More than a speed test
It’s easy to think of the broadband standard as being about one thing: how fast your connection is. That’s part of it, but only part. The DfE’s standard is really about resilience, whether your school can keep running if something goes wrong, as much as it is about speed.
What the standard actually asks
Full fibre, not copper
The standard expects a full fibre connection, sometimes called a leased line or FTTP (fibre to the premises). Copper connections, even ones that feel fast enough today, don’t meet the standard. Primary schools should have at least 100Mbps download and 30Mbps upload; secondary schools, all-through schools and colleges should have the capacity for a full 1Gbps in both directions.
A backup connection
This is the part that gets missed most often. The standard expects schools to have a second, different type of connection in place, so a single fault doesn’t take the whole school offline. That might mean a leased line backed up by FTTP, or FTTP backed up by a satellite connection, with routers configured to switch over automatically. This part of the standard is mandatory by 2030, the same deadline as all six pillars, but it’s worth having in place well before then: a backup connection only proves its worth on the one day you didn’t expect to need it, so there’s no advantage to leaving it until the deadline gets close.
Security and safeguarding built in, not bolted on
Your broadband setup needs to work with your firewall and your filtering system, whether that’s a device you manage on-site or a service your provider manages for you. This is one of several places the standard deliberately overlaps with the cyber security and filtering and monitoring standards, because a fast connection with no protection behind it isn’t meeting the spirit of any of them.
Why resilience matters as much as speed
A fibre upgrade is the visible part of this standard, the number a supplier can quote you. Backup connectivity is the part that’s easy to leave for later, right up until a single dig by a contractor two streets away takes the whole school offline on exam day.
Cloud-based tools, from your MIS to your phone system, all assume the internet is there. The more a school relies on cloud services (which is itself often the cheaper option long-term), the more that assumption needs to be backed up with a genuine failover, not just a hope that the connection stays up.
Where we’d suggest starting
- Check what type of connection you actually have. If it’s copper rather than full fibre, or you’re not sure, that’s the first call to make.
- Ask what happens today if your main connection drops. If the honest answer is “everything stops,” a backup connection is worth budgeting for before anything else on this list.
- Confirm your firewall and filtering setup is explicitly covered in your broadband contract, or whether that responsibility sits with you.
Our approach
We’ll always tell a school honestly if their existing connection is fine and doesn’t need replacing, upgrading broadband for the sake of it isn’t something we’d recommend. Where the real gap tends to be is resilience: a fast single connection with no backup is still a single point of failure. That’s usually the more useful conversation to have first. Where we’ve migrated a school off emPSN, we also follow up afterwards, not just at go-live, to check the new connection is holding up in practice. That’s not an upsell conversation, it’s making sure the switch has genuinely gone smoothly, at no fault of ours or otherwise.
Guidance referenced is current as of August 2026. Always check GOV.UK for the latest version.
TL;DR: The DfE’s broadband standard expects full fibre (FTTP or a leased line, not copper), at speeds of at least 100Mbps down/30Mbps up for primary schools and up to 1Gbps for secondary schools and colleges, plus a backup connection so a single fault doesn’t take the school offline. Security and safeguarding systems need to work alongside it, not be an afterthought. Resilience, not just speed, is where most schools have a genuine gap.
