask.

Yes. The DfE’s updated statutory Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education guidance came into force on 1 September 2026, and for the first time it names risks like deepfakes, AI-generated images, AI chatbots, sextortion, and commercial data sharing and targeted advertising as online-safety content that secondary schools should cover. Deepfakes, AI-generated images, AI chatbots, and commercial data sharing and targeted advertising are all in the sequence across key stages 3 and 4; sextortion is left to teacher-led RSE. Every lesson has a lesson plan, so a form tutor can teach it rather than just assign it. The teacher dashboard records what was taught and who completed it, so what you show governors is what was delivered, not what was planned. If you want to see the style first, the free activities touch four of the named risks: scams and fake messages, misinformation, AI-generated images, and sharing personal information with apps.

Normally, no. The core sequence across key stages 3 and 4 is updated once a year, so a scheme of work built around it holds for the whole school year. The exception is a change in the law that takes effect before the next update: the affected lessons change when it does. That is rare, because statutory changes usually come with plenty of notice. When a new scam or online risk is worth teaching mid-year, it arrives as an extra lesson alongside the sequence, never as a change to it. Extra lessons pass the same five reviews and come with a lesson plan like every other lesson. Nothing is assigned automatically: a teacher decides whether and when a class sees one.

The relationships, sex and health topics in the online-safety strands: relationships and consent, nudes and the law on sharing images, sextortion, grooming, pornography, abuse in relationships, bullying, harassment and peer conflict, misogynistic and extreme content, self-harm and suicide content, online gambling, drug and knife supply, body image and screen time.

That is deliberate. Those topics are best taught by a teacher in the room, inside your RSE and health education, not in a self-paced lesson a student might do alone at home. Cloak for Schools sticks to what self-paced practice does well: spotting a scam, locking down an account, checking a source, questioning what an AI tells you.

For the topics we leave out, good places to start are CEOP Education for sextortion, nudes and grooming; Childline and the IWF’s Report Remove service for getting a nude image taken down; the PSHE Association for planning relationships, sex and health education; and Ygam for gambling harms.

Because the ban is a proposal, and the skills are not really about social media. On 15 June 2026 the government announced plans to bar under-16s from social-media platforms, with regulations expected in Parliament before Christmas and protections taking effect in spring 2027. Nothing is in force yet, and nothing in the announcement changes what schools must teach now: the RSHE guidance that took effect on 1 September 2026 still expects secondary schools to cover online safety.

The plans are also narrower than the headline. Messaging apps are explicitly excluded, gaming continues with some features restricted, and general-purpose AI stays in everyday use. Scams, pressure and image-sharing can happen in those spaces too, and students will still be in them whatever happens to Instagram and TikTok. The habits Cloak for Schools teaches, such as checking who is really behind a message, refusing to hand over a code, recognising pressure and telling a trusted adult, carry across all of it, and keep working as students gain more independent access. If the law changes, the lessons and the mapping change with it: usually at the annual update, because changes normally come with plenty of notice, or straight away in the rare case one takes effect sooner.

Source: GOV.UK fact sheet, New rules to protect children online, updated 18 September 2026.

ProjectEVOLVE is a respected resource mapped to the UKCIS framework, and Cloak for Schools sits happily alongside it. The difference is in the format: Cloak for Schools is one prepared sequence that students work through themselves, on their own accounts.

A set sequence across key stages 3 and 4. Lessons come in a deliberate order through the technology side of the RSHE Online safety and awareness and Wellbeing online strands, including the risks the 2026 guidance names, such as deepfakes, AI chatbots, and commercial data sharing and targeted advertising. You can still adapt, delay or turn off topics for a class or a student.

Students take part directly. Each lesson is interactive and student-facing, in the same style as our free activities. Students don’t just answer questions. Among other things, they lock down a mock phone, recover a hacked account, investigate a fake profile and train a feed to watch it drift, at their own pace, in class or at home. Every lesson also has a teacher-facing lesson plan, written for non-specialist staff.

Records come from the students’ own work. Because students complete lessons on the platform, the teacher dashboard shows who has completed what as they go.

Designed to stay current. New scams, platforms and AI tools appear quickly, and Cloak for Schools is designed to respond to significant new risks with classroom-ready content.

The simplest way to judge it is to try a free activity with a Year 9 class and see how students respond. If it’s useful, talk to us about your school.

Yes. The free activities are publicly viewable without a login. The schools platform sits behind a student login, but Solid Code Solutions will not impose contractual restrictions that prevent schools from showing materials to parents, and your staff can show any lesson from the teacher preview. That supports the RSHE guidance’s expectation that RSHE materials are available to parents.

Cloak for Schools is developed by Solid Code Solutions, a UK software and IT consultancy founded in 2013 with experience delivering secure digital products for education, public-sector and business clients. Technical accuracy is reviewed by a cybersecurity practitioner from that team.

Cyber expertise alone is not enough to put something in front of a class, so school staff help build the lessons, not just check them. A practising DSL, a practising secondary PSHE lead and a SEND reviewer work on the content alongside the cyber team, drawing on real-world cyber safety expertise, monitored security feeds and current online risk trends. Every activity then passes a defined review chain before it reaches a classroom: cyber accuracy, safeguarding and age-appropriateness (a practising DSL), curriculum and classroom usability (a practising secondary PSHE lead), accessibility and reading level (a SEND reviewer), and credibility and clarity (a panel of teenage reviewers). A person approves every activity before publication — AI never does.

You can see who reviews what, check by check, and we will tell your school exactly who reviewed the material it is given.

Every activity passes five reviews before publication, in this order:

1. Cyber accuracy — a cybersecurity practitioner from Solid Code Solutions.
2. Safeguarding and age-appropriateness — a practising Designated Safeguarding Lead, who signs off the teacher notes and any content warning.
3. Curriculum and classroom usability — a practising secondary PSHE lead.
4. Accessibility and reading level — a SEND and accessibility reviewer.
5. Credibility and clarity — a panel of teenage reviewers.

Three principles sit behind those checks:

• Accurate: every activity is informed by cybersecurity expertise, trusted guidance and current online risks.
• Age and stage appropriate: designed for students aged 11 to 16, pitched around the platforms, behaviours and risks they are likely to encounter, and adapted to suit different year groups.
• Neutral by design: practical online-safety skills, informed decision-making and relevant legal and safeguarding information, without promoting a political or partisan position.

Nothing reaches a classroom on an automated pass. AI helps identify and prepare emerging-risk themes worth teaching, but it holds no authority: it cannot approve content, cannot publish, and never touches student data. However an activity starts life, it only becomes a lesson once the professionals above have taken it through every check and signed it off.

Cloak for Schools teaches the technology side of online safety and leaves the most sensitive topics, such as sextortion, nudes, grooming and self-harm, to teacher-led RSE (see what we leave to your RSE). Even so, a lesson on scams or hacked accounts can bring up something real for a student, so staff stay in control.

You preview everything first. Teachers can preview every lesson and activity before assigning it, so nothing reaches students unvetted. Every lesson comes with teacher notes and discussion guidance, plus a content warning where a lesson needs one, so staff know what is covered and can prepare.

Students are never asked to disclose personal experiences. Activities are built around scenarios and characters, not a student’s own life. There are no free-text boxes asking students to describe things that have happened to them or to other people, and students cannot message anyone through the platform. Reflective questions are framed around the scenario, so students can think a topic through without being put on the spot.

Support is signposted, and staff are guided. Every student module includes an accessible Speak to a teacher link — a steady reminder of how to report a concern to a trusted adult at their own school if an activity mirrors something they have experienced in real life. Alongside it, activities point students towards recognised support routes, so a concern reaches the right person, following your school’s own procedures.

You stay in control of what is taught, and when. Schools can adapt, delay or turn off particular topics to suit their cohort and their curriculum sequence. A topic or lesson can also be held back from an individual student who may be more affected by a subject, without changing it for the rest of the class.

Reviewed by a practising DSL. No lesson reaches a classroom without sign-off from a practising Designated Safeguarding Lead — the teacher notes, any content warning and the handling of each topic — alongside a secondary PSHE lead, a SEND reviewer and teenage reviewers. The full chain is set out under who reviews what.

Cloak for Schools supports your online-safety teaching and the evidence it produces. It does not replace your school’s safeguarding procedures, which remain your responsibility.

Cloak for Schools helps with the teaching, not the technology, and it is worth being clear about the line. Keeping Children Safe in Education expects governing bodies and proprietors to make sure children are taught how to keep themselves and others safe, including online. It links that teaching to RSHE and expects online safety to be reflected across curriculum planning, not treated only as a technical control. That is what Cloak for Schools is built for: activities mapped to the online-safety content of the statutory RSHE guidance and to Computing outcomes, and a teacher dashboard that turns completed work into a clear record of what was taught and who completed it — the kind of evidence that is useful for governors, personal-development reviews and inspection conversations.

What Cloak for Schools is not: it is not a filtering or monitoring system. Those are network and device controls that come from your IT provider — Cloak for Schools does not sit on your network and does not monitor student devices. It also does not replace your safeguarding procedures. Every student module carries a Speak to a teacher link that points a student towards a trusted adult at their own school, so a concern is handled through your processes, not ours.

KCSIE 2026 and the updated RSHE guidance both came into force on 1 September 2026.

No. Cloak for Schools helps with the teaching and evidence side of online safety; your web filtering, device monitoring and safeguarding processes stay exactly as they are.

Judgement. Parental controls, screen-time limits and school filtering decide what a device will open and for how long. They are worth having, and Cloak for Schools is not a substitute for them. What they cannot do is decide for a student whether a DM is a scam, whether an image is real, what a chatbot should be told, or when to stop and tell an adult. Those calls are made by the student, on whatever device is in their hand at the time: a friend’s phone, a games console, or later the first laptop with nothing installed on it. Controls narrow what a student can reach. The teaching is what they carry when the controls come off, and Cloak for Schools records that it was taught.

Your school or trust is the data controller. Solid Code Solutions Ltd, the company behind Cloak for Schools, is the data processor and handles personal data only on your documented instructions. We provide a data processing agreement, signed before any student data is processed, a clear sub-processor list and information to support your data protection impact assessment and supplier checks.

Solid Code Solutions is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office and certified under Cyber Essentials, the government-backed scheme for protection against common cyber attacks. The platform is built around data minimisation: it collects only what is needed to run lessons and show teachers progress, keeps children’s best interests central, never uses student data to train AI models, and is designed to meet the ICO’s Children’s Code (the Age Appropriate Design Code). The free activities need no login and do not ask students to enter any personal data.

The full detail — the student data schema, how students and staff log in, UK hosting, sub-processors, access controls and retention periods — is in section 10 of our privacy policy.

Yes, to spot scams. AI scans sources we check daily for emerging scams and online-risk themes, so lessons can reflect what students are actually facing now. It doesn’t write the lessons: our team decides what’s worth teaching and writes every activity. AI is not connected to student accounts, never touches student data and never publishes anything.

What ‘checked daily’ means. The external sources are a carefully collated set of respected security and online-safety feeds, checked every day. A person reviews what comes back and decides what is real and worth teaching — which is how we keep false positives and hype out of the classroom.

Cloak for Schools runs in the browser at app.getcloak.tech — there is nothing to install, no app to deploy and no software that sits on your network. It works in any up-to-date browser on the devices schools already have, including Chromebooks, iPads and Windows or Mac machines, and students can pick up self-paced work from home on their own devices.

Setup is deliberately light, and we do it with you. The data processing agreement is signed first — before any student data is touched — then staff and student accounts are created from the class lists you provide, as a simple export from your MIS. There is no integration project and nothing for parents to set up. From you, we need the school’s name, the member of staff who will run it, and a class list with a username for each student (such as an admission number), their classes, and names only if you want them shown. We help with the first upload and your admin prints login slips for students. Once classes are in, your admin names who a worried student should speak to, and teachers can preview activities and assign their first lesson straight away. Nothing reaches a student until it is assigned. Exactly what data is needed and how students and staff log in is set out in section 10 of our privacy policy.

Yes. Accessibility was part of how the schools platform was built, not something added at the end: it is designed to meet the WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standard, so students who rely on screen readers, keyboard navigation, captions or larger text can take part in the same activities as everyone else. Teacher guidance also helps staff adapt activities for students who may need additional support before, during or after a lesson. Our accessibility statement sets out how we design for access, where we are today, and how to report a problem. If your school has specific access needs, mention them when you talk to us and we’ll work with you to account for them before you start.