GDPR Privacy Notice
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT?
Growing Minds Montessori Childcare (“the Nursery” or “we”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.
This privacy notice describes how the Nursery collects and uses personal information about employees of the Nursery (“Employees”), children attending the Nursery (“Child” or “Children”) and the parents of the Children (“Parents”) (known collectively as “You” or “Your”), in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Growing Minds Childcare Ltd. is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about You. We are required under data protection legislation to notify You of the information contained in this privacy notice.
This notice applies to Employees, Children and Parents. This notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time but if we do so, we will provide You with an updated copy of this notice as soon as reasonably practical.
It is important that Employees, Children and Parents read and retain this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about You, so that You are aware of how and why we are using such information and what Your rights are under the data protection legislation.
DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES
We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about You must be:
1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to You and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
3. Relevant to the purposes we have told You about and limited only to those purposes.
4. Accurate and kept up to date.
5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told You about.
6. Kept securely.
THE KIND OF INFORMATION WE HOLD ABOUT YOU
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection, such as information about a person’s health or sexual orientation.
Employees:
We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about Employees:
• Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses.
• Date of birth.
• Gender.
• Marital status and dependants.
• Next of kin and emergency contact information.
• National Insurance number.
• Bank account details, payroll records and tax status information.
• Salary, annual leave, pension and benefits information.
• Start date and, if different, the date of an Employee’s continuous employment.
• Location of employment or workplace.
• Copy of driving licence (where applicable).
• Recruitment information (including copies of right to work documentation, references and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process).
• Employment records (including job titles, work history, working hours, holidays, training records and professional memberships).
• Personnel files and training records including performance information, disciplinary and grievance information, and working time records.
• Information about your use of our information and communications systems.
• Records of any reportable death, injury, disease or dangerous occurrence.
We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information:
• Information about an Employee’s race or ethnicity.
• Information about an Employee’s health, including any medical condition, accident, health and sickness records, including:
• where an Employee leaves employment and under any share plan operated by a group company the reason for leaving is determined to be ill-health, injury or disability, the records relating to that decision;
• details of any absences (other than holidays) from work including time on statutory parental leave and sick leave; and
• where an Employee leaves employment and the reason for leaving is related to their health, information about that condition needed for pensions and permanent health insurance purposes.
Children:
We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about Children:
• Name
• Date of birth
• Home address
• Dietary requirements
• Attendance information
• Photographs and video clips of the Child to signpost Children to where their belongings are stored at the Nursery that they attend, and also for general display purposes
• Emergency contact should Parents be unavailable and the emergency contact’s contact details
• Record book for each Child containing the work of the Child whilst at the Nursery, observations about the Child’s development whilst at the Nursery from Employees of the Nursery, specific examples of the Child’s progress, photographs demonstrating the Child’s development whilst at the Nursery, and personal details of the Child (e.g. their date of birth) (“Progress Report”)
• Records relating to individual Children e.g. care plans, common assessment frameworks, speech and language referral forms
• Accidents and pre-existing injuries forms
• Records of any reportable death, injury, disease or dangerous occurrence
• Observation, planning and assessment records of Children
We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information:
• Information about a Child’s race or ethnicity, spoken language and nationality.
• Information about a Child’s health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.
• Information about a Child’s accident or incident reports including reports of pre-existing injuries.
• Information about a Child’s incident forms / child protection referral forms / child protection case details / reports.
Parents:
We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about Parents:
• Name
• Home address
• Telephone numbers, and personal email addresses.
• National Insurance number.
• Bank account details.
We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information:
• Information about a Parent’s race or ethnicity, spoken language and nationality.
• Conversations with Parents where Employees of the Nursery deem it relevant to the prevention of radicalisation or other aspects of the governments Prevent strategy.
HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED?
Employees:
We collect personal information about Employees through the application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or sometimes from an employment agency or background check provider. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers, credit reference agencies or other background check agencies.
We will collect additional personal information in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of when an Employee works for us.
Children and Parents:
We collect personal information about Children and Parents from when the initial enquiry is made by the Parents, through the enrolment process and until the Children stop using the Nursery’s services.
HOW WE WILL USE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU
We will only use Your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use Your personal information in the following circumstances:
1. Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with You.
2. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
3. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and Your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
We may also use Your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:
1. Where we need to protect Your interests (or someone else’s interests).
Situations in which we will use Employee personal information
We need all the categories of information in the list above (see Employee section within the Paragraph entitled ‘The Kind of Information We Hold About You’) primarily to allow us to perform our contracts with Employees and to enable us to comply with legal obligations. The situations in which we will process Employee personal information are listed below.
• Making a decision about an Employee’s recruitment or appointment.
• Checking an Employee is legally entitled to work in the UK. Paying an Employee and, if an Employee is an Employee or deemed Employee for tax purposes, deducting tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs).
• Providing any Employee benefits to Employees.
• Enrolling you in a pension arrangement in accordance with our statutory automatic enrolment duties.
• Liaising with the trustees or managers of a pension arrangement operated by a group company, your pension provider and any other provider of employee benefits.
• Administering the contract we have entered into with an Employee.
• Conducting performance and/or salary reviews, managing performance and determining performance requirements.
• Assessing qualifications for a particular job or task, including decisions about promotions.
• Gathering evidence for possible grievance or disciplinary hearings.
• Making decisions about an Employee’s continued employment, engagement.
• Making arrangements for the termination of our working relationship.
• Education, training and development requirements.
• Dealing with legal disputes involving Employees, including accidents at work.
• Ascertaining an Employee’s fitness to work.
• Managing sickness absence.
• Complying with health and safety obligations.
• To prevent fraud.
• To monitor your use of our information and communication systems to ensure compliance with our IT policies.
• To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution.
• Equal opportunities monitoring.
Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of an Employee’s personal information.
Situations in which the Nursery will use personal information of Children
We need all the categories of information in the list above (see Children section within the Paragraph entitled ‘The Kind of Information We Hold About You’) primarily to allow us to perform our obligations (including our legal obligations to Children. The situations in which we will process personal information of Children are listed below.
• Upon consent from the Parents, Personal Data of Children will be shared with schools for progression into the next stage of their education.
• Personal information of Children will be shared with local authorities without the consent of Parents where there is a situation where child protection is necessary.
• The personal information of Children will be shared with local authorities without the consent of Parents for funding purposes.
• Ofsted will be allowed access to the Nursery’s systems to review child protection records.
• To ensure we meet the needs of the Children
• To enable the appropriate funding to be received
• Report on a Child’s progress whilst with the Nursery
• To check safeguarding records
• To check complaint records
• To check attendance patterns are recorded
• When a Child’s Progress Report is given to its Parent in order for that Parent to pass the same Progress Report to a school for application or enrolment purposes
Situations in which the Nursery will use personal information of Parents
We need all the categories of information in the list above (see Parents section within the Paragraph entitled ‘The Kind of Information we Hold About You’) primarily to allow us to perform our contracts with Parents and to enable us to comply with legal obligations. The situations in which we will process personal information of Parents are listed below.
• The personal information of Parents will be shared with local authorities without the consent of Parents for funding purposes.
• To report on a Child’s attendance
• To be able to contact a Parent or a Child’s emergency contact about their Child
• To ensure nursery fees are paid
If Employees and Parents fail to provide personal information
If Employees and Parents fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the respective contracts we have entered into with Employees and Parents, or we may be prevented from complying with our respective legal obligations to Employees, Children and Parents.
Change of purpose
We will only use Your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use Your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify the Employee, Child or Parent, as is appropriate in the circumstances, and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Please note that we may process an Employee’s, a Child’s or a Parent’s personal information without their respective knowledge or consent, as relevant to the circumstances, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
HOW WE USE PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION
“Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We have in place an appropriate policy document and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:
1. In limited circumstances, with Employee or Parent explicit written consent.
2. Where we need to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in connection with Employee employment.
3. Where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring or in relation to our occupational pension scheme.
Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect an Employee, a Child or a Parents’ interests (or someone else’s interests) and the Employee, Child or Parent as is appropriate is not capable of giving consent, or where the Employee or Parent has already made the information public.
The Nursery’s obligations as an employer
We will use particularly sensitive personal information of Employees in the following ways:
• We will use information relating to leaves of absence, which may include sickness absence or family related leaves, to comply with employment and other laws.
• We will use information about the physical or mental health of an Employee, or their disability status, to ensure Employee health and safety in the workplace and to assess the fitness of Employees to work, to provide appropriate workplace adjustments, to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits including statutory maternity pay, statutory sick pay, pensions and permanent health insurance.
• We will use information about an Employee’s race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or an Employee’s sexual life or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.
Do we need Employee consent?
We do not need the consent of Employees if we use special categories of personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach Employees for their written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide Employees with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that Employees can carefully consider whether they wish to consent. Employees should be aware that it is not a condition of their contract with the nursery that they agree to any request for consent from us.
INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS
We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with our data protection policy.
Less commonly, we may use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary to protect the interests of You (or someone else’s interests) and You are not capable of giving your consent, or where an Employee or a Parent, as is relevant to the circumstances, has already made the information public.
We envisage that we will hold information about criminal convictions.
We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so, which includes but is not limited to Disclosure and Barring Service (“DBS”) checks. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the recruitment process or we may be notified of such information directly by you in the course of you working for us. We will use information about criminal convictions and offences in the following ways:
• To conduct a DBS check on each Employee, to record the date of the DBS check, the number of the DBS check and the name of the body conducting the DBS check.
We are allowed to use your personal information in this way to carry out our obligations. We have in place an appropriate policy and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.
AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING
Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We are allowed to use automated decision-making in the following circumstances:
1. Where we have notified Employees or Parents of the decision and given the Employee of the Parent as is appropriate 21 days to request a reconsideration.
2. Where it is necessary to perform the contract with an Employee or a Parent and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard the Employee’s, the Child’s or the Parent’s rights as is appropriate.
3. In limited circumstances, with explicit written consent from the Employee or the Parent, as is appropriate, and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard Employee or Parent rights.
If we make an automated decision on the basis of any particularly sensitive personal information, we must have either explicit written consent from an Employee or a Parent as is appropriate, or it must be justified in the public interest, and we must also put in place appropriate measures to safeguard an Employee or a Parents rights as is relevant in the circumstances.
You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on You based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified the Employee or the Parent as is appropriate in the circumstances.
DATA SHARING
We may have to share Employee, Child or Parent data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the group.
We require third parties to respect the security of Your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.
Why might the Nursery share Employee, Child or Parent personal information with third parties?
We will share Your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with You or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.
Which third-party service providers process my personal information?
”Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents), local authorities, regulatory bodies, schools and other entities within our group. The following third-party service providers process personal information about you for the following purposes:
• Local Authorities – for funding and monitoring reasons (e.g. equal opportunities and uptake of funded hours)
• Regulatory bodies – for ensuring compliance and the safety and welfare of the children
• Schools – to provide a successful transition by ensuring information about the child’s progress and current level of development and interests are shared
We will share personal data regarding your participation in any pension arrangement operated by a group company with the trustees or scheme managers of the arrangement in connection with the administration of the arrangements.
How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?
All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect Your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use Your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process Your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
When might you share my personal information with other entities in the group?
We will share Your personal information with other entities in our group as part of our Nursery Management Software and Learning Journal Software.
What about other third parties?
We may share Your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. In this situation we will, so far as possible, share anonymised data with the other parties before the transaction completes. Once the transaction is completed, we will share Your personal data with the other parties if and to the extent required under the terms of the transaction.
We may also need to share Your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.
DATA RETENTION
How long will you use my information for?
We will only retain Your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal information are available in our retention policy which is available from the manager. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of Your personal data, the purposes for which we process Your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
In some circumstances we may anonymise Your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with You, in which case we may use such information without further notice to You. Once you are no longer an Employee, or a Child benefiting from the Nursery’s services or a Parent, as is appropriate, we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with [our data retention policy OR applicable laws and regulations].
RIGHTS OF ACCESS, CORRECTION, ERASURE, AND RESTRICTION
Your duty to inform us of changes
It is important that the personal information we hold about You is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if Your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.
Your rights in connection with personal information
Under certain circumstances, by law You have the right to:
• Request access to Your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables You to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about You and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal information that we hold about You. This enables You to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about You corrected.
• Request erasure of your personal information. This enables Employees or Parents to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove Your personal information where You have exercised Your right to object to processing (see below).
• Object to processing of Your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about Your particular situation which makes You want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing Your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
• Request the restriction of processing of Your personal information. This enables Employees or Parents, as is appropriate, to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about You for example if You want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
• Request the transfer of Your personal information to another party.
If You want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of Your personal information, object to the processing of Your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of Your personal information to another party, please contact the manager in writing.
No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access Your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights).
What we may need from You
We may need to request specific information from You to help us confirm your identity and ensure Your right to access the information (or to exercise any of Your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
RIGHT TO WITHDRAW CONSENT
In the limited circumstances where You may have provided Your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of Your personal information for a specific purpose, You have the right to withdraw Your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw Your consent, please contact [the manager]. Once we have received notification that You have withdrawn Your consent, we will no longer process Your information for the purpose or purposes You originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.
CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide You with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify You in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact Debra Finney by email at debra@growingmindschildcare.co.uk with the subject line GDPR Privacy Notice enquiry.
I,___________________________ (Employee/Parent), acknowledge that on _________________________ (date), I received a copy of the Nursery’s privacy notice for Employees, Children and Parents and that I have read and understood it.
Signature
………………………………………………
Name
…………………………………………………