Scope

• Access to Records
• For the efficient running of Wisdom House, all lecturers and relevant office staff will have access to the school’s Management Information System. Lecturers may complete some the following functions e.g. enter names on the register or add other agency involvement, and may consult the pupil record. N.B. where records are maintained as hard copy within the school office, access is available to Lecturers with regards some information e.g. emergency contact numbers, consents. Other information e.g. discretionary absence request letters, attendance letters, are held in the school office and are only available to the relevant member of staff upon request.

Introduction

• All permissions to access data are granted by the ***  and recorded in the member of staff’s personnel file.
• All teaching and office staff will be given training and guidance on accessing and managing school records, to ensure compliance with the time scales laid out under the retention schedule. As a guiding principle the General Data Protection Regulation requires that personal data is only retained for as long as is necessary and for the specific lawful purpose(s) it was acquired; all information, held by the school, must be kept in accordance with the school’s GDPR and Data Protection Policy. name of person in charge to be added

The Policy

• Client Access to Records Procedures
• Current, ex or parents of students under the age of 18 may request access to any confidential records we hold on them or their child and family following the procedure below:
• The student or parent is the ‘subject’ of the file in the case where a child is too young to give ‘informed consent’ and has a right to see information that our setting has compiled on them.
• Any request to see the student’s personal file by the student or person with parental responsibility must be made in writing to us.
• We acknowledge the request in writing, informing the person that an arrangement will be made for him/her to see the file contents, subject to third party consent.
• Our written acknowledgement allows one month for the file to be made ready and available. We will be able to extend this by a further two months where requests are complex or numerous. If this is the case, we will inform you within one month of the receipt of the request and explain why the extension is necessary
• A fee may be charged for repeated requests, or where a request requires excessive administration to fulfil.
• We may seek legal advice before sharing a file.
• We go through the file and ensure that all documents have been filed correctly, that entries are in date order and that there are no missing pages. We note any information, entry or correspondence or other document which mentions a third party.
• ‘Third parties’ include each family member noted on the file; so where there are separate entries pertaining to each parent, step parent, grandparent etc. we write to each of them to request third party consent.
• Third parties also include workers from any other agency, including children’s social care and the health authority for example. Agencies will normally refuse consent to share information, preferring instead for the parent to be redirected to those agencies for a request to see their file held by that agency.
• We write to each of those individuals explaining that the subject has requested sight of the file, which contains a reference to them, stating what this is.
• They are asked to reply in writing to us giving or refusing consent for disclosure of that material.
• We keep copies of these letters and their replies in the student’s file.
• Members of our staff should also be written to, but we reserve the right under the legislation to override a refusal for consent or to just delete the name of the staff member and not the information. We may grant refusal if the member of staff has provided information that could be considered ‘sensitive’ and the staff member may be in danger if that information is disclosed; or if that information is the basis of a police investigation. However, if the information is not sensitive, then it is not in our interest to withhold that information from a parent. In each case this should be discussed with members of staff and decisions recorded.
• The copy file is then checked by legal advisors if appropriate to verify that the file has been prepared appropriately.
• What remains is the information recorded by the setting, detailing the work initiated and followed by them in relation to confidential matters. This is called the ‘clean copy’.
• We photocopy the ‘clean copy’ again and collate it for the student or appropriate parent to see.
• We inform the student of the appropriate parent that the file is now ready and invite him/ her to make an appointment to view it.
• We meet with the student or appropriate parent to go through the file, explaining the process as well as what the content of the file records about the student and the work that has been done. Only the student or person(s) with parental responsibility can attend that meeting, or the parent’s legal representative or interpreter.
• The student or appropriate parent may take a copy of the prepared file away; but, to ensure it is properly explained to and understood by the parent, we never hand it over without discussion.
• It is an offence to remove material that is controversial or to rewrite records to make them more acceptable. Our recording procedures and guidelines ensure that the material reflects an accurate and non-judgemental account of the work we have done with the student.
• If a student or appropriate parent feels aggrieved about any entry in the file, or the resulting outcome, then we refer the person to our complaints procedure.
• The law requires that the information we hold must be held for a legitimate reason and must be accurate (see our Privacy Notice). If a student or appropriate parent says that the information we hold is inaccurate, then they have a right to request for it to be changed. However, this only pertains to factual inaccuracies. Where the disputed entry is a matter of opinion, professional judgement, or represents a different view of the matter than that held by the student or appropriate parent, we retain the right not to change that entry, but we can record the person’s view of the matter. In most cases, we would have given a person the opportunity at the time to state their side of the matter, and it would have been recorded there and then.
• If there are any controversial aspects of the content of a student’s file, we must seek legal advice. This might be where there is a court case between parents, where social care or the police may be considering legal action, or where a case has already completed and an appeal process is underway.
• When we have received all the consents/refusals we take a photocopy of the complete file. On the copy of the file, we remove any information that a third party has refused consent for us to disclose and blank out any references to the third party, and any information they have added to the file, using a thick marker pen.
• At Wisdom House we never ‘under-record’ for fear of the parent seeing, nor do we make ‘personal notes’ elsewhere.
• All the undertakings above are subject to the paramount commitment of our setting, which is to the safety and well-being of the child. Please see also our Safeguarding Young People and Vulnerable Adults, and Child Protection Policy.