Chatham Nursery School
Data Protection Policy
Mission Statement
We celebrate our community and its diversity and enjoy excellent relationships with our families. Our dedicated experienced staff make our school a very special place to be where all our children are valued and make excellent progress and are happy engaged learners.
This document is a statement of the aims and principles of the School, for ensuring the confidentiality of sensitive information relating to staff, pupils, parents and governors.
Introduction
Chatham Nursery School needs to keep certain information about its employees, students and other users to allow it to monitor performance, achievements, and health and safety, for example. It is also necessary to process information so that staff can be recruited and paid, courses organised and legal obligations to funding bodies and government complied with.
To comply with the law, information must be collected and used fairly, stored safely and not disclosed to any other person unlawfully. To do this, Chatham Nursery School must comply with the Data Protection Principles which are set out in the Data Protection Act 1998 (the 1998 Act). In summary these state that personal data shall:
- Be obtained and processed fairly and lawfully and shall not be processed unless certain conditions are met.
- Be obtained for a specified and lawful purpose and shall not be processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose.
- Be adequate, relevant and not excessive for that purpose.
- Be accurate and kept up to date.
- Not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose.
- Be processed in accordance with the data subject’s rights.
- Be kept safe from unauthorised access, accidental loss or destruction.
Chatham Nursery School and all staff or others who process or use personal information must ensure that they follow these principles at all times. In order to ensure that this happens, the School has developed this Data Protection Policy.
Status of this Policy
This policy does not form part of the contract of employment for staff, but it is a condition of employment that employees will abide by the rules and policies made by the School from time to time. Any failures to follow the policy can therefore result in disciplinary proceedings.
The Data Controller and the Designated Data Controllers
The School as a body corporate is the Data Controller under the 1998 Act, and the Governors are therefore ultimately responsible for implementation. However, the Designated Data Controllers will deal with day to day matters. The Schools Designated Data Controller is the Head teacher. This may be delegated to other members of staff. Any member of staff, parent or other individual who considers that the Policy has not been followed in respect of personal data about himself or herself or their child should raise the matter with the appropriate Designated Data Controller.
Responsibilities of Staff
All staff are responsible for:
- Checking that any information that they provide to the School in connection with their employment is accurate and up to date.
- Chatham Nursery School Data Protection Policy
- Informing the School of any changes to information that they have provided, e.g. change of address, either at the time of appointment or subsequently.
The School cannot be held responsible for any errors unless the staff member has informed the School of such changes.
Data Security
- All staff are responsible for ensuring that:
- Any personal data that they hold is kept securely.
- Personal information is not disclosed either orally or in writing or via Web pages or by any other means, accidentally or otherwise, to any unauthorised third party.
- Staff should note that unauthorised disclosure will usually be a disciplinary matter, and may be considered gross misconduct in some cases.
- Personal information should:
- Be kept in a locked filing cabinet, drawer, or safe; or
- If it is computerised, be coded, encrypted or password protected both on a local hard drive and on a network drive that is regularly backed up; and
- If a copy is kept on removable storage media, that media must itself be kept in a locked filing cabinet, drawer, or safe.
Rights to Access Information
All staff, parents and other users are entitled to:
- Know what information the School holds and processes about them or their child and why.
- Know how to gain access to it.
- Know how to keep it up to date.
- Know what the School is doing to comply with its obligations under the 1998 Act.
The School will, upon request, provide all staff and parents and other relevant users with a statement regarding the personal data held about them. This will state all the types of data the School holds and processes about them, and the reasons for which they are processed. All staff, parents and other users have a right under the 1998 Act to access certain personal data being kept about them or their child either on computer or in certain files. Any person who wishes to exercise this right should put this in writing and submit it to the Designated Data Controller. The School will make a charge of £10 on each occasion that access is requested, although the School has discretion to waive this. The School aims to comply with requests for access to personal information as quickly as possible, but will ensure that it is provided within 40 days, as required by the 1998 Act.
Subject Consent
In many cases, the School can only process personal data with the consent of the individual. In some cases, if the data is sensitive, as defined in the 1998 Act, express consent must be obtained. Agreement to the School processing some specified classes of personal data is a condition of acceptance of employment for staff. This included information about previous criminal convictions. Jobs will bring the applicants into contact with children. The School has a duty under the Children Act 1989 and other enactments to ensure that staff are suitable for the job. The School has a duty of care to all staff and students and must therefore make sure that employees and those who use School facilities do not pose a threat or danger to other users. Chatham Nursery School Data Protection Policy
The School may also ask for information about particular health needs, such as allergies to particular forms of medication, or any medical condition such as asthma or diabetes. The School will only use this information in the protection of the health and safety of the individual, but will need consent to process this data in the event of a medical emergency, for example. Processing Sensitive Information
Sometimes it is necessary to process information about a person’s health, criminal convictions, or race. This may be to ensure that the School is a safe place for everyone, or to operate other School policies, such as the Sickness Absence Poicy or the Equalities Policy. Because this information is considered sensitive under the 1998 Act, staff (and pupils where appropriate) will be asked to give their express consent for the School to process this data. An offer of employment may be withdrawn if an individual refuses to consent to this without good reason.
Publication of School Information
Certain items of information relating to School staff will be made available via searchable directories on the public Web site, in order to meet the legitimate needs of researchers, visitors and enquirers seeking to make contact with the School.
Retention of Data
The School has a duty to retain some staff and pupil personal data for a period of time following their departure from the School, mainly for legal reasons, but also for other purposes such as being able to provide references or academic transcripts. Different categories of data will be retained for different periods of time.
Conclusion
Compliance with the 1998 Act is the responsibility of all members of the School. Any deliberate breach of the Data Protection Policy may lead to disciplinary action being taken, or even to a criminal prosecution
This policy was agreed and implemented on 5th July 2023 and is due for review in July 2024
There will be ongoing monitoring of this policy as some aspects may require
amending/updating before the review date should there be any incidents
which take place relating to it that give cause for concern.