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To be handed out to all parents of children who are registering this
term as new to the setting.
FAIR
PROCESSING NOTICE
DATA PROTECTION ACT
1998
Early Years Settings,
Schools, Local Authorities (LAs), the Secretary of State for
Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Children,
Schools and Families (DCSF) (the government department which deals
with education and children's services), the Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority (QCA), Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of
Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted), and the National
Assessment Agency (NAA) all process information on children and
pupils in order to help administer education and children's services
and in doing so have to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998.
This means, amongst other things, that the data held about children
must only be used for specific purposes allowed by law. We are
therefore writing to tell you about the types of data held, why that
data is held, and to whom it may be passed on.
The Early Years
Setting holds information on children in order to support their
development, to monitor their progress, to provide appropriate
pastoral care, and to assess how well the Setting as a whole is
doing. This information includes contact details, attendance
information, characteristics such as ethnic group, special
educational needs and any relevant medical information. From time to
time Early Years Settings are required to pass on some of this data
to LAs, the DCSF and to agencies that are prescribed by law, such as
QCA and Ofsted. In particular, at age five an assessment is made of
all children (the Foundation Stage Profile) and this information is
passed to the Local Authority and receiving maintained school.
The Local Authority
(LA) uses information about children for whom it provides services
to carry out specific functions for which it is responsible. For
example, the Local Authority will make an assessment of any special
educational needs the child may have. It also uses the information
to derive statistics to inform various decisions. The statistics are
used in such a way that individual children cannot be identified
from them.
The Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority (QCA) uses information about children
to administer national assessments such as the Foundation Stage
Profile. Any results passed on to the DCSF are used to compile
statistics on trends and patterns in levels of development. The QCA
can use the information to evaluate the effectiveness of the
national curriculum and the associated assessment arrangements, and
to ensure that these are continually improved.
Her Majesty's Chief
Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills
and Ofsted do not routinely process any information about
individual children. However, whilst Ofsted holds no records of
individual children's progress, it does use information about the
achievement of groups of children to help inform its judgements
about the quality of education. in Early Years Settings.
The National
Assessment Agency (NM) uses information for those, relatively
few, Settings undertaking the Foundation Stage Profile. The
resulting data is passed on to the NM which also uses information in
working with schools, the QCA, and Awarding Bodies, for ensuring n
efficient and effective assessment system covering all age ranges is
delivered nationally.
The Secretary of
State for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for
Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) use information about
children and pupils for research and statistical purposes, to
allocate funds, to inform, influence and improve education policy
and to monitor the performance of the education and children's
services as a whole. The DCSF will feed back to LAs information
about children for a variety of purposes that will include data
checking exercises, and use in self-evaluation analyses.
Information about
children may be held to provide comprehensive information back to
LAs to support their day to day business. The DCSF may also use
contact details from these sources to obtain samples for statistical
surveys: these surveys may be carried out by research agencies
working under contract to the Department and participation in such
surveys is usually voluntary. The Department may also match data
from these sources to data obtained from statistical surveys.
The DCSF may also
disclose individual child and pupil information to independent
researchers into the educational achievements of pupils who have a
legitimate need for it for their research, but each case will be
determined on its merits and subject to the approval of the
Department's Chief Statistician.
The Children Act 2004
permits the disclosure of information from registered childcare
providers for inclusion on Contact Point. The purposes of
ContactPoint are to:
□
help practitioners working with children quickly identify a
child with whom they have contact;
□
determine whether that child is getting the universal
services (education, primary health care) to which he or she is
entitled;
□
enable earlier identification of needs and earlier, more
effective action to address these needs by providing a tool to
help practitioners identify which other practitioners are
involved with a particular child; and
□
encourage better communication and closer working between
practitioners.
ContactPoint will hold
for each child or young person" in England (up to their 18th
birthday):
□
basic identifying information: name, address, gender, date of
birth and an identifying number;
□
name and contact details for a child's parent or carer;
□ contact
details for services involved with a child: as a minimum
educational setting (e.g. school) and primary medical
practitioner (e.g. GP Practice) but also other services where
appropriate; and
□
the facility to indicate if a practitioner is a lead
professional for a child and/or if an assessment under the
Common Assessment Framework has been completed.
ContactPoint will NOT
contain any case information (such as case notes, assessments,
attendance, exam results, medical records or subjective observations
).
Access will be strictly
limited to those who need it to do their job. All authorised users
must have undergone relevant mandatory training, have security
clearance and have a user name, a password, a PIN and a security
token to access ContactPoint. To ensure high standards of accuracy,
information on ContactPoint will be drawn from a number of existing
systems, including the termly School Census from which pupils' home
address will be collected
For further information
go to
www.evervchildmatters.gov.uk/contactpoint
Children, as data
subjects, have certain rights under the Data Protection Act 1998,
including a general right of access to personal data held on them,
with parents exercising this right on their behalf if they are too
young to do so themselves. If you wish to access the personal data
held about your child, then please contact the relevant organisation
in writing:
-
The Early Years
Setting that your child attends;
-
The Local Authority
at: Oxfordshire County Council, Children, Young People and
Families,Children and Families, Macclesfield House, New Road,
Oxford, OX1 1 NA
-
the QCA's Data
Protection Officer at aCA, 83 Piccadilly, LONDON, W1J 8AA
-
Ofsted's Data
Protection Officer at Alexandra House, 33 Kingsway, London WC2B
6SE
-
The NAA Data
Protection Officer at NAA, 29 Bolton Street, London W1J 8BT
-
The DCSF's Data
Protection Officer at DCSF, Sanctuary Buildings, LONDON, SW1 P
3BT
In order to fulfil
their responsibilities under the Act the organisation may, before
responding to this request, seek proof of the requestor's identity
and any further information required to locate the personal data
requested. |
