This notice is to help you understand how and why we collect personal information about you and what we do with that information. It also explains the decisions that you can make about your own information.

If you have any questions about this notice please contact the Data Protection Officer (DPO) - dpo@robertcarretrust.uk.

What is personal information?

Personal information is information that identifies you as an individual and relates to you.

This includes your contact details, next of kin and financial information. We may also hold information such as your religion or ethnic group. CCTV, photos and video recordings of you are also personal information.

How and why does the school collect and use personal information?

We set out below examples of the different ways in which we use personal information and where this personal information comes from. The school's primary reason for using your personal information is to provide educational services to your child.

• We obtain information about you from admissions forms and from your child's previous school.
• We may have information about any family circumstances which might affect your child's welfare or happiness.
• We may need information about any court orders or criminal petitions which relate to you. This is so that we can safeguard the welfare and wellbeing of your child and the other pupils at the school.
• We use CCTV to make sure the school site is safe. We may take photographs or videos of you at school events to use on social media and on the school website. This is to show prospective parents and students what we do here and to advertise the school. We may continue to use these photographs and videos after your child has left the school.
• We may send you information to keep you up to date with what is happening at the school. For example, by sending you information about events and activities taking place (including fundraising events) and the school newsletter.
• We may use information about you if we need this for historical research purposes or for statistical purposes.

Financial information

• We will process financial information about you in relation to the payment of bursaries, Pupil Premium and educational visits (payments and refunds).

Sharing personal information with third parties

• In accordance with our legal obligations, we may share information with local authorities and the Department for Education, for example, where we have any safeguarding concerns.
• On occasion, we may need to share information with the police.
• We may also need to share information with our legal advisers for the purpose of obtaining legal advice.
• Occasionally we may use consultants, experts and other advisors to assist the school in fulfilling its obligations and to help run the school properly. We might need to share your information with them if this is relevant to their work.
• If your child is not of British nationality we have to make sure that your child has the right to study in the UK. We might have to provide information about you to the Local Authority.
• We may share some information with our insurance company, for example, where there is a serious incident at the school.
• We may share information about you with the Trust. For example, financial information or details of family circumstances.
• If your child leaves us to attend another school we may need to provide that school with information about you. For example, details of family circumstances for safeguarding reasons.
• We may need to share information if there is an emergency, for example, if you are hurt whilst on School premises.

Our legal grounds for using your information

This section contains information about the legal basis that we are relying on when handling your information.

Legitimate interests

This means that the processing is necessary for legitimate interests except where the processing is unfair to you. The school relies on legitimate interests for most of the ways in which it uses your information.

Specifically, the school has a legitimate interest in:

• Providing educational services to your child;
• Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of your child (and other children);
• Promoting the objects and interests of the school;
• Facilitating the efficient operation of the school; and
• Ensuring that all relevant legal obligations of the school are complied with.
• If you object to us using your information where we are relying on our legitimate interests as explained above please speak to the DPO.

Necessary for a contract

We will need to use your information in order to perform our obligations under our contract with you. For example, we need your name and contact details so that we can update you on your child's progress and so that we can contact you if there is a concern.

Legal obligation

Where the school needs to use your information in order to comply with a legal obligation, for example to report a concern to Children's Services. We may also have to disclose your information to third parties such as the courts, the local authority or the police where legally obliged to do so.

Vital interests

To protect the vital interests of any person where that person cannot give consent, for example, if they are seriously hurt and are unconscious.

Public interest

The school considers that it is acting in the public interest when providing education.

The school must also comply with an additional condition where it processes special categories of personal information. These special categories are as follows: personal information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic information, biometric information, health information, and information about sex life or orientation.

Substantial public interest

The processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.

Legal claims

The processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. This allows us to share information with our legal advisors and insurers.

Sending information to other countries

We may share your data overseas if, for example, your child is taking part in a foreign exchange visit and emergency contact details are required by the host family.

For how long do we keep your information?

We keep your information for as long as we need to in order to educate and look after your child. We will keep some information after your child has left the school, for example, so that we can find out what happened if you make a complaint.

In exceptional circumstances we may keep your information for a longer time than usual but we would only do so if we had a good reason and only if we are allowed to do so under data protection law.

We can keep information about you for a very long time or even indefinitely if we need this for historical, research or statistical purposes. For example, if we consider the information might be useful if someone wanted to write a book about the school.

What decisions can you make about your information?

From May 2018 data protection legislation gives you a number of rights regarding your information. Some of these are new rights whilst others build on your existing rights. Your rights are as follows:

• if information is incorrect you can ask us to correct it;
• you can also ask what information we hold about you and be provided with a copy. We will also give you extra information, such as why we use this information about you, where it came from and what types of people we have sent it to;
• you can ask us to delete the information that we hold about you in certain circumstances. For example, where we no longer need the information;
• you can ask us to send you, or another organisation, certain types of information about you in a format that can be read by computer;
• our use of information about you may be restricted in some cases. For example, if you tell us that the information is inaccurate we can only use it for limited purposes while we check its accuracy;

Further information and guidance

The DPO is the person responsible at our school for managing how we look after personal information and deciding how it is shared.

Like other organisations we need to keep your information safe, up to date, only use it for what we said we would, destroy it when we no longer need it and most importantly - treat the information we get fairly.

This notice is to explain how we use your personal information.

Please speak to the DPO if:

• you object to us using your information for marketing purposes e.g. to send you information about school events. We will stop using your information for marketing purposes if you tell us not to; or
• you would like us to update the information we hold about you; or
• you would prefer that certain information is kept confidential.

If you consider that we have not acted properly when using your personal information you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office