Privacy Notice (How We Use Pupil Information)

This Privacy Notice explains how and why we store personal information about pupils and parents/carers. It provides a guide to parents/carers about our legal obligations and their own rights. Like any organisation which handles personal data, our school is defined as a ‘Data Controller’ and, as such, we are registered with the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) and we comply with the Data Protection Act and General Data Protection Regulation.

The Categories of Pupil Information That We Process Include:

This list is not exhaustive, to access the current list of categories of information we process please contact the school.

Why We Collect and Use Pupil Information

We collect and use pupil information, for the following purposes:
• To support pupil learning
• To keep informed to keep children safe
• To monitor and report on pupil progress
• To provide appropriate pastoral care
• To comply with the law regarding data sharing
• To meet the statutory duties placed upon us for DfE data collections

We use the parents’ data:
• To assess the quality of our services
• To comply with the law regarding data sharing
• To ensure financial stability

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing pupil information are:

The lawful bases for processing personal data are set out in Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation. The school processed such data because we have:

(6a) Consent: parents have given clear consent for us to process their (and their child’s) personal data for the purposes indicated above.

(6c) A Legal obligation: the processing is necessary for us to comply with the law (e.g. we are required by law to submit certain teacher assessment information and to safeguard pupils’ welfare by sharing information with other agencies).

(6d) A duty to safeguard pupils: the processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject (children); (e.g. if we are required to share medical history information with emergency services in the event of an accident or to other agencies when a child may be in danger).

Special Categories of data are set out in Article 9 of the General data Protection Regulation. The school processes such data because we have:

(9.2b) processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of the controller or of the data subject in the field of social security and social protection law in so far as it is authorised by Union or Member State law or a collective agreement pursuant to Member State law providing for appropriate safeguards for the fundamental rights and the interests of the data subject.

How We Collect Pupil Information

We collect pupil information via registration forms at the start of the school year or Common Transfer File (CTF) or secure file transfer from the previous setting.

Pupil data is essential for the schools’ operational use. Whilst the majority of pupil information you provide to us is mandatory, some of it requested on a voluntary basis. In order to comply with the data protection legislation, we will inform you at the point of collection, whether you are required to provide certain pupil information to us or if you have a choice in this.

How We Store Pupil Data

We hold pupil data securely for the set amount of time shown in our data retention schedule. For more information on our data retention schedule and how we keep your data safe, please contact the school administrator.

All confidential information is kept secure either on encrypted, password protected devices or paper copies kept on the school site. Once the deadline for retaining information has passed, data kept electronically is deleted and paper copies are destroyed in conjunction with the retention schedule.

Who We Share Pupil Information With

We routinely share pupil information with:
• Schools that the pupil attends after leaving us
• Our local authority
• The Department for Education (DfE)
• Children’s Social Care (when safeguarding pupils’ welfare)
• External professionals who visit school (such as Educational Psychologists)
• Suppliers and service providers with whom we have a contract
• Voluntary organisations linked to the school

Why We Regularly Share Pupil Information

We do not share information about our pupils with anyone without consent unless the law and our policies allow us to do so.

Department for Education

The Department for Education (DfE) collects personal data from educational settings and local authorities via various statutory data collections. We are required to share information about our pupils with the Department for Education (DfE) either directly or via our local authority for the purpose of those data collections, under:

Section 3 of The Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013.

All data is transferred securely and held by DfE under a combination of software and hardware controls, which meet the current government security policy framework.

For more information, please see ‘How Government uses your data’ section.

Requesting Access to Your Personal Data

Under data protection legislation, parents and pupils have the right to request access to information about them that we hold. To make a request for your personal information, or be given access to your child’s educational record, contact the administration team or alternatively the school's Data Protection Officer. Contact details can be found on the CONTACT page of the school website.

You also have the right to:
• object to processing of personal data that is likely to cause, or is causing, damage or distress
• prevent processing for the purpose of direct marketing
• object to decisions being taken by automated means
• in certain circumstances, have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed; and
• a right to seek redress, either through the ICO, or through the courts

If you have a concern or complaint about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office

Contact

If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice, please contact the administration team or alternatively the school's Data Protection Officer. Contact details can be found on the CONTACT page of the school website.

How Government Uses Your Data

The pupil data that we lawfully share with the DfE through data collections:

• underpins school funding, which is calculated based upon the numbers of children and their characteristics in each school.
• informs ‘short term’ education policy monitoring and school accountability and intervention (for example, school GCSE results or Pupil Progress measures).
• supports ‘longer term’ research and monitoring of educational policy (for example how certain subject choices go on to affect education or earnings beyond school)

Data Collection Requirements

To find out more about the data collection requirements placed on us by the Department for Education (for example; via the school census) go to https://www.gov.uk/education/data-collection-and-censuses-for-schools

The National Pupil Database (NPD)

Much of the data about pupils in England goes on to be held in the National Pupil Database (NPD).

The NPD is owned and managed by the Department for Education and contains information about pupils in schools in England. It provides invaluable evidence on educational performance to inform independent research, as well as studies commissioned by the Department.

It is held in electronic format for statistical purposes. This information is securely collected from a range of sources including schools, local authorities and awarding bodies.

Sharing by the Department

The law allows the Department to share pupils’ personal data with certain third parties, including:

• schools
• local authorities
• researchers
• organisations connected with promoting the education or wellbeing of children in England
• other government departments and agencies
• organisations fighting or identifying crime

Organisations fighting or identifying crime may use their legal powers to contact DfE to request access to individual level information relevant to detecting that crime. Whilst numbers fluctuate slightly over time, DfE typically supplies data on around 600 pupils per year to the Home Office and roughly 1 per year to the Police.

For information about which organisations the Department has provided pupil information, (and for which project) or to access a monthly breakdown of data share volumes with Home Office and the Police please visit the following website: