Parent & Pupil Privacy Notice 2023

Under data protection law, individuals have a right to be informed about how the school uses any personal data that we hold about them.  We comply with this right by providing ‘privacy notices’ to individuals where we are processing their personal data.

This privacy notice explains how we collect, store and use personal data about pupils.

We, Heap Bridge Village Primary School, are the ‘data controller’ for the purposes of data collection law.

Our data protection officer is Marcus Cockcroft (see ‘Contact’ section for further information).

The categories of pupil information that we process include:

  • personal identifiers and contacts (such as name, unique pupil number, contact details and address);
  • characteristics (such as ethnicity, language, and free school meal eligibility);
  • safeguarding information (such as court orders and professional involvement);
  • special educational needs (including the needs and ranking);
  • medical and administration (such as doctors information, child health, dental health, allergies, medication and dietary requirements);
  • attendance (such as sessions attended, number of absences, absence reasons and any previous schools attended);
  • assessment and attainment (such as key stage results and any relevant results);
  • behavioural information (such as rewards, sanctions, exclusions and any relevant alternative provision put in place);
  • CCTV images captured in school;
  • Digital Images;
  • Financial information (such as payments made to the school and any outstanding debts)

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

Why we collect and use pupil information

The personal data collected is essential, in order for the school to fulfil their official functions and meet legal requirements.

We collect and use pupil information, for the following purposes:

a)                   to support pupil learning;

b)                  to monitor and report on pupil attainment progress;

c)                   to provide appropriate pastoral care;

d)                  to assess the quality of our services;

e)                  to keep children safe (food allergies, or emergency contact details);

f)                    to meet the statutory duties placed upon us for DfE data collections;

g)                   we collect digital imagery for systems in school;

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

  • for the purposes of (a), (b), (c) and (d) in accordance with the legal basis of Public Task: collecting the data is necessary to perform tasks that schools are required to perform as part of their statutory function;
  • for the purposes of (e) in accordance with the legal basis of Vital Interests: to keep children safe (food allergies, or medical conditions);
  • for the purposes of (f) in accordance with the legal basis of Legal Obligation: data collected for DfE census information;
  • for the purposes of (g) and (h) in accordance with the legal basis of Consent: parents/carers will be asked for consent by the school to process your child’s information.
  • Please be aware that where the processing of your data is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time.

In addition, concerning any special category data:

How we collect pupil information

We collect pupil information via admission/data collection forms when your child commences at Heap Bridge.  In addition, when a child joins us from another school we are sent a secure file containing relevant information.

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 is 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.  Information is stored on secure servers.  School MIS.  For more information on our data retention schedule, please visit http://irms.org.uk/page/SchoolsToolkit.

Who we share pupil information with

We routinely share pupil information with:

  • schools that the pupils attend after leaving us;
  • the Department for Education (DfE);
  • School Nurses/NHS.

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:

Regulation 5 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. If you need to raise a concern about our use of your personal information to our Data Protection Officer please contact DPOSchools@Rochdale.Gov.UK or Information Governance Unit, Number One Riverside, Smith Street, Rochdale OL16 1XU

You also have the right to:

  • prevent processing for the purpose of direct marketing;
  • 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 at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Contact

If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice, please contact:

Rochdale Borough Council

Number One Riverside,

Rochdale,

OL16 1XU.

01706 925080

DPOSchools@Rochdale.Gov.UK 

How the 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’ educational policy monitoring and school accountability and intervention (for example, school SATs results or Pupil Progress measures);
  • supports ‘longer term’ research and monitoring of educational policy

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.

To find out more about the NPD, go to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-pupil-database-user-guide-and-supporting-information

Sharing by the Department

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

  • schools;
  • local authorities;
  • researchers;

For more information about the Department’s NPD data sharing process, please visit:

https://www.gov.uk/data-protection-how-we-collect-and-share-research-data

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: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dfe-external-data-shares

To contact DfE: https://www.gov.uk/contact-dfe