[sims] Retention Period for old database?

[superfletch]

We have a school who converted to academy and had a brand new SIMS database instead of applying the patch to their existing one.

 

They CTF'd a lot of details in for kids and have spent the last year or so getting SIMS back where it was as far as the rest of the data is concerned.

 

They are now asking what sort of retention period they should be looking at for the old database.

 

Any ideas?

[Bananas]

I'd have thought a min of 6 years but that's just a guess

[pcstru]

There is a Data Retention Toolkit for Schools that may help. I think the minimum for a secondary is 7 years but if it is the whole MIS DB, then there may be information you want to retain for longer.

[Bananas]

TBH if it were me i'd stick it somewhere safe and forget about it, it's unlikely to take up much space in the grand scheme of things

[vikpaw]

Interesting document.

I'd have said something like 6/7 years after the student leaves, which is similar to the DOB + 25 years mentioned in the secondary guidelines.

 

So you could go in and selectively purge data out each year but it seems such a painful system.

However, i hate the thought of data being stuffed away somewhere and forgotten about, and worse still lying around in old backup tapes. Making it part of the annual process like doing rollover / promotion might not be a bad thing to do.

 

We were recently asked for data for someone that graduated in the 80s looking for a transcript of grades. It must have been their first foray into employment

We had to go and ask and 'old' teacher what sort of paper records we kept back then.

 

This raises an interesting question : what's the longest any school has kept a single computerised MIS?

[GREED]

If you really really want to get to field level data retention there are rules and guidance from dfe about how long to keep each item!

 

You are likely safe with 7 years for school data I think it is also 7 years for financial stuff too?

 

If you get into in care data you have to keep it for 25 years if not life in some cases... eeek

[vikpaw]

Citation?

[GREED]

Me? Oh I don't know. I think ironically that is the point that it isn't easy to find. Info I had was from old procurement sessions with LAs and more recently conversations with DFE folk during my secondment. Some might even have been on their intranet (which would have been even more ironic)

[PhilNeal]

Old pupils have a right to expect their old school to be able to give references. Indy schools still get requests after 20 years!

[GREED]

Old pupils have a right to expect their old school to be able to give references. Indy schools still get requests after 20 years!

 

Expected, definitely. Not sure it is in statute though, more of benefit to both sides. I know we had reference requests for ladies who had left 15 years ago when I worked in the independent school. SIMS didn't go back that far but we had records still.

[vikpaw]

Old pupils have a right to expect their old school to be able to give references. Indy schools still get requests after 20 years!

We had a request for someone that left in the 80s.

But, will the DPA let you keep data that long - just because it's useful? Do they really have a right to expect that?

[GREED]

... I will see if I can find the data retention docs... tisk. .. more work!

[matt40k]

Your overworked mate, if you scroll up, @pcstru has already posted a link to the 'Data Retention Toolkit for Schools' which is chapter and verse.

[pete]

Electronically, we go back to September 1993 (based on sorting all pupils ever by admission number).

 

Paper-based? I suspect much longer, though it would involve digging through archives.

[GREED]

Your overworked mate, if you scroll up, @pcstru has already posted a link to the 'Data Retention Toolkit for Schools' which is chapter and verse.

 

That is the document I have seen and used, so big thumbs up for that! I love how the breakdown for each data type has different retention periods. Would love to see an MIS with a built in tool to remove aspects of a pupil record at certain times!!

[woody]

When we transferred from a tech college under the LEA to an Academy, we were told by the LEA that the data didn't belong to the Academy because it was separating from the LEA. Capita were given the job to archive the data on behalf of the local council.

 

However, something went wrong and the council came back to us 6 months later asking if we still had the original database. Good job we decided to keep the vdisk for w while just in case!

 

But technically, any requests for historical data had to go to the LEA after the date of the transfer. I should qualify this by saying that we moved to Academy status under the Labour government, so I don't know if the same situation applies to new Academies today, or whether this was just our LEA being awkward?

[matt40k]

No, they changed the ruling on that. It caused too much hassle from what I've heard. I think the idea was they didn't want hand over historic data that could be used for commercial bases. It basically falls apart when you can't run a school without data and extract bits of data doesn't really work. SIMS at least, is all or nothing.