PRIVACY POLICY

The General Data Protection Regulation gives you various rights to do with the information that businesses, the Government and other organisations hold about you.

Personal information that Paws Nursery School uses and holds is covered by the General Data Protection Regulation.

This note is to make sure you are fully aware of how we may use your personal information should you send your child to Paws Nursery School. It covers the areas set out below:

o How we collect information about you and any children who attend Paws,

o How we use personal information,

o How long we keep personal information,

o Who we share personal information with,

o Where we process personal information,

o Our commitment to you,

o What rights you have over personal information.

HOW WE COLLECT INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

When you send your children to Paws Nursery, we receive information about you and any children who attend Paws in a number of different ways.

You may give us the information. This may happen when you:

•apply for, or we offer you, a place at Paws;

•when you let us know about a change in your personal circumstances (for example, if you change your name or move to a new house).

We may receive it from another organisation, for example, should we be required to work with social services.

HOW WE USE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We use information that we have about you and your children for business purposes. These purposes generally fall into the following areas.

1 Administration – This applies to past, current and potential future children and their parents / guardians.

We use this information for the provision of child care.

The types of personal information we collect and use include:

•The personal details of your child;

•The payment of fees due;

•Details of the child’s Family (so we can contact you in case of an emergency)

•Medical information (so we can cater for any special needs)

•Ethnic background of your child (this is collected by Bracknell Forest Council as part of the process to obtain Nursery Education Funding for your child). This is also used when Paws applies for grants and funding from Government bodies.

2 Provision of Education – This applies to past, current and potential future children and their parents / guardians.

We use this information to ensure that your child’s development needs are catered for.

The types of information we collect and use include:

•Education and Training Details (so we can ensure your child’s development needs are catered for).

3 Keeping you informed – This applies to current, past and potential future children and their parents / guardians.

We use this information to keep you updated about events at Paws Nursery (e.g. to let you know about events and changes to schedules).

The types of information we collect and use include:

•Email address. So we can email you updates.

(Note: This is optional, and you can opt out of receiving email updates at any time).

Details of all events and notices will be sent out via email.

HOW LONG WE KEEP PERSONAL INFORMATION

We are required to keep certain personal information including registers, medication record books and accident record books pertaining to the children for at least 3 years after the child has left Paws Nursery (sometimes much longer). This is in order to comply with ‘Early Years Foundation Stage Welfare Requirements’ (given legal force by Childcare Act 2006) and other legislation (e.g. Limitation Act 1980/The Statute of Limitations (Amendment) Act 1991).

WHO WE SHARE PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH

Generally, we only use your information within Paws Nursery.  There are some occasions when we need to share personal information about you and / or your child with third parties. These are:

•If you chose to pay for Paws Nursery using vouchers (e.g. Childcare vouchers) we will share the minimum amount of your personal information necessary with the voucher scheme operator, so they can identify you and make the appropriate payments to Paws Nursery on your behalf.

•If your child is entitled to Nursery Education Funding, we are required to share your personal details with Bracknell Forest Council in order to identify your child and prove entitlement to funding.

•It is possible that we could receive requests for information from schools, government departments, the police and other enforcement agencies. If there is a proper legal basis for sharing your personal information, we will provide it to the organisation that is asking for it.

•We may, if necessary, use your personal information for the purposes of recovery of overdue fees.

•In case of an emergency, we may need to share with the emergency services details of your child including details of any medical conditions as provided to us by you.

•To contact you when we want to inform you about events at Paws Nursery.

WHERE WE PROCESS PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will only store and use your personal information in the United Kingdom

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU

We will process your personal information in line with the General Data Protection Regulation. This means that we will:

•only collect and hold information about you which we need for some reason;

•keep your personal information up to date and accurate (to help us do this, please let us know if any of your details change);

•take appropriate steps to protect your personal information from being used without permission, or illegally, and to safeguard your rights; and

•destroy your personal information in a secure way once we no longer need it.

WHAT RIGHTS YOU HAVE OVER YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

You have certain rights over your personal information. Most importantly, you have a right to ask for a copy of all the personal information we hold about you but there are some legal exceptions to this, such as information which is confidential to Paws Nursery. If you would like a copy of your personal information, you should contact the nursery Manager.