Children writing letters/emails to external organisations

[gsk]

Hi All,

 

A bit of a tenuous link here but its a question raised as a result of GDPR being around the corner.

 

Can a class full of children write letters to organisations as part of their persuasive writing and include their name and return address (School) without any data protection bother?

 

Thanks,

 

Gavin

[hardtailstar]

Id say yes, but not list surname or class.

 

Just sign it from 'Luke'

 

Have a note inside to send it to 'Mr Example' at example school

[PotNoodleTech]

Hi All,

 

A bit of a tenuous link here but its a question raised as a result of GDPR being around the corner.

 

Can a class full of children write letters to organisations as part of their persuasive writing and include their name and return address (School) without any data protection bother?

 

Thanks,

 

Gavin

 

I would have to question, do these letters actually need to be sent external to the school, to the companies involved? Surely they can practice their persuasive writing by giving the letters to the teacher(s) for them to judge the persuasiveness?

[jmak]

I would expect persuasive writing part of the English syllabus to be able to be addressed in school - although it possibly makes it more interesting and you might get a different view from someone in the "real world". However even if you kept letters for the English curriculum in school, I'd still expect the issue to need to be dealt with. One example that occurs to me is Year 10 pupils contacting employers to arrange work experience.

[gsk]

I would have to question, do these letters actually need to be sent external to the school, to the companies involved? Surely they can practice their persuasive writing by giving the letters to the teacher(s) for them to judge the persuasiveness?

 

The benefit to the english curriculum really isn't my area. Just looking at this from a data protection POV. Safeguarding and Curriculum aspects need to be thought about by the relevant people and will be in due course I'm sure.

[enjay]

Id say yes, but not list surname or class.

 

Possibly even just initials - some children have very distinctive first names.

[gsk]

The issue I'm having with things like this is that there are an awful lots of things that *could* be classified as personal data that aren't names and addresses. Surely initials, if they are unique, could be used to identify a person. The school in question is predominantly white middle-class but with a couple of eastern european students with surnames beginning in Z and X, which nobody else has. I'm equally aware that stopping things like this seems mad and hyper-sensitive to the minutiae of the rules. Striking a balance is what I'm finding tricky.

 

Thanks,

[enjay]

The issue I'm having with things like this is that there are an awful lots of things that *could* be classified as personal data that aren't names and addresses. Surely initials, if they are unique, could be used to identify a person.

 

My thinking behind initials being okay was something I read about SARs which said we could be expected to trawl emails for instances where a student has been identified by their name but not by their initials.

[Fazza]

I'd say it's more of an eSafety thing than GDPR.

[enjay]

I'd say it's more of an eSafety thing than GDPR.

 

Often the case. Discussions about GDPR have turned up all sorts of non-GDPR-related issues to address!