To be unhappy at finding my child's psychology reports in the Village Hall? And that the Head reported me to the police for taking her documents home?

[WHMum1806]

I found my DD and dozens of other kids school Special Educational Needs records in the Village Hall store cupboard (next to the school). These documents included psychology reports, learning plans, emails between parents & teachers and all their personal name and address details. The cupboard is locked but accessed by many parents and other people in the village not connected with the school. It is 100% NOT the place such sensitive information should be stored.

When I informed the Head her first response was to move the documents, her second was to report me to the police for theft as I had taken my daughters documents home with me for safeguarding until I was sure the school could look after them properly.

I try not to 'sweat the small stuff' in life but this and her subsequent disrespectful attitude has left me pretty annoyed.

I have been through the school complaints procedure and whilst acknowledging the data breach and lack of security, they seem to think calling the police (who turned up and discussed this in earshot of my DD who had no idea her documents had been compromised and was deeply upset) was perfectly reasonable response from the Head.

All I wanted was to be sure my DD's documents would be safe and stay safe (through a thorough review of how this happened) before I gave them back. My DD has left that school to go on to secondary but they need to hold her records until she is 25.

I would welcome any thoughts and advice - particularly if any Mums are involved in data protection or safe guarding of children.

I agree, this is horrible to think about. I have to admit to a snort when you posted that the boxes were marked SEN in large letters.

I handed them in the the info security team at the LEA in the end for safe keeping.

WHMum1806, please make sure you include this in your time line for the ICO. You presumably explained to the info security team why you were doing this, so they too are aware that the primary school is failing on basic data security.

I've no idea where final legal responsibility will rest, but for things to improve it will be important for the ICO to know if the failings extend to the LEA.