The Department for Education (DfE) issues guidance on data sharing, privacy notices and data subjects rights. The DfE produces template privacy notices for various different scenarios, for example, pupils, school staff and governance rolls. These can be found on the DfE website at Data protection: privacy notice model documents.
Please note that it is not necessary to re-issue privacy notices to pupils or staff who have already received them (unless there has been a change of data collected or use of data). However, please be aware that any hard copies available in public places, for example, notice boards should be kept up to date.
Privacy notices must be issued to all new pupils and staff as soon as possible. The DfE recommends that best practice would be to remind parents of the notices at the start of each term (within any other announcements/correspondence to parents).
If there are any changes to the way the school processes personal data then these changes need to be highlighted to parents or pupils.
The DfE school census guide provides some useful information, view the links below for extracts:
- GDPR and the collection of pupil characteristics from parents / guardians or pupils
- Department for Education guidance on data sharing, privacy notices and data security
Devon County Council also has privacy notices for staff in schools. See our privacy notices library (Children’s social care and education section).
The Department for Education also has information on how they use pupil and staff level data:
The Department for Education has produced guidance to support schools with data protection including compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A toolkit for schools is available via the below link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-protection-toolkit-for-schools
S11 data collection form
The S11 admission form is a sample form which captures information required for the school census and other information that might be relevant to schools. It is not a mandatory form that schools must use, schools can produce their own collection form, or amend the sample form as they consider necessary. Please email census@devon.gov.uk for a copy of this form if required.