Case Study: Gateacre School achieves Ofsted-commended content filtering and KCSiE compliance with SonicWall

Gateacre School's Content Filtering Is Regarded as Exemplary by Ofsted

Gateacre School, a large UK secondary with 1,017 pupils and 163 staff, faced inadequate visibility of internet use and needed to meet the statutory Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE) guidance after an Ofsted inspection flagged weak safeguarding. To address this, the school worked with SonicWall, deploying a high-availability pair of SonicWall NSA 4600 firewalls, SonicWall Comprehensive Gateway Security Suite (including CFS 4.0) and Fastvue Reporter to provide content filtering, monitoring and reporting.

SonicWall’s all‑in‑one solution delivered detailed, bespoke reports and configurable alerts mapped to KCSiE categories, restoring compliance and helping the school move from special measures to being judged “effective” by Ofsted, which described the school’s filtering as “exemplary.” The project also improved performance and productivity—Gateacre now supports 1,180 users with just two IT staff—while providing fast, secure internet access and stronger online safeguarding.

Gateacre School

Dave Glover

IT Network Manager