GDPR

General Data Protection Regulations

About GDPR

The Kingsmead school governing body which includes Mrs Rutter-Brown, take your data seriously and ensure that our school is compliant and handles data in accordance with GDPR guidance. We have appointed a Data Protection Officer, Martin Waters who undertakes the role for many schools in Cheshire West and Chester. Mrs Sam Taylor, our School Business Manager, is the Data Protection Lead here in school. Compliance has been and is achieved through: a full data audit; the generation of new policies (our Data Protection and Freedom of Information Policy was updated in Summer 2018) including child friendly policies and amendments to existing policies; staff training, and challenge and support from governors.

The GDPR is designed to strengthen the safety and security of all data held within an organisation, and make sure procedures are consistent. It focuses on the privacy rights of individuals and the idea that everyone should know what data is held about them and how it is used.

Why is it important? GDPR has required many changes to existing data protection rules and regulations that schools adhere to – including policies.

Main new elements of GDPR

Google Education and Gmail for education

We use Google Education as the platform for our website and Google classrooms. You can find out more about their security here. With Google classrooms, teachers can message the whole school, a class, group or individual child. So if you see a message for you child only, it cannot be seen by others and is private. This is why we share reports through Google classroom, they are linked straight to you child's unique log on and it reduces the risk of a data breach though insecure email.

Our school email accounts which all end @kingsmead.cheshire.sch.uk are Google Mail for Education accounts. This means they are more secure than a normal gmail account you can set up at home and can be used for some personal or sensitive information to other secure email addresses. Secure addresses might be to a Local Authority address or the nhs or police all of which are GDPR compliant and secure. We also use Egress for personal and sensitive data. 

CPOMS 

We use CPOMS for recording any safeguarding, behaviour, safety and child protection records. CPOMS enables the safe sharing of information for lawful and legitimate purposes and is widely used with schools. CPOMS reduces risk of information shared in error and works through the schools information management system (Arbor) and is used by partner primary and high schools with whom information may be passed between.