Education and learning - Privacy notices

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Education and learning
Privacy notice

Last updated: October 2024

This privacy notice applies to the education and learning services provided by Warwickshire County Council, including services delivered by private / third sector partners for and on behalf of Warwickshire County Council. It should be read in addition to the council’s overall Customer Privacy Notice and Warwickshire Education Services Privacy Notice.

Purpose for processing

The services, which may be provided in-house or by partner/provider organisations, process personal information in order to improve the welfare of Warwickshire residents and to be able to offer fair education provision to all, including fair access. This includes:

  • Securing sufficient school places across Warwickshire
  • Assessing and securing suitable provision for children with SEND, including the issuing and reviewing of EHC plans, and specialist teaching provision
  • Securing sufficient early years and childcare provision
  • Processing for access or eligibility of Early Years funded provision
  • Co-ordinating school admissions, including 11+ testing where required, and managing the transfer of pupils between schools during an academic year.
  • Improving school attendance and undertaking, where necessary, prosecutions for non-school attendance
  • Supporting children missing education, elective home education, pupils unable to attend school due to health needs
  • Ensuring pupils who are permanently excluded from school are provided with a place to continue their learning as quickly as possible.
  • Providing school transport, issuing of travel passes
  • Processing Free School Meal eligibility
  • Supporting successful cross-cultural communication to improve the achievements and engagement of pupils from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community, and pupils with english as an additional language
  • Provision of accredited and non-accredited learning opportunities for adults aged 19+
  • Provision of residential / outdoor learning opportunities
  • Warwickshire Music Service, providing instrumental and vocal lessons; Instrument hire to parents and schools; music therapy; musical events, workshops and concerts
  • Assessing learning, social and emotional needs of Warwickshire pupils and young people, including therapeutic work
  • Monitoring the educational attainment and progress of looked after children and post 16 young people
  • Enabling and supporting the participation of 16-18 years old in education, employment and training
  • School Governor provision and training
  • Education Psychology Service training to school staff, parents and carers
  • Safeguarding
  • Verification purposes
  • Educational visits as part of WCC’s statutory role as employer of maintained Schools
  • Ensuring compliance with specific statutory obligations
  • Service reviews
  • Holiday Activities and Food Programme
Personal information collected and lawful basis

The services process personal information which include some but is not limited to:

  • Personal details – e.g. name / gender / age / address / school / and family details
  • Contact information – e.g. telephone numbers / email address
    • WCC collect and use headteacher email addresses for partnership working and to communicate with when concerns have been raised by relevant parties in relation to their school.
  • Name and contact details of person to be contacted in case of emergency
  • Personal Reference Numbers – e.g. Unique Pupil Number / Unique Learner Number / National Insurance / case management system references
  • Education details
  • Employment details
  • Financial details
  • Licenses / permits held
  • Lifestyle and social circumstances
  • Opinions and decisions
  • Records of complaints
  • Safeguarding reports
  • Visual images, personal appearance and behaviour

The legal bases for processing this personal information are::

  • Contract for the supply of services
  • Compliance with a legal obligation
  • Tasks carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority

For the purposes of equal opportunities, health and safety, and school admission criteria (including EHCP Plans), the services also process some sensitive (special category) information, which may include but is not limited to:

  • Physical or mental health details
  • Racial or ethnic origin
  • Religious or other beliefs
  • Offences (including alleged offences), criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentences

The legal bases for processing this sensitive (special category) data are:

  • Necessary for obligations under employment or social protection
  • Substantial public interest on the basis of UK law
  • Substantial public interest for health

For all marketing, feedback and research purposes where personal information is obtained alongside, and directed at, individuals, and where personal information, such as photographs/videos, are used for publicity purposes, the lawful basis for the processing of this data is:

  • Consent to the processing
Who we may share your information with

Within Warwickshire County Council

Education and Learning services will share information within the organisation to ensure we provide the best service for our families. For example, information will be shared with Transport Operations for the provision of school transport and Children and Family services for child safeguarding purposes. We use a child case recording system across most of our education services to ensure we use information efficiently and lawfully. 

Outside of Warwickshire County Council

Occasionally, we may need to share the personal information you have given to us or we’ve collected about you with partner organisations. These include but are not limited to:

  • Awarding bodies – e.g. for ACL courses that lead to a qualification we will share some of your data to register you with the awarding body responsible for that qualification, such as OCR / Ascentis / Trinity College London
  • Childcare/Educational settings, e.g. nurseries, schools, colleges, universities
  • Commissioned social care services
  • Coventry City Council
  • Data Images Software Solutions Ltd / Fasthosts 
  • Department of Education (DfE), including the Learning Record Service (LRS)
  • Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
  • Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
  • Education and Skills Funding Agency
  • Emergency services, e.g. ambulance/medical staff
  • Essex County Council (EES for Schools) – commissioned partner for the processing of educational visits
  • Health Services, e.g. NHS – incl. NHS Digital, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), Cov & Warwick Partnership Trust
  • HMRC
  • Independent consultants for service reviews
  • North Warwickshire Borough Council, Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council and Stratford-on-Avon District Council - to comply with their statutory duty to maintain the Electoral Register
  • Ofsted
  • Police
  • Prospects – commissioned partner for the Not in Education, Employment or Training service (NEET) and the Adult and Community Learning Service.
  • SENDIAS
  • SmartCitizen Ltd and ESP Systex Ltd - for the purposes of issuing and managing bus passes
  • Transforming Care Partnerships
  • WCC traded legal services

We have specific data sharing agreements in place with local agencies and sometimes the law requires that we may have to pass your details on to a third party, for example, to prevent crime.

Information will only ever be shared when it is strictly necessary to help us provide effective services and you may have the right to refuse. We will not pass it onto any other parties unless required to do so by law or in all reasonable circumstances the disclosure is fair and warranted for the purposes of processing or subject to a legal data protection exemption.

How long we will hold your information

Based on best practice and statutory guidelines, retention periods vary from 6 months from file closure to 75 years from date of birth (DOB). They vary depending on service need, legislative guidance, and age at the point of interaction with the services.

Where applicable, we will also follow the Information and Records Management Society’s (IRMS) Records Management Toolkit for School. This can be accessed via their website by clicking on the following link: IRMS RM Toolkit for Schools

Please note: all stated retention periods will be subject to any legal holds imposed under the Inquiries Act 2005 that may concern the information and override standard retention.

Your information rights

Find out how to access your personal information.

You may be entitled to rectification, restriction, objection, and erasure of your personal information depending on the service and legal basis. Emailed requests should be made directly to the relevant service as listed below:

See our overall privacy notice for further contact details and if you have a complaint about your information rights.

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