Privacy Policy

Updated: 14 May 2018

At The Cottage Nursery and preschool we recognise that we hold sensitive/confidential information about children and their families and the staff we employ. This information is used to help us provide the contracted services and support in line with compliance with the statutory framework and day to day operations.

We store all records in a locked cabinet or on the office computer with files that are protected in line with data protection principles. Any information shared with the staff team is done on a ‘need to know’ basis in course of their employment and is also treated in confidence. This policy will work alongside the Privacy Notice to ensure compliance under General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR).

Legal requirements

We follow the legal requirements set out in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) 2017 and accompanying regulations about the information we must hold about registered children and their families and the staff working at the nursery.

follow the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and the Freedom of Information Act 2000 with regard to the storage of data and access to it.

The Cottage Nursery and preschool is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This Privacy Statement explains our practices, including your choices, regarding the collection, use and disclosure of certain information, including your personal information, by The Cottage Nursery and preschool, trading name of company Super Start Limited and all its affiliates and brands. This policy is in line with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and is applicable to all Employees, Children, and their Parents or Caretakers.

The Data controller of your personal information is Super Start Limited, The Cottage Lower station Road, Crayford, DA1 3PY . For questions specifically about this Privacy Statement, or our use of your personal information, cookies or similar technologies, please contact us by email at privacy@thecottagenursery.com.

Our Data Protection principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you will be:

Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way
Collected only for valid purposed that we have clearly explained
Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited to those purposes
Accurate and kept up-to-date
Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
Kept securely.

Personal data means any information about an individual and from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous Data).

There are also, “special categories ” of more sensitive personal data, such as information about a person’s health and sexual orientation and for such more sensitive information we provide a higher level of protection.

Procedures

It is our intention to respect the privacy of children and their families and our staff and we do so by:

Storing confidential records at our office and/or on the office computer with files that are protected.
Ensuring staff, student and volunteer inductions include an awareness of the importance of confidentiality and that information about the child and family is not shared outside of the nursery other than with relevant professionals who need to know that information. It is not shared with friends and family, discussions on the bus or at the local bar. If staff breach any confidentiality provisions, this may result in disciplinary action and, in serious cases, dismissal. Students on placement in the nursery are advised of our confidentiality policy and required to respect it.
Ensuring that all staff, volunteers and students are aware that this information is confidential and only for use within the nursery and to support the child’s best interests with parental permission.
Ensuring that parents have access to files and records of their own children but not to those of any other child, other than where relevant professionals such as the police or local authority children’s social care team decide this is not in the child’s best interest.
Ensuring all staff are aware that this information is confidential and only for use within the nursery setting. If any of this information is requested for whatever reason, the parent’s permission will always be sought other than in the circumstances above.
Ensuring staff do not discuss personal information given by parents with other members of staff, except where it affects planning for the child’s needs and where it might be required to provide adequate or enhanced care.
Ensuring staff, students and volunteers are aware of our behavior policy on social networking in relation to confidentiality.
Ensuring issues concerning the employment of staff remain confidential to the people directly involved with making personnel decisions.
Ensuring any concerns/evidence relating to a child’s personal safety are kept in a secure, confidential file and are shared with as few people as possible on a ‘need-to-know’ basis. If, however, a child is considered at risk, our safeguarding/child protection policy will override confidentiality.

All the undertakings above are subject to the paramount commitment of the nursery, which is to the safety and well-being of the child.

General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) compliance

In order to meet our requirements under GDPR we will also undertake the following:

We will ensure our terms & conditions, privacy and consent notices are easily accessed/made available in accurate and easy to understand language.
We will use your personal data for Managing our services and offering, organising events at nursery, updating you about events and material changes that might impact you or our services, for fraud protection, for audit and debt collection, statistical analysis and other lawful reasons where required by law for us to do so. From time to time we may contact you promote our services and products based on your consent provided. We will not share or use your data for other purposes.
Everyone in our nursery understands that people have the right to access their records or have their records amended or deleted (subject to other laws and regulations).

Staff and volunteer information

All information and records relating to staff will be kept confidentially in a locked cabinet.

Individual staff may request to see their own personal file during legitimate office working hours as per the Information Request Policy.

We will collect store and use following categories of personal information about our stakeholders:

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
Parents, Carers, Legal Guardian details
Emergency contact should Parents be unavailable and the emergency contact’s contact details
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
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
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”)

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(s)
Addresses
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.

Employees:

Personal Contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers and personal email addresses.
Date of Birth
Gender
Marital Status and Dependents
Next of Kin and emergency contact information
National Insurance Number
Bank account details, payroll records and Tax status information
Salary, Annual leave, pension and benefit information
Start date and, if different, the date of and Employee’s continuous employment
Location of all previous and present employment or workplace.
Copy of Driving License (where applicable)
Recruitment Information (Including copies of right to work documentation, references and other information included in CV, resume and or cover letter or submitted as part of application process.
Employment Records (Including job titles, Work-history, Working Hours, holiday, training records and professional memberships and associations).
Personnel file and training records including performance information, disciplinary, and grievance information and working time records
information about your use of our information, communication and other system and resources.
Records of any reportable injury, disease or dangerous occurrence including death.

We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information

Information about Employee’s Race or Ethnicity
Information about Employee’s health, including any medical condition, accident, health and sickness records relating including but not limited to:
Where the employee leaves employment and the reason for leaving is determined to be ill-health, injury or disability, the records relating to that decision.
Details of any absence from work including time on statutory parental leave and sick leave
Where an employee leaves employment and the reason for leaving is related to their health, Information about their condition needed for pensions, health insurance and other statutory reasons.
Information from other sources: We might supplement the information described above with information we obtain from other sources, such as Ofsted.

Use of information

We use your information to provide, administer and improve our services and marketing to you, to process your membership, your orders, bookings and your payments and to communicate with you.

Consent – your choices

We will only contact you if we have your consent to do so. Please note that you can choose to opt-out from our communications by letting us know of your changing preferences. You can opt out of communications at any time by emailing manager@thecottagenursery.com.

If you have used the services of The Cottage Nursery and are/ were a customer or have signed up to one of our services, events, training, awards or ordered from us then you might receive our communications by email, telephone and post unless you tell us otherwise.

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