Data Retention - Quickie

Hi,

 

I'm just revisiting our data retention and disposal policy which follows 2016_IRMS_Toolkit_for_Schools guidelines and in previous years when pupils have left the office team put all their records (we are private school so letters about bursaries, enquiry letters) into a file and put them into a secure storage area. Obviously we are going through and shreddign for England but the IRMS states 'Date of Birth of the pupil + 25 years' for keeping Pupil educational records. Is this what other schools have adopted. I went to the Inside Government GDPR course last month where one of the speakers said theres no legal requirement for data retention excpet for statutaory bits.

 

Our Alumni is causing me a headache too. They used to just add leavers names and emails to their database to communicate out without asking them if its ok but now they are getting them to sign up but we have decades worth of old emails. I've explained to them about it and I think its hitting homw now.

This is where the DfE toolkit talks about the blurring effect. You need to remember that children have rights after they leave education to challenge activities that went on. The commonly agreed period is that this can happen up to 7 years after their 18th birthday (hence the 25 years) but that doesn't mean *everything* needs to be kept ... only where required or likely to be needed.

Both the DfE Data Protection toolkit and the IRMS Toolkit for schools will be updated over the next few months, so let me and @maturelady know any questions you have (She is focusing on the DfE toolkit and I will work on the IRMS toolkit).

Just to clarify (as a query has been made), as an IRMS member I've volunteered, on a personal basis, to assist in updating the toolkit and if there are questions you can always send them in directly to [email protected] or find out more news (or even join) via https://irms.org.uk/news/