How many staff can use one licence?
Every member of staff. A licence covers your whole school with no per-seat charges. Staff join with your school's access code, or you can import a staff list.
Which year groups do you cover?
The online safety packs cover KS1 to KS4, with staff CPD sessions and whole-school plans. Starter Shield includes 14 packs and Full Shield 23. Complete Shield adds a PSHE scheme of work from Reception to Year 11: 72 units, one for each half-term, with 63 more ready-to-teach unit packs.
What does the PSHE scheme cover?
Every year group from Reception to Year 11 has six units, one for each half-term, across Health and wellbeing, Relationships, Living in the wider world and online safety. Years 7 to 10: a full unit of six or seven lessons every half-term, including careers and GCSE options, so there's nothing else to plan. The scheme is mapped to the DfE's relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance, published in July 2025, which applies from September 2026. Teachers tick off lessons as they teach them, and your PSHE lead can see coverage for every class, record book looks and print a delivery record: evidence that PSHE is planned, taught and monitored.
Can teachers record assessment, using our own grades?
Yes, with Complete Shield. Each class has a grid with pupils down the side and the year's PSHE units across the top. Teachers pick an assessment for each pupil in each unit, and the cells are colour-coded. Your PSHE lead sets the scale: keep the default (Beginning, Acquiring, Secure, Exceeding) or use your school's own words or grades, with your own colours. Teachers paste their class list from your MIS or upload a CSV; only pupils' names are kept. Leaders see the spread of assessments for every class, and each grid prints or downloads as a spreadsheet. The All subjects add-on brings the same grid to every subject.
What does the All subjects add-on add?
It takes the assessment Complete Shield has for PSHE to every subject. You start from curriculum maps based on the national curriculum and make them your own. Teachers assess each unit on the subject's own scale and colours, pupils who move between classes and sets keep their record, and each pupil has one page across every subject, ready for parents' evening. In every subject, teachers can also grade each national curriculum and GCSE statement from Year 1 to Year 11 on a scale of 1 to 4, week by week, and each pupil has a passport that follows them from year to year. The report writer drafts each pupil's comment from their assessments (including the statement passport's strengths and next steps) and your own comment bank, so teachers start from a draft rather than a blank page; AI drafting is optional and off unless your school turns it on, and a teacher checks and signs off every report. Subject leads see strengths and gaps by unit and class: it helps leaders know their school, with evidence that the curriculum is planned, taught and monitored. Paste or upload class lists from your MIS. The add-on is priced by your school's phase and number of pupils, with a discount for trusts, and a Complete Shield school adds it from Billing in the portal.
What is the Careers add-on?
A careers area for your pupils, with your careers programme in one place. Pupils sign in from school or home to find out what they enjoy, explore careers and the routes into them, with pay and hours from official sources, write a CV they can download, and keep a plan for their next steps, including Year 9 options and Year 11 next steps. Careers leaders and form tutors see pupils' plans and progress; your programme, encounters, workplace experiences, personal guidance and destinations are recorded by year group and tagged with the Gatsby Benchmarks. It supports your careers programme and your Gatsby Benchmark evidence. It is for schools with Years 7 to 11, and middle schools with Year 8 (at the 11 to 16 price), on Full Shield and Complete Shield: £495 a year for a school 11 to 16, or £695 a year for a school with a sixth form, 11 to 18, with 15% off for 3 or more schools, 20% for 10 or more in a trust. Add it from Billing in the portal.
How does the right to withdraw work?
Parents' right to withdraw applies to sex education, not to relationships education or health education. The scheme flags each lesson that is sex education, and the parent letter for that unit explains the right. You record withdrawn pupils for each class by initials only, and the delivery record shows they were accounted for.
What is in the staff CPD library?
Short modules for school staff on SEND, safeguarding, wellbeing, teaching and compliance: autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, speech, language and communication needs, social, emotional and mental health needs, hearing and vision impairment, learning disabilities including Down syndrome, foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), Tourette's syndrome and selective mutism; child-on-child abuse, exploitation and county lines, nude image sharing and sextortion, neglect, attendance and children missing education, domestic abuse, FGM and honour-based abuse, Prevent, and self-harm; looked-after and previously looked-after children, young carers, anxiety and school avoidance, low mood and depression, bereavement, eating disorders, vaping, alcohol and drugs, and trauma-informed practice; adaptive teaching, how pupils learn, effective feedback, behaviour, English as an additional language and working with teaching assistants; and online safety for staff, the Equality Act, medical conditions, data protection and safer working practice. Each has scenarios, a quiz and a certificate. Your school admin can make modules required and see who has completed them. New modules are added over time. The library is part of Complete Shield.
Can you tailor it for our school?
Yes. Any member of staff can suggest a change from the portal, and say which kind it is; our team replies there, and everyone at your school can follow it. A suggestion that would improve Digital Shields for every school is always free: if we take it on, every school gets it. A change made only for your school uses one of your free changes each licence year: 1 with Starter Shield, 2 with Full Shield and 3 with Complete Shield, plus 2 with the All subjects add-on and 1 with the Careers add-on. A free change is a small one we can make in about a day. Anything bigger, and any change once your free ones are used, is quoted at a fixed price before any work starts, from £150 a change; a school admin accepts the quote in the portal, and we invoice it. Unused free changes don't roll over to the next licence year.
Can we upgrade during the year?
Yes. An admin can upgrade from Starter to Full or Complete Shield, or from Full to Complete Shield, in the portal at any time. You pay the difference for the rest of your licence year.
Can we pay by invoice or purchase order?
Yes. Email
support@digitalshields.co with your school's details and PO number and we'll set up your licence and send an invoice.
What format are the resources in?
Each pack opens as a printable document you can save as a PDF, with a PowerPoint deck for the slides. Lesson plans, worksheets, the quiz, assembly script, parent letter and DSL briefing can each be printed on their own.
Is there a free trial?
We don't run free trials, but we're happy to show you the portal. Email
support@digitalshields.co and we'll arrange a walkthrough.
How do you handle our data?
Your school is the controller and we act as your processor. We hold staff names and emails. Pupils' names are kept only in the class lists your school adds for teacher assessment and, with the All subjects add-on, in its pupil records (names and year groups, with their groups, assessments, notes and reports), never with UPNs, dates of birth or addresses. The DPIA and data processing agreement are generated in the portal, and our
schools privacy notice sets out every sub-processor.
