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Privacy notice for the Pupil Inclusion and Support Service

Introduction

This privacy notice explains what types of personal data we may hold about you, how we collect it, how we use it and who we may share information with. We are required to give you this information under data protection law. This privacy notice should be read in conjunction with the corporate privacy notice.

Who we are

Achieving for Children is registered as a controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)(Registration number ZA045069) and is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations. 

The Pupil Inclusion and Support Service is responsible for discharging statutory duties on behalf of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in respect of children who are Electively Home Educated (EHE), reported missing from education (CME), children who are at risk exclusion or have been permanently excluded from school or children who are not attending school regularly due to health or other reasons.

The service also offers consultancy to schools in Maidenhead and Windsor with all aspects of inclusion including behaviour management and whole school approaches, systems and policies. The service supports schools in developing sustainable inclusion strategies and practices, as well as offering advice and guidance about children with SEN, including those with behaviours that challenge and social and emotional difficulties which impact on behaviour for learning.

Personal data we may collect

  • Name
  • Unique pupil reference number
  • Date of birth
  • Home address
  • School name
  • SEND status
  • Ethnicity 
  • health or medical conditions 
  • Social care information and a summary of the concerns or referral reasons
  • School exclusion and suspension details
  • School attendance data from the attendance register and the DfE
  • Managed move notifications
  • Reduced timetable notifications 

Education Welfare Service

The Education Welfare Service (EWS) supports schools, children and their families to raise achievement by promoting high levels of school attendance and punctuality, working to prevent truancy and disengagement from school.  The EWS collects and processes personal data relating to personal situations regarding a child or young person in matters relating to:

  • Addressing problems relating to absenteeism and school non-attendance
  • Ensuring regular school attendance including legal action
  • Elective home education
  • Children missing education
  • Statutory returns to the Department for Education 

Elective Home Education

Under the Education Act 1996, we have a statutory duty to ensure that all children who are of statutory school age who reside in the boroughs of Windsor and Maidenhead are in receipt of suitable education.

In the course of supporting elective home education and fulfilling our duty, we collect the following personal information which is provided to us through school’s duties to notify the local authority as well as through parents sharing this information with us:

  • personal details (such as name, gender, age, date of birth, address, contact details, language, nationality)
  • category characteristics (such as special educational needs)
  • educational history (such as schools previously attended and attendance, attainment, exclusions)
  • other professional involvement (such as EWS, Inclusion, Early Help, Social Care, SEN)
  • EHE history (communication with families, visit reports and evidence of suitable education)

How we collect this information

We collect personal information directly from parents or other agencies such as schools or early years providers, health or children’s social care  in the following ways:

  • face to face or virtual meetings  
  • telephone calls
  • emails
  • referrals or notifications
  • How we use your personal data
  • to improve the outcomes for all children, especially vulnerable children
  • to support schools on all aspects of inclusion and behaviour management
  • to arrange alternative educational provision if required
  • to monitor school attendance, managed moves and reduced timetables
  • to monitor in year school transfers
  • to maintain a record of children who are known to be home educated
  • to provide advice and guidance to home educating families
  • to inform families about how to access to services and facilities from other agencies that would generally be delivered via school
  • to advise and support families who request support with returning children to school or identifying a school place
  • to make arrangements to establish the identities of children who are not registered at a school and are not receiving a suitable education otherwise
  • to identify or clarify the child or young person’s SEND needs
  • to identify the support they require which will help them to achieve their outcomes
  • to enable coordinated working with other teams and organisations
  • evaluate and quality assure the services we provide, and improve our policies 
  • to audit and improve our services to ensure they meet your child’s needs.
  • assess performance and set targets for service improvement
  • complete statistical returns to Government departments
  • account for our decisions and investigate complaints

Lawful basis for processing your personal data

The legal basis we rely on for processing personal data are public task or to comply with a legal obligation. If we need to collect special category data, we rely upon reasons of substantial public interest, statutory and government purposes and equality of opportunity or treatment purpose conditions from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018.  

The legal basis are underpinned by the following legislation:

  • Working Together to Improve School Attendance: applies from 19 August 2024
  • Working together to safeguard children 2023
  • School Standards and Framework Act 1998
  • Education Act 1996, 2002
  • The Education Act 1996
  • The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006
  • The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2016
  • The Children Act 1989
  • DfE Children missing education statutory guidance for local authorities, 2016

Who we share your personal information with

We will only share information where it is appropriate and legal to do so. Where this is necessary, we are required to comply with all aspects of the Data Protection Act 2018. Depending on the individual circumstances of each situation, we may have to share this information with other teams within Achieving for Children.

We may also share your information with the following organisations(this list is not exhaustive):

  • Ofsted
  • Department for Education
  • Schools
  • Judicial agencies
  • Independent education providers
  • NHS England
  • Berkshire Health Immunisations Team 

How long will we keep your information

In accordance with our retention schedule, the records will be retained until the child reaches 25 years. 

Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

Achieving for Children’s email service has been configured to Government Digital Service and we encrypt and authenticate email in transit using Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC). We will ensure that when we send emails containing your personal information they are sent using appropriate security measures to encrypt the data in transit. This may involve the use of a third party encryption tool where appropriate.

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

Your rights and access to information

Under data protection legislation you have the right to request access to the information that we hold about you. To request a copy of your data, please read the Individual Rights Requests page and then submit your request using your preferred method of contact.

You also have the right to:

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

If you have any questions or concerns about the way we process personal data, or would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice, please contact our Data Protection Officer: [email protected]

If you want to make a complaint about how we handle your personal data, we ask that you give our Data Protection Officer the opportunity to respond in the first instance, but you are not obliged to do this. You can make a complaint directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/