Privacy Notices - Swindon school admissions Privacy Notice

The School Admissions Team is the first point of contact for all admissions in Swindon and co-ordinates admissions to all schools for children going to school for the first time (Reception, Year 3 and Year 7), and all in year admissions.

It therefore receives applications for those children from their parents and carers. The information is then passed on to the admitting authority for the school concerned, which will then make the decision with regards to offering a school place or not.

The Admitting Authority of the school depends on the type of school:

• Academies, including free schools: Academy trust
• Community schools: Local authority
• Foundations schools: Governing body
• Voluntary aided schools: Governing body
• Voluntary controlled schools: Local authority

The local authority acts as the facilitator in terms of all admissions in Swindon. All admissions information is retained on the children’s electronic secure database in line with the council’s retention periods. It will only be accessed by children services staff in the council who are involved in your child’s case.

The Data Controller for all of the information you provide on your school place application form is Swindon Borough Council, Civic Offices, Euclid Street, Swindon SN1 2JH. 

If you need help with completing the school place application form please contact the School Admissions Team by emailing schooladmissions@swindon.gov.uk.

The categories of the information we collect, process, hold and share include:

• personal information such as name and address
• parent name and parental responsibility status and address. This may include proof of address such as a copy of the child benefit letter/exchange of contracts.
• reasons as to why they are applying. This could be on religious grounds or distance.
• any other information the parent may have attached or written on the application, for instance, medical information
• schools they are applying for
• any email correspondence received by the parent
• any appeals information

The questions on the application form are all required to allow us to process your application and to assess your child’s eligibility for a school place when considered against the council’s and school’s policies for admissions. We will use the information provided on your application form and any supporting information provided by you to assess eligibility. We strongly recommend that you read the school places information and guidance on our website or on request from the school admissions team to understand what information will be used during the allocation process, in particular the school’s oversubscription criteria.

As part of the school place allocation process we may need to refer to information that Swindon Borough Council and your child’s current or previous school(s) already hold about your child. This information will be used to allow us to carry out the admissions process following the agreed policies and it may be shared with prospective schools as far as necessary to allow them to apply their own policies or to ensure that the appropriate support is in place for your child on admission. Information referred to could include details about behaviour, attendance or safeguarding. The information may also be used to allow us to consider your application under the fair access protocol.

The School Admissions Team will process your personal information for the following purposes:

• To allocate a school place
• To write appeal paperwork
• To determine if the child is eligible for transport assistance

We use children and young person’s data to:

• enable us to carry out specific functions for which we are responsible
• meet statutory reporting and case recording requirements for social care, early help, virtual school, exclusions and reintegration, education safeguarding and special educational needs service provision
• derive statistics which inform decisions such as the funding of schools
• assess performance and to set targets for the services we provide

Our processing is lawful because at least one of the following will apply:

• Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the council is  subject; School Admissions Code 2021, School Admissions Appeals Code 2012, Education Act 1996, School Standards Framework Act 1998, Infant Class Size Regulations 2012, School Admissions Regulations 2012
• Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the council

Where necessary and lawful, or when required by legal obligation, we may share information with relevant professionals in other agencies in pursuance with our legal duties

We share children and young person’s data to fulfil our statutory requirements in order for us to complete allocation of school places.

We share relevant case information with practitioners who are working with children and families when it is necessary for service provision and in the best interests of the child (for example with schools).

We do not share information about children and young people without consent unless the law and our policies allow us to do so.

We hold children and young person’s data for set periods of time based on statutory requirements and the council’s data retention policy. The applications and any correspondence relating to this are held for the length of time the child is of school age – until they reach the age of 19.

Your personal information belongs to you and you have the right to:

• be informed of how we will process it;
• request a copy of what we hold about you and in commonly used electronic format if you wish (if you provided this to us electronically for automated processing, we will return it in the same way);
• have it amended if it is incorrect or incomplete;
• have it deleted (where we do not have a legal requirement to retain it);
• withdraw your consent if you no longer wish us to process;
• restrict how we process it;
• object to us using it for marketing or research purposes;
• object to us using it in relation to a legal task or in the exercise of an official authority;
• request that a person reviews an automated decision where it has had an adverse effect on you.

If you would like to access any of the information we hold about you or have concerns regarding the way we have processed your information please contact: Information Governance Officer, Swindon Borough Council, Civic Offices, Euclid Street, Swindon SN1 2JH. 

In the event that you no longer wish us to process the information for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice you may withdraw your consent at any time by giving us written notice. You should understand, however, that we may nevertheless need to continue processing some or all of your personal information in accordance with our statutory obligations.

We have a Data Protection Officer who makes sure we respect your rights and follow the law. If you have any concerns or questions about how we look after your personal information, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer, at DataProtection@swindon.gov.uk or by calling 01793 445500 and asking to speak to the Data Protection Officer.

You have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office about the way in which we process your personal data. For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

By completing and submitting your application you give your consent that all of the data and information you provide may be used for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice.

As a local authority we will ensure that we carry out consistent protocol checks. We will do this in the following ways:

• GDPR will be a recurring item on each month's team meeting agenda.
• We have introduced new checklists for each of our set up processes for school admissions, to ensure that all GDPR compliances are met with.
• For each of the 12 rounds of in-year offers we make, we will complete a checklist to show that we have followed our GDPR protocols and review this at the end of each process to inform continual improvements to data processing.

You are viewing the Privacy Notice for school admissions applications.

Read the main Privacy Notice