Privacy Policy

Privacy Notice (to ensure compliance with GDPR)

West Exe Nursery School collect and store information about children and their carers to ensure we meet our statutory responsibilities and can communication effectively, we do not share any information to 3rd parties for marketing purposes.

The categories of pupil information that we process include:

• personal identifiers and contacts (such as name, contact details, NI number, date of birth of children and parents and address). We use some of this information to check for eligibility for various government based funding – 30 hour entitlement, pupil premium etc)
• characteristics (such as ethnicity, language, and free school meal eligibility)
• safeguarding information (such as court orders and professional involvement – we use a system called C-Poms to record all safeguarding concerns, accidents, incidents etc, this is a secure system that complies with GDPR).
• special educational needs
• medical and administration (such as doctors information, child health, allergies, medication and dietary requirements)
• attendance (such as sessions attended, number of absences, absence reasons and any previous settings attended or current)
• assessment and attainment (Tapestry and our in house assessment programme – both comply with GDPR)
• behavioural information (C-Poms)

Why we collect and use pupil information

We collect and use children’s information, for the following purposes:

• to support children’s learning
• to monitor and report on children’s progress
• to provide appropriate care
• to assess the quality of our services
• to keep children safe (food allergies, or emergency contact details)
• to meet the statutory duties placed upon us for DfE data collections

How we collect pupil information

We collect children’s information via application and Tapestry forms and any subsequent change forms. We may also receive information from any previous setting.

Children’s data is essential for the schools’ operational use. Whilst the majority of children’s information you provide to us is mandatory, some of it is 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 children’s data securely for the set amount of time shown in our data retention schedule.

We hold children’s forms in securely locked filing cabinets in a coded office or on protected software such as C-Poms or Tapestry

Who we share information with

We routinely share pupil information with:

• schools that the children attend after leaving us or settings that they are moving too
• our local authority
• the Department for Education (DfE)

Why we regularly share pupil information

We do not share information about our children with anyone without consent unless the law and our policies allow us to do so. We will share information with the police or social services should we believe a child is at risk, but where appropriate we will seek your consent 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 children 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 Sarah Baker, Head, West Exe Nursery School.

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 at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Contact

If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice, please contact: Sarah Baker, Head, West Exe Nursery SchoolHow 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.
• 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
• organisations connected with promoting the education or wellbeing of children in England
• other government departments and agencies
• organisations fighting or identifying crime

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