Privacy Notice for Parents

St Mary’s School Ascot is a ‘data controller’. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you.

Your privacy is important to us and we want to keep your personal information safe. This Privacy Notice tells you how we do that and sets out your rights when it comes to the personal information that we hold about you.

The school only holds the personal information it is permitted to hold about you, and only uses it for limited purposes relating to your daughter’s education, health and wellbeing at the school.

 

What kind of information do we collect about you?

Your personal information (such as your name, title, addresses, religion, telephone numbers, email addresses, marital status, profession)

Your personal information as it relates to any concerns or complaints you have raised with the school

Where appropriate, information about your health and welfare, and the health and welfare history of your family

Where appropriate, criminal records information if you volunteer for school outings or activities where a DBS check is required

Other financial information in connection with fees in advance payments and donations, in accordance with the Proceeds of Crime Act and money laundering regulations

Bank and financial information, particularly with regard to the payment of school fees

Financial and personal information in support of an application for a means-tested bursary

Information from CCTV cameras when you visit the school site.

What kind of information do we collect about you?
We collect personal information from you directly. This may be through a form or meeting, or simply in our day-to-day contact with you (such as emails, conversations and via the parent portal).

From time to time we may also collect information about you and your daughter(s) supplied by others. For example, we may receive personal information about you in admissions forms from your daughter’s previous school or from doctors, professionals or authorities.

Some of the personal information you provide to us is mandatory, which means that you must provide it to us so that we can provide our services to you and your daughter(s). Other personal information you provide to us is optional, which means that you may decide not to provide it to us. We will let you know when the personal information we request is optional.

 

Why do we use your personal information?

We use your personal information:

to send you a school prospectus, if you have requested it

to decide whether your daughter should be admitted to the school
to decide whether you daughter is eligible for a bursary or scholarship

to support your daughter’s learning and education
to monitor and report on your daughter’s progress

to make sure your daughter’s health and wellbeing are looked after

to make sure we provide your daughter with a high quality of education

to send you notices and other information that we think you need to know about

to ensure the school complies with the law and meets its legal obligations

to facilitate the payment of school fees.

We will only use your personal information for the reasons set out above. You can find more information about these reasons below.

 

The lawful basis for using your personal information

Most of the personal information we collect about you is needed to make sure we are able to fulfil our obligations to you under the parent contract. For example, we require your personal contact details to fulfil our contractual obligations to keep you informed about your daughter’s health, wellbeing and educational development.

We also use your personal information to make sure that the school is acting within the law and meets its legal obligations. For example, we may need to know information about you and your family in order to provide the most appropriate pastoral support for your daughter.

There are some situations where we use your personal information for other reasons (these are known as the ‘legitimate interests’ of the school). For example, we will use your personal information when deciding whether your daughter can be admitted to the school.
There may also be occasions when we rely on your consent, such as if you ask us to send you the school prospectus.
It is important to be aware that, where appropriate, we also use some sensitive personal information about you, such as your medical and health information. This information may be necessary to help us look after your daughter’s welfare and provide us with the information we need in order to meet your daughter’s specific needs.

 

Who do we share your information with?

We may share your personal information with:

schools that your daughter attends after leaving us
our local authority
the Department for Education.
We may also share your information with others where we are required or permitted to do so by law, or where we have a legitimate interest in sharing your personal information. This might include the Independent School’s Inspectorate, the Charity Commission, Ofsted, professional advisers, or other regulators.

 

How secure is your information?

All our service providers have to put in place appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes. We only allow them to use your personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

If you want to know more about how we keep your information secure, please contact the school’s Data Protection Lead, at cjellott@st-marys-ascot.co.uk.

 

Transfer of your information outside of the EEA

We may transfer or transmit your personal information outside the European Economic Area (EEA) in limited situations. For example, we may do this when you contact us from outside the EEA, when the school makes arrangements for trips and travel abroad, or when you access our online portal abroad. We will take steps to ensure that your personal information is protected when this happens and may also let you know about this when it takes place.

 

How long will we keep your information for?

The school will keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary. When we do not have a lawful reason to hold it, we will delete or destroy your personal information securely. Typically, we will hold your personal information for seven years after your daughter leaves the school. However, any of your personal information which relates to incident reports or safeguarding must be kept much longer, as required by the law.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information, so that it can no longer be linked to you. If we do this, we may use such information without telling you.

If your daughter does not take up a place at St Mary’s, we will hold your information until the summer after her 18th birthday. It will then be securely destroyed.

 

What about changing the data that we hold about you?

If you move house or any of your personal details change, it is important that you let us know so that the information we hold is accurate. You can do this via the parent portal at any time.

 

What can you do with the personal information that we use?

You have the following rights in connection with your personal information. You can:

ask to see the personal information we hold about you
ask for your personal information to be corrected to ensure it is accurate
ask for your personal information to be deleted
object to the processing of your personal information
ask us to limit the processing of your personal information
request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
If you want to do any of the above, please contact the school’s Data Protection Lead at the email address below.

 

Right to withdraw consent

Where you have voluntarily supplied us with non-mandatory personal information, you can withdraw this consent at any time. If you do wish to withdraw your consent, please contact the school’s Data Protection Lead in writing at the email address below.

 

Point of contact

Christopher Ellott, the school’s Data Protection Lead, is responsible for overseeing compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact him at cjellott@st-marys-ascot.co.uk

If you are unhappy with how we are processing your personal information, you can make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues, although the ICO recommends that you take steps to resolve the matter with the school before involving them.

 

Changes to this privacy notice

We may update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact the school’s Data Protection Lead at dpl@st-marys-ascot.co.uk.

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