Broad Horizons Education Trust
Introduction
Broad Horizons Education Trust in Norwich, England, manages four Google tenancies across 18 schools, including three high schools, two specialist schools, and a range of primary and junior schools. Between them, they serve around 8,000 students and 1,500 staff and volunteers, from nursery up to sixth form.
Richard Wright, Information Security Manager, was previously the IT Manager at one of the merged Trusts. He now oversees data protection, cybersecurity, and governance. On a day-to-day basis, he is charged with managing and protecting the data held in Google Workspace, handling data protection enquiries and governance, managing and responding to alerts from Google and GAT.
Challenge
“When it came to auditing, we just didn’t do it. We had no control over our shared Google Drive – that’s why we got GAT.”
Use Cases
Google Drive Oversight
“It’s that one screen in GAT where you can see every file in a tenancy, and to be able to search that and find exactly what we’re looking for… that’s really, really powerful!”
“When we installed GAT, it was like turning the lights on to Google Drive because we had no idea what was in there, and now we do!”
Account Migration
“They almost didn’t know it was happening – we would not have been able to do that without GAT. We tried other methods before, but it just left staff with two versions of every file. With GAT, we could move the originals, keep all the sharing settings, and no one even noticed the switch – so yeah, very powerful!”
Email Delegation and Monitoring
Using GAT, they can now centrally manage email delegation and monitor forwarding to personal email addresses, which is not visible in the standard Google Admin console.
Suspicious Login Alerts
GAT+ is configured to monitor and alert on non-UK logins, helping the IT team quickly spot unusual account activity. This is particularly valuable for student accounts. Richard noted that although only a small number of these incidents have occurred, they were serious enough to warrant investigation.
By flagging these anomalies, Richard and the team can intervene before accounts are misused, protecting students and the wider trust from potential compromise.
Spam and Phishing Control
The Trust uses GAT+ to detect and control spam and phishing that slip under Google’s radar. Attackers often send only a small number of emails to avoid triggering Google’s thresholds. Richard recalls one incident;
“One of our accounts was being used to send spam emails… below the point where Google would have picked it up. Whoever was doing this was quite shrewd, only sending enough to stay under the radar.”
To address this, they set up a custom alert to highlight suspicious activity: they are notified and can act immediately. This lets them catch issues early, protect users, and keep the network secure.
Security & Incident Response
Beyond everyday management, GAT plays a vital role in keeping the Trust secure, from detecting risky files to investigating suspicious documents.
One key application is the detection and removal of executable files, such as Roblox.exe or even ransomware. When these appear, the IT team can quickly trace the source, delete them from Google Drive, and adjust filtering policies to prevent future downloads.
“GAT alerts us when an executable file is uploaded into Google Drive. We can then go into the filtering to see where they got that from, who downloaded it, where they downloaded it from, and then check other protections such as filtering rules to ensure they are adequate?”
GAT also supports investigations into inappropriate or suspicious documents. It allows the team to see exactly who accessed or edited a file, and escalate issues to staff when necessary. As Richard explains:
“With GAT, students can’t deny they’ve seen a document or updated it… GAT shines a light on it so that we can see exactly what’s going on.”
Conclusion
Looking Ahead
Richard emphasises that GAT has become integral to the Trust’s governance and security posture. Migrating schools between tenancies was simplified with GAT, avoiding the duplication and confusion caused by other methods.
Everyday tasks, such as setting up email delegation, now take seconds instead of time-consuming workarounds.
Looking ahead, Broad Horizons Trust plans to continue using GAT as a core part of its Google Workspace strategy.
“If we didn’t have GAT, lots of stuff wouldn’t be happening. We wouldn’t have known about it. We are now in control of all the documents within Google Drive. Before, we had no idea such things existed.”
