Playbook, private school
What a school can actually delete when a family asks
The request usually comes from a family whose child was not offered a place, or who took one somewhere else, and it is entirely reasonable. Behind it sits a set of records with different owners and different retention periods, one of which arrived from another school and one of which cannot be deleted at all.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for data deletion requests holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The subject of the record is a child and the person asking is a parent, so the school has to establish who is entitled to make the request before anything happens, and that cannot be done in a chat window.
- An admissions file normally contains a reference or a report supplied by the child's current school, which is somebody else's document sitting in yours, and the answer about it is not the answer about a registration form.
- Anything held for safeguarding reasons falls outside a deletion request entirely, and a school that quietly removes it to be helpful has created a far worse problem than the one it solved.
- A pupil who has left is not a closed matter: the file is kept for a defined period afterwards, and that period is longer than families expect because it may be needed long after the child is an adult.
How it arrives
- please delete our application from your records
- we accepted a place elsewhere can you remove our details
- how long do you keep records after a child leaves
- can you delete the assessment papers my son sat
- i want the report from my daughters old school removed
- stop emailing us about open mornings
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The retention schedule, broken out by record type | Enquiry and registration records, assessment material, pupil files after leaving, and safeguarding records, each with its period and the reason for it. One period covering everything is wrong about the two records that matter. |
|---|---|
| How a request is verified and where it goes | The named role, what proof of identity and of parental responsibility you ask for, and how long you take to respond. The assistant can describe every step of this and complete none of it. |
| Your position on material supplied by another school | References, reports and anything transferred at admission. Say plainly whether you treat these as yours to remove, because a family assumes that you do. |
| Mailing preferences, kept separate from records | How a family comes off the list, which is a different action on a different route. Most messages that arrive as delete everything are only asking for this. |
The reply
Two different things are usually meant here. Coming off our mailing list is straightforward and the route is on our privacy page [1]. A request to remove records goes to our data protection contact, who has to confirm who is asking before anything happens, and different records are kept for different periods, with anything held for safeguarding reasons outside the process altogether [2]. I cannot see a record or delete anything. Tell me your name, an email and what you are asking for, and it goes straight to the right person.
It separates the mailing list from the record, because the easy half is what most people actually want and it closes in one line. The rest is described as a process with a person at the front of it, and the safeguarding exception is stated now rather than discovered later. Nothing implies a record was found.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any request to remove, correct or see a record, and any message that appears to have been written by a pupil rather than a parent.
I cannot look at records or remove anything, and a request like this has to reach a person who can confirm who is asking. Leave your name and an email and our data protection contact will reply.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never confirm that any record about a named child exists, which is a disclosure about that child before any request has been verified.
- Never say something has been deleted, since nothing here writes to or removes anything anywhere.
- Never accept a deletion request from somebody who appears to be a pupil, because a child cannot be asked to prove anything here and the request needs an adult.
- Never quote one retention period for the whole file, as assessment material, the pupil record and safeguarding material are held on different terms.
Questions
- Most of these are people wanting fewer emails. Should it unsubscribe them?
- It cannot, and it should not pretend to. It can point at the route that works in one sentence, which closes the majority without anybody in the office touching it, and it can take the rest as a message.
- Can it tell a family what we hold about them?
- No. It has no access to any file and cannot verify who it is talking to, which are two separate reasons before you reach the third, that the subject of the record is a child.
- What if the request arrives worded angrily?
- Answer the process, take the message, and do not defend the school. A deletion request that turns into an argument in a chat window ends up inside the complaints procedure, which is not where it started.
Keep reading
- Everything for a private schoolAdmissions timelines, fees, bursaries and uniform lists are safe ground for a school assistant. Anything about a named pupil or applicant is not.
- Handling data deletion requests in generalA deletion request is a request with a clock on it, not a question. The characteristic failure is silence, so it always has to reach a person.
- The most contested clause in the parent contract, and how to state itWithdrawing a pupil, dropping the coach seat and stopping music lessons all carry notice periods, and they are not the same period.
- What actually comes back, and what only ever gets creditedA deposit credited against the final term is not a refund. Neither is an absent half term, and a trip stops being recoverable early.
- Group visits, where the visitors are other people's pupilsA group visit needs ratios, a risk assessment and a date fitted round the timetable. None of that is settled from a chat window.
Try it on your own material
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