School Admissions

1. The purpose for which we use your personal data

The information we collect about you and your child will be used for the purpose of processing applications and appeals for admission to Community and Voluntary Controlled schools.

The information we collect about you and your child for a Voluntary Aided School will be sent to the named school for processing.

The lawful basis for the processing of the information is to comply with our legal obligations under the School Standards & Framework Act 1998.

We collect and use special category (sensitive) personal data for reasons of substantial public interest, also on the basis of the legislation referred to above.

The law says that all pupils must have access to education from the beginning of the term following a child’s fifth birthday, so if you choose to send your child to school, you have to make an application for us to process in order to establish if there is a place available in the school of your choice.

It is therefore a legal requirement that you provide us with the personal data we need to deal with your application for a school place.

If you do not give us the information we need when we ask for it, this may result in us being unable to deal with the application, resulting in your child not being able to obtain a school place.

2. What type of information do we use?

We collect the following types of personal data about you and your child to deliver this service:
• Parent/Guardian title and name
Child’s names including Legal names
• Parent/Guardian and child’s current home address & new address if moving address and supporting evidence when needed
Parent/Guardian relationship to child
Parental responsibility details
• Child’s date of birth
• Child’s sex
• Unique reference number
• Parent/Guardian Telephone number/s
• Parent/Guardian Email address
• Sibling details (child’s name/DOB/school)
Previous school details (School name/Contact number/Date of attendance)
• Whether your child has a Statement of Additional Needs, Individual Development Plan or an Education Health Care Plan
• If a child is Looked After currently/previously the Local Authority, name of the Social Worker and contact details
• Child’s medical, psychological or additional learning needs and supporting evidence from registered health care professionals.
• Copies of identity documents to confirm identity or parental responsibility when needed
• Whether your child is from a Traveller or Gypsy family
• Whether you are UK Service Personnel and supporting evidence from Ministry of Defence
• If your child is permanently excluded, the name of school and date of permanent exclusion

3. Do we use information received from other sources?

To provide this service, we collect information directly from you but also receive information from the following sources, where we need to:
• The Council’s Council Tax records to verify names and addresses in the case of applications where a school is oversubscribed
• The Council’s Children’s Services to verify Looked After status
• The Council’s Inclusion Team to confirm a Statement of Additional Needs or Individual Development Plan
• The School’s Management Information System to verify pupil details from other relevant Council services, for example, School Transport
• For Appeals we may need to contact previous or current schools to obtain any information relevant to the Appeal.

4. Transferring your information abroad

We use Microsoft Office 365 to process our electronic documents under the terms of a strict agreement, which safeguards your information. This personal data is hosted on servers outside of the UK, but only in EU countries which are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation.
We don’t transfer any other information about you outside of the UK.

5. Who has access to your information?

We share your personal data only when there is a need for us to do so. When we do this, we provide the minimum amount that’s necessary in each case to the following:
• We share your information with the school of your choice, once an offer of a place has been made.
• Where pupils change schools in the middle of an academic term or year, we also share very limited information with the potential new schools at the point we receive the application.
• We share your information with the Voluntary Aided school of your choice at the point of application receipt.

Depending on your circumstances, we might also share personal data with the following Council teams:
• School Transport
• Inclusion
• Gypsy Traveller
• Looked After Children (Children Services)
• Education Welfare
• Minority Ethnic Advisory Service

There are other specific situations where we may be required to disclose information about you and your child, such as:
• Where the Council is required to provide the information by law
• Where disclosing the information is required to prevent or detect a crime
• Where disclosure is in the vital interests of the person concerned

6. How long we will keep your information

We will keep the information for 3 years from the beginning of the academic year your child starts school.

7. Your Data Protection rights

You have the right to:

• Obtain access to the personal data that Carmarthenshire Council is processing about you
• Have any inaccurate or incomplete information rectified (corrected)
• Withdraw your consent to processing, where this is the only basis for the processing
• Make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the independent body in the UK which protects information rights

In some circumstances, you may have the right to:

• Object to the processing of your personal information
• The erasure of your personal data
• Restrict the processing of your personal information
• Data portability

8. Contact details

For more information regarding this privacy notice and your rights, please contact:

Data Protection Officer
Carmarthenshire County Council
County Hall
Carmarthen
SA31 1JP

Email: dataprotection@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Contact details for the Information Commissioner’s Office along with further guidance on Data Protection legislation can be found on the ICO website .