Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

This policy was last updated on 31st March 2022.
This website is operated by School Explained Limited. (“School Explained”). Our Trading Name is ‘Learning Ladders’. We can be contacted at Learning Ladders Education, PO Box 473, Lymington, SO41 1GJ
You are welcome to communicate with us at the above address or preferably using the following email address support@learningladders.info.
When we use the terms “Company”, “we”, “us”, “our” and “ours” in this privacy policy we refer to School Explained.
When we use the terms “you”, “your” and “yours” when used in this privacy policy we are referring to you the reader of this privacy policy.

When we refer to any school that is a customer of Learning Ladders we use the term “Subscriber School”.

Introduction to and how this document will help you understand how we respect your and help you protect your personal data.

Your personal data and the way you and others (including here at School Explained) take care of that data is very important. We know that you will expect us to be committed to the security, privacy and confidentiality of information provided by you or on your behalf. We want to be sure that you are able to understand the personal data that we collect and what happens to that personal data whilst we hold or have access to the data You will expect us to be transparent in our practices and be open with you in the unlikely event that things go wrong and something unexpected happens involving your personal data.
With your help and that of the Subscriber School you may be associated with we want to make sure that the personal data that we hold is always accurate and up to date. You will be able to check back with us and ask to see your personal data held by us at any time. You have other rights in relation to your personal data as we explain later in this notice.
So, this privacy policy describes our current policies and practices with regard to any personal information collected by us whether from you directly, through the website or, if you are a Parent, Guardian or Carer, provided to us by a Subscriber School with which we work. Personal information means any information which identifies you, and may include information such as your name, email address, telephone number and information specifically about you (and not any other person unless you are a Parent or Carer and provide personal data associated with a pupil of the Subscriber School attended) that may be uploaded in Learning Ladders.
To help you navigate through this document we divide it into sections:-
How we receive your personal data – the various routes by which we may find ourselves in possession of your personal data:
We next tell you about the personal data that we collect about you:
And then how we may use that personal data;
If you are user or about to become a user of Learning Ladders (or thinking of using Learning Ladders) the next section is important to you as it provides a lot of detail about the way we work with Schools and also help Parents to participate in Learning Ladders;
We then explain how you can ask for a copy of your personal data;
We explain procedures that we have in place for keeping your personal data up to date for so long as we are entitled to hold it;
We explain rights available to data subjects and how these rights can be taken advantage of.
We’ve invested extensively in technology to help us meet our personal data protection duties and we explain those arrangements including where your personal data may be stored;
When we co-operate with others such as in relation to education research and curriculum development how we make sure your data is not used as personal data but is anonymised.
Finally, we tell you how cookies are use when you are using our websites.

How we receive your Personal Data

We always work compliantly under data protection laws in the way that we obtain Personal Data.
That data may be provided directly by you. Before you input any personal data into a webpage we will prompt you to review this privacy policy. This gives you the opportunity to learn more about why we need the personal data and what will happen to it. Before you input your personal data we will ask you to tell us you are happy to continue and that you would like to give us consent to use the data in the way we have said we will.
We would remind you that you are entitled to withdraw your consent at any time by telling School Explained. But this may, of course, impact upon any service that we provide for your benefit.
We also receive personal data from the Subscriber School that provides you with Learning Ladders. We will always use that personal data strictly in accordance with an agreement with the Subscriber School. The Subscriber School will have its own privacy policy and you can find out from that how the Subscriber School also makes sure that your personal data is properly controlled and secured and that their instructions to us and the restrictions the Subscriber School has placed on us in using the personal data provided are clear and in writing.

Data Exchanged with Subscriber Schools facilitated by School Explained

To help Subscriber Schools enhance relationships with parents and carers we provide the ability for messages and photographs to be exchanged. Please remember that the Subscriber School will become a data controller for the purposes of any personal dated embedded within messages and photographs that we facilitate the processing of. You can refer to the Subscriber School’s privacy notice for further information. Parents and carers who wish to exercise data protection rights in respect of that personal data should refer their enquiries directly to the Subscriber School.

Information provided through forums promoted by School Explained

We may obtain additional information of a personal nature from you through your use of forums promoted by School Explained. Data collected is stored and then deleted in accordance with our data storage policy applicable to forums and we act as controller of such data for so long as we hold it.

The personal data that we collect about you (for prospective customers and individuals making general enquiries)

If you are a prospective customer or make enquiry of us, generally, through our website we know that you will wish us to correspond with you in order to satisfy your enquiry. We will only hold personal information we receive on this basis for a period that is reasonable taking into account whether you continue to communicate with us or otherwise. However, we will in order to maintain sound business practices and in accordance with our legitimate interests archive all emails including attachments in accordance with our usual practices making sure that the data remains secure.
If you are a prospective customer we may use the personal data that you provide to help prepare School Explained to enter into a contract with you where this is relevant.
We may offer you other options as to how we communicate with you at that time (and afterwards if you have agreed that we may continue to communicate with you). You will be invited to opt into each option that we may offer.
We will only provide your personal data to third parties as we are lawfully allowed to, taking into account the extent you have expressly consented to our doing so and have given your consent freely and on an informed basis.
We will not collect any personal data that we do not require for the purposes of communicating with you, maintaining records of our communications with you and wherever it is appropriate to do so for the purposes of the functioning and operation of the Learning Ladders product.
If you write to us seeking employment with us and we subsequently invite you to submit further details about yourself, we will advise you before you do that as to our relevant privacy policies.

Personal Data collected in connection with data sharing arrangements

If you are registering an account to participate in the [Parentkind Audit] please note that your personal details provided at the point of registration will be shared with Parentkind in order to provide the service you have requested and for marketing purposes.

How is your personal data collected through technology?

Please also review the section dealing with cookies below.

Automated technologies or interactions.

As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy below for further details.

Third parties or publicly available sources.
We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below. Its availability will be in line with your own stated privacy preferences recorded by those other providers.

- Technical Data from the following parties:
  - Analytics providers such as Google based outside the EU;
  - Advertising networks such as TES/Google Ads based inside OR outside the United Kingdom;
- Search information providers such as Google based inside OR outside the United Kingdom; and
- Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services such as PayPal based inside OR outside the United Kingdom.

Our use of your personal information

If you expressly indicate now or at a future time that you consent to our doing so, we will maintain the personal information you provide us with so that we may:-

- Contact you to inform you of new services and products we will be providing;
- Send you requested information about our services or products; or
- Make the data you have allowed us to hold available to third parties but if so only on an anonymised basis so that it is no longer personal data, unless we have approached you, explained our intentions and provided other information to help you understand what we propose to do and its possible effect on you and that you have expressly consented.

If we decide to use an external marketing agency to send communications on our behalf we shall always do this lawfully, making sure that our documented instructions are to be followed, that your personal data is not used for any other purpose and that the agency observes all electronic marketing rules applicable.

Learning Ladders Users privacy and Children’s privacy generally: how and why we process personal data including special category personal data and information relating to that data

NB: We will only regard a consent in relation to a child as having been properly given to us under procedures that we lay down with organisations that are our customers.
We recognise the need to provide further privacy protections with respect to personal data we may control or be responsible for processing about children who access our site. But see also the how to exercise your rights section below in relation to when a child can appropriately take responsibility for his or her own personal data.
In our arrangements with Subscriber Schools, we agree only to act on the instructions of the Subscriber School in the processing of data for that Subscriber School. We require the Subscriber School to provide or make arrangements for us to access personal data concerning all pupils who are provided with the benefit of our products, relevant teachers and other Subscriber School staff, and a parent, guardian or carer in order to enable the setting up of access rights for that person.
We may obtain the personal data using the services of organisations known as data aggregators – whose business is to facilitate interactions between schools and suppliers of digital based curriculum services and products. We will ensure, none the less, that authority to receive the data we obtain has been provided under a direct instruction from the Subscriber School concerned.
In each case we hold personal data only to the extent necessary to provide securely the services that are available under the subscription held by the Subscriber School.
The following data may accordingly be collected, held and processed by the Company from time to time:

For Students:

Unique Pupil Number
ULN
Admission Number
Forename
Middle Name (optional)
Surname
Date of birth
Gender
Contextual Information that is held on the Subscriber School’s systems but accessible by School Explained to assist Subscriber Schools in reporting student performance, such as whether the student is registered as EAL, Pupil Premium, Special Education Needs, their ethnicity)
Any further categories of data that may require to be accessed and processed to support reporting requirements that the Subscriber School may have to the Department for Education or any agency of that department or any other government department.
In addition, we process data relating the Year Group, class and any teacher set grouping of students that is held on the Subscriber School’s systems.

For Subscriber School Staff:

Key: Staff MIS ID
Staff Code
Title / Job Role
Forename
Surname
email address (for login identification)
Secondary email address (optional)

For any Parent accessing the parent portal the information we collect hold and process is:-

Title
Forename
Surname
Email address (for login identification)
This personal data will, of course, be provided with information linking to a child of that parent, guardian or carer.
We actively implement and enforce procedures that ensure that personal data is only accessed by persons in our organisation who reasonably require access to that personal data.
We remind users that the public forum and webinar areas can be accessed by all subscribers to our website.

If you wish to exercise rights available in connection with personal data held

Please note that as Learning Ladders does not have the characteristics of an information society service there is no governing age threshold at which point a child may take responsibility for its own personal data as held by Learning Ladders. We treat any request from a child with care and will only respond when we feel it appropriate to do so. Where we do respond, we have taken that individual to thereupon be responsible for their own decisions concerning personal data.
You are entitled to make a request that we provide you with any personal information that we hold concerning you or (subject to the above) a pupil for which you are responsible. If we do hold information about you we will:

- give you a description of it;
- tell you why we are holding it;
- tell you who it could be disclosed to; and
- let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form
- make sure you have access to all information we must provide including data retention periods

We will provide our detailed response to your request within 30 days of the making of your request. We do not charge when you exercise this right save exceptionally when the law allows us to do so.
We will also correct, amend or delete any personal information that you tell us is inaccurate. You may update any information you have given to us by contacting us at our registered address or the email address we include in this policy document.
We expect Subscriber Schools, under their agreement with us to ensure that personal data they provide is updated as required so as to maintain its accuracy.

You have further rights in respect of Personal Data as follows depending upon the circumstances in which we hold that information:

to be given confirmation of processing and access to personal data concerning the data subject;
to require rectification of inaccurate personal data;
to require erasure of personal data without undue delay;
to require Learning Ladders to restrict processing of the personal data where it is inaccurate, processed unlawfully, where the personal data is no longer needed but none the less required by the data subject in relation to legal claims, or pending verification of Learning Ladder’s legitimate grounds where you otherwise wish to object to processing;
to object to processing based on the public interest or legitimate basis lawful grounds, processing for direct marketing purposes, or processing for scientific or historical research or statistical purposes
to receive personal data concerning in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format to enable its transfer to yourself or through you to another party.

Keeping Personal Data Up to Date

We will make any changes to your Personal Data that are necessary from time to time. In particular we will:-
Follow instructions given to us by Subscriber Schools where details relating to a user of Learning Ladders change; and
Check with you from time to time that the information we hold about you is up to date.
We shall only amend information relating to a Parent, Guardian or Carer including any substitution of a different person to be provided with access rights on the instructions of a Subscriber School. The nominated alternative individual will be required to register at our parent portal in the usual way.

Deletion of your Personal Data and the right to have your Personal Data deleted

Where your only relationship with our business arises from arrangements we have with a Subscriber School, should that relationship end, or we are advised that a pupil whose personal data we hold has left that Subscriber School or has ceased to be provided with access to any of our products, the details of that child and relevant parent, guardian or carer details shall be deleted by us as soon as practicable thereafter in line with the terms of our agreement with the relevant Subscriber School.

The steps we take to ensure that your Personal Data is held securely

All data that we control or are instructed by a data controller to process is held in an encrypted form on secure servers located within the United Kingdom or the European Union.
If you have any queries about your privacy whilst using our site, you may write to us at the address above or email us at hello@schoolexplained.co.uk.

Anonymous data collected through this website

In addition to the information we collect as described above, we use technology to collect anonymous information about the use of our website. For example, our web server automatically logs which pages of our website our visitors view, their IP addresses and which web browsers they use. This technology does not personally identify you – it simply enables us to compile statistics about our visitors and their use of our website.
Our website contains hyperlinks to other pages on our website. We may use technology to track how often these links are used and which pages on our website our visitors choose to view. Again this technology does not identify you personally – it simply enables us to compile statistics about the use of these hyperlinks.

Cookies and similar technologies

We may use cookie technology on our website.

A cookie is a small piece of information which is sent to your browser and stored on your computer’s hard drive, mobile phone or other device. Cookies do not damage your computer.

You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie. This enables you to decide if you want to accept it or not. However, some of the services and features offered through our website may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.
We use two types of cookies on our website:

Strictly necessary cookies
These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features. Without these cookies, services you have asked for cannot be provided. They are deleted when you close the browser.
Performance cookies (e.g. Google Analytics, HubSpot)
These cookies collect information in an anonymous form about how visitors use our website. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the site when they are using it. This helps us to continually improve the site.

We may also use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our website and to improve the service we offer to you. An IP address is a numeric code that identifies your computer on a network, or in this case, the internet. Your IP address might also be used to gather broad demographic information.

We may perform IP lookups to determine which domain you are coming from (i.e. aol.com, yourcompany.com) to more accurately gauge our users’ demographics.

Information from these types of cookies and technologies or about website usage is not combined with information about you from any other source. None of the cookies or technologies that we use will personally identify you.

In more detail, the information we may collect can be derived from the following technologies that we apply in our business:-
Usage Data – information about your computer and about your visits to and use of our website (including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation);
Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website;
Before you disclose to us the personal information of another person, you must obtain that person’s consent to both the disclosure and the processing of that personal information in accordance with the terms of this privacy policy.
We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

Consent in relation to Cookies

To comply with current legislation, we need to ask for your consent to set the performance cookies described above. When you arrive on our website a banner appears asking for your consent to place performance cookies on your device. By continuing to use our website or by clicking ‘OK’, we assume that you consent to cookies being placed on your device. If you do not agree please leave our website immediately. Once your consent has been provided, this message will not appear again when you revisit. If you, or another user of your computer, wish to withdraw your consent at any time, you can do so by altering your browser settings.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain hyperlinks to websites that are not operated by us. We urge you to review any privacy policy posted on any site you visit before using the site or providing any personal information about yourself.

Transfer of data abroad

If you are visiting this website from a country other than the country in which our servers are located (currently within the European Union), the various communications will necessarily result in the transfer of information across international boundaries. By visiting this website and communicating electronically with us, you consent to the processing and transfer of your personal information as set out in this privacy policy.

Notification of changes to privacy policy

We are continually improving our methods of communication and adding new functionality and features to our business practices and this website and to our existing services. Because of these ongoing changes, changes in the law and the changing nature of technology, our data protection practices will change from time to time. If and when our data protection practices change, we will update this privacy policy to describe our new practices. We will always highlight the fact that revisions have been made giving you the date the revisions had or will have effect when you log on.

We have updated this policy to recognise the responsibilities we will have under the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation and related United Kingsom data protection laws.

The Information Commissioners Office

Please remember that the website of the Information Commissioners Office provides helpful guidance and information about our data protection laws and how they operate. The site is accessible at www.ico.org.uk. You are entitled to raise any concerns you may have about the way we deal with your personal data by contacting ICO but we do request that you raise any concerns you may have with Learning Ladders in the first instance to allow us the opportunity to clarify and/or deal with any issues.
ICO may be contacted at: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

Marketing

Where you have consented to contact being made by us with you for any of the purposes mentioned above but you no longer wish to receive emails from us or wish to change your selections as to how or what our contact with you should be please email us at the address given in section 1 with “Email Unsubscribe” in the subject heading.

You may also wish to write to us at the address given above.

If you choose to unsubscribe from our mailing lists we will only make contact with you again in circumstances where you have consented to our being re-provided with your information and that contact is authorised by you.