Children's Services (Education) privacy notice

What this document is for

This privacy notice provides information on how Norfolk County Council's Children's Services department uses your personal information for educational purposes. By 'use' we mean the various ways it may be processed including storing and sharing the information.

By 'you' and 'your' we mean, you, your child, and/or a child you are responsible for (such as if they are your student), where applicable.

Further details

We also provide further details regarding:

• who we are
• how long we use your information for
• your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR) and
• how to exercise them

You can see this information in the Norfolk County Council's general privacy notice on our website or you can ask us for a copy of this information.

What we use your information for

We use personal information about you primarily to provide suitable education and other services connected to education.

This includes the:

• ensuring there are enough school, early years, and childcare places across Norfolk. This includes providing information, advice and assistance to parents and prospective parents 
• co-ordinating school admissions and determining admission applications and the allocation of places through the Fair Access Protocol and managing the transfer of pupils between schools during an academic year and organise school admission appeals
• monitoring and improving school attendance and undertaking, where necessary, prosecutions for non-school attendance and monitoring children missing from education when removed from the school roll
• coordinating Independent Review Panels for excluded pupils and ensuring pupils who are permanently excluded from school are provided with a place to continue their learning as quickly as possible
• identifying, assessing and securing suitable provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities, including the issuing and reviewing of education, health and care plans, and the provision of advice to schools about specialist school placements for children
• assessing the learning, social and emotional needs of Norfolk pupils and young people, including therapeutic work
• provide a counselling service to your child
• to make and use audio recordings and case studies (only with your previously agreed consent) of the counselling services for the purpose of training and development of our staff
• supporting pupils unable to attend school due to health needs
• monitoring children who are being educated at home
• providing or arranging for the provision of school transport
• processing free school meal and pupil premium eligibility
• monitoring and supporting the educational attainment, progress and engagement of
  • looked after children including children who are adopted (from September 2018); and children subject to a special guardianship order
  • pupils with a sensory impairment
  • pupils with English as an additional language and
  • pupils from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities
• ensuring the provision of post 16 years education and training, youth support services and careers advice
• encouraging, enabling or assisting young people's (aged 16/17 years old or 16-25 for young people with an Education and Health Care Plan) participation in education or training
• ensuring the provision accredited and non-accredited learning opportunities for adults aged 19+
• ensuring the provision of residential and outdoor learning opportunities
• providing holiday and activity programmes
• submitting school census returns to the Department for Education (DfE)
• complying with our reporting obligations to DfE
• monitoring young people from Year 9 to age 18 in education, training and employment and identifying those young people who are at most risk of not receiving education or training or being in employment to ensure that they have sufficient support from the County Council and from schools, colleges, training providers and support services.
• issuing of child employment and performance licences, chaperone licences, child entertainment licences and performance licences for groups of children
• providing emails about upcoming events and training sessions (only to teaching staff and other individuals who provide their contact details for this purpose)
• Supporting access and signposting to health care and other services
• Supporting families in meetings with Children's Services and other services

We also use this information to assess the quality of our services and evaluate and improve our policies and procedures.

We may also use information in other ways compatible with the above. Primarily this will include supporting the work of other public bodies providing educational services to children. We provide more details of these services on our education and learning pages.

The kind of information we collect and use about you

The information we collect and use includes your:

• personal details - name, date of birth, gender, age, address,
• contact information - telephone number and email address
• name and contact details of person to be contacted in case of emergency
• personal identifiers - unique pupil number, unique learning number, National Insurance number, case management system references
• educational details - including schools attended, attendance and exclusions; assessment information, public exam results, special education needs information and intended post 16 education/training provider
• whether the young person aged 16 years and above is in education, training or employment (including relevant details)
• family details (such as support being offered)
• educational history including behaviour
• support and services provided to the child

We also collect information about the following which is classed as "special category data" under the GDPR.

• Racial and ethnic origin
• Religious or philosophical beliefs
• Health data including disabilities and special educational needs

We also collect information about criminal convictions and offences

The GDPR includes safeguards to protect the use of your special category data and criminal conviction data. Further details can be found on our website in the document named 'Special category data and criminal offences data policy'which sets out our procedures for compliance with the principles of the GDPR and the retention and erasure of this information.

Who provides this information

The information we hold includes information you have provided to us.

We also receive information from

• other public bodies and organisations providing educational services to you, particularly schools, 6th form colleges, higher education colleges and other post 16 educational providers schools;
• NHS and other health bodies including
  • NHS Foundation Trusts
  • Health Visitors
  • Speech and Language Therapists
  • GPs
• voluntary organisations and charities
• other Norfolk County Council departments and services

How the law protects you and the legal basis for processing your information

We have legal grounds to process this information because it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest.

This tasks we carry out in the public interest are under the:

• Education Acts 1944. 1996 and 2002
• Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and 1963 and the Children (Performances and Activities) (England) Regulations 2014
• Children Act 1989 and 2004
• Childcare Act 2006
• Education and Inspections Act 2006
• Young People's Act 2008
• Education and Skills Act 2008
• Education (Information about Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations (2013)
• Children and Families Act 2014
• Education and Adoption Act 2016
• Transport Act 1985
• Equality Act 2010
• Armed Forces Act 2011

We have legal grounds to process (including share) special category data and criminal convictions data where it is in the exercise of a statutory function and it is in the necessary for reasons in the substantial public interest. The statutory functions are as set out above.

We may also seek consent to use your information in certain ways. This will normally be where the use of the data is not necessary for the above purposes but may be very useful or helpful to us to provide services. For example, all marketing and feedback where personal information is obtained alongside, and directed at, individuals, and where personal information, such as photographs/videos, are used for publicity purposes.

Also, we rely on consent to send newsletters and mailing lists. You can withdraw consent and opt-out of our newsletters at any time by choosing the 'opt-out' option at the bottom of the email. 

Who we share your information with

We may share your personal information with other organisations and public bodies, in particular:

• other departments in NCC for example Children's Services - Social Care and transport team
• NHS and other health agencies including GPs and heath visitors
• education settings - schools, 6th form colleges, higher education colleges and other post 16 educational providers
• childcare settings (e.g. nurseries)
• Pupil Referral Units
• Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
• Education and Skills Funding Agency
• Institute of Arts and Therapy in Education
• Ofsted
• district councils
• police
• Youth Offending Team
• other central government agencies and public authorities
• school transport operators
• qualification awarding bodies
• DfE for the following purposes -
  • the school census: to find out more about the data collection requirements placed on us by the DfE for the school census visit the GOV.uk website
  • the National Pupil Database (NPD): to find out more about the NPD visit the Gov.uk website
  • the Client Caseload Information System database regarding the participation of 16/17 years old or 16-25 for young people with an Education and Health Care Plan in education and training. Download further information from the GOV.uk website.
• in respect of children in need and looked after children to help the DfE develop national policies, manage local authority performance, administer and allocate funding and identify and encourage good practice. For more information about the data collection requirements placed on us by the DfE go to looked after children and children in need pages on Gov.uk.
• for looked after children
• for children in need
• Reporting in respect of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEN2)

If you attend a training or networking sessions you will be asked if we can share your name and email address for networking with other attendees. This normally only effects education and support staff.

As explained above, we share information without your specific consent as it is reasonable and necessary to do so to fulfil our public tasks or, in relation to special category data, is in the substantial public interest to do so. We also explained that the law imposes safeguards to protect your privacy in these circumstances.

We will also share your information, subject to contractual and other legal safeguards, with organisations contracted by us to provide a service to us or directly to you, for example, the Community Access Trust and other approved delivery partners. These service providers are known as data processors and have a legal obligation under GDPR and to us to look after your personal information and only use it for providing that service.

Finally, we may also share your information across different departments of the Norfolk County Council where it is necessary for our public tasks or functions to do so.

How we keep your information

The information is stored electronically, on the County Council's records management system. Additionally, information is securely stored in other mediums, including email accounts and in paper files.

How long will we keep your personal information for

When the information is no longer needed for the above purposes, it will be reviewed in line with our retention schedule - and appropriate action will be taken.

If we need to use your information for research or reports, your information will be anonymised and any information taken from notes (handwritten or typed) during any consultation sessions will be securely destroyed. The information will continue to be used in a summarised and anonymised form in any research reports or papers that are published. The anonymised information in the papers may be of historic interest and may be held in public archives indefinitely.

If we transfer your personal information to other countries

We do not process your information outside of the European Economic Area.

Automated decision making

We do not make automated decisions about you and your children but if we do in the future, we will let you know.

Changes to this privacy notice

The County Council keeps this privacy notice under regular review and will provide you with a new privacy notice when any substantial updates are made. The County Council may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

Date of Notice

This notice was updated in November 2024.