Teacher hand delivered certificate usually given out in class.

[howmanycorners]

I don’t know what to make of this, dc is in primary school and every week someone gets a certificate.
Suddenly I saw my child’s teacher walk past the lounge window at about 8 pm and post a certificate through the door.
Aibu to find it a bit strange and wonder why she did this having had to look up our address and purposely drive to our house when all certificates are handed out in school and she would see my child in the morning?

Yes, and I've never said otherwise.

No, because I don't believe that delivery drivers doing their jobs involving multiple properties is classed as a visit. A visit is specific.

On the other point, yes they visited the property, not the family.

Could you explain how a person delivers something to a property without visiting it?

ETA you gave the example of a burglar as someone visiting a property. I’m interested in the difference between their visits (in your example) and say the postie.

Then I wonder about all the comments on here about privacy being violated. The family wasn’t visited so no violation.
General comments - not yours.

@Oliveoy suggested it was a GDPR breach because “Under GDPR consent must be specific to a particular purpose. Schools do not ask parents to agree to unspecified, unannounced, non urgent home visits.”. However she now seems to agree that the parents weren’t in fact visited.

When a teacher obtains an address not in accordance with GDPR, they are violating privacy whether they see anybody or not.

Some people may feel sensitive about the size or condition of their property, their road or area. They may not particularly want a teacher turning up for no good reason (and delivering a certificate which could've been given in school as usual is not good reason). Even if the teacher passes no thought whatsoever on what they might see, the parent isn't to know that and could worry about being judged. In that sense, it's an invasion of privacy. Many teachers might think something, whether it's just "gosh, this is a big house, I wonder what they do for a living" or conversely "this is a shabbier area than I imagined them living in". A passing thought as a human.

The other issue is that when a visit is
unannounced and unplanned, they could encounter the family. Perhaps the parent doesn't want to be caught putting out the bin in their dressing gown. Perhaps they're bringing the shopping in but they're a real introvert or neurodivergent, and suddenly seeing needing to interact with a teacher out of context is really hard for them. That would be an invasion of privacy.

I've explained this very point several times already

Are you arguing that schools don’t hold parents addresses for the purpose of being able to deliver documents to parents?

Obviously not clearly. A postal delivery worker visits properties in order to deliver letters. They would be unable to deliver letters without visiting properties. Sure, they aren’t visiting the occupants but I’m struggling to see how you can claim they don’t visit each property they deliver to. For example, today the postman visited my property to deliver something (in fact they also knocked). Yesterday they didn’t visit as I didn’t get any post.

Hand delivering documents is unlikely to be one of the primary reasons schools have addresses on file, no. How many times would you expect schools to hand deliver documents?

But it doesn't matter. A school can access addresses to deliver documents, if that's in accordance with GDPR. So if a parent knows this is happening and has given consent, that satisfies one of the 6 bases. That's fine. If the school hasn't discussed it with the parent and gained consent but can argue a legitimate purpose (there's no way to deliver the document another way, and it's so urgent that on balance it
overrides a normal need for privacy etc) then that may also well be fine.

I wouldn’t expect a school to hand deliver documents regularly. I would expect them to use addresses to send out correspondence. In fact I can’t think of many other reasons they would need access to addresses. The teacher is accessing the data to allow for the delivery of documents, not to visit the parents. Which you’ve accepted isn’t the case.

A postal worker isn't making a visit, because they are just carrying out a routine and impersonal service that applies to every house on their round. It's unlikely anybody would say "I had a visit from the postman today"...it would sound weird, because they often knock on the door to do their job. A visit is a personal, targeted attendance at a specific home for a specific purpose.

The postal delivery worker’s job is the definition of targeted and personal . They don’t just randomly deliver post just anywhere. They visit the specific property of the person the post is for (except ours on occasion).

Well for a start, schools are legally required to provide data including address to the DfE. By law they also have to keep an admissions register. It's necessary as part of emergency contact details. It could be used for safeguarding purposes. On application it might be used for determining catchment and allocating places. Hand delivering star of the week certificates would come pretty low down on the list 😂

Doesn't matter whether they accessed the data for the delivery of documents or to visit the parents. As I have explained ad nauseum, in this situation accessing the data was not lawful.

No, it's not the definition of targeted and personal. It's highly impersonal, because it's their job. They don't give a shit who you are. They are following a round

And tbh, I don’t think the conversation

“someone left the front gate open”
”it must have been the postman, he visited earlier”

would have anyone scratching their head over the use of the word visited.

😂

But don’t visit, if you don’t have post. Don’t just randomly call everywhere)

(Although one of our posties did get a shout out on the local FB page for calling to someone as he had their post and she was going to miss it. Or stalking as it would no doubt be characterised on MN)

of course, we don’t actually know it was, in your opinion, unlawful as we are yet to discover why the teacher delivered the certificate or what kind of permission the op had given the school regarding her data and how it was to be used.
And as the OP is reluctant (despite feeling that boundaries had been overstepped) to ask the question that has resulted in a 40 page discussion, then all we are left with is assumptions, presumptions, dictionary definitions, tests for the use of data, the potential to report to ICO, the role of posties, the purpose of a letterbox …and very little in the way of facts.

Although, on the upside, I’m much clearer about when to crack open the hobnobs.

Yes you have. You are arguing exactly that with me. I’m saying shoving something through the door isn’t visiting the OP at home. You are adamant it is because the teacher didn’t have a certificate for the whole street.

No, I haven't. You are confusing what different people have said, twisting it and attributing to the wrong poster. Not that I disagree with the other poster, but that's not the point.

It's all ridiculous anyway. You and all the other YABUs have become so focused on the semantics of "visit" because that's all you have.

You cannot refute that the teacher broke GDPR, and that therefore the OP was entirely justified in
how she felt (regardless of whether she considered the legal angle or not).

The only thing you're reduced to is arguing that the teacher's actions were ok because you think visit isn't the correct word to describe...the visit.

As has been said several times, without knowing what’s in the school’s privacy notice, what the parent had consented to their data being used for and why the teacher delivered the certificate no one can make any definitive judgement on whether there was any breach of GDPR. People can speculate. As they have. People can share their own experiences to explain why they hold the position they do. As they have. People can outline their own professional experience in this specific field. As they have. You are the only one absolutely discounting anyone whose position is different from yours. Frequently belittling any experience they may have. You seem oddly fixated on ‘being right’.

The OP asked if they were being unreasonable in finding the action of the teacher strange and wondering why they did it. It’s arguably not unreasonable to find it ‘strange’ in the sense of being ‘unusual’ or ‘not the norm’. That is objectively true. Most documents that need delivery are not hand delivered. However, lots of posters feel it’s unreasonable to automatically attribute a negative motive to the teacher. Further they feel that being puzzled about this, but not taking the opportunity to just ask, is much more ‘strange’ than anything the teacher did.

@Oliveoy i think most posters who thought the op was being unreasonable felt that the op’s reaction. (Boundaries were overstepped/invasion of privacy) was disproportionate to the event,
And not asking the school why this happened (when the event was upsetting) IS strange.

It's utterly bizarre to say that I am "oddly fixated on being right" when there are a number of posters, including yourself, who are repeatedly debating with me.

So I'm fixated on being right, but you're not? Why? 🤣

That's all you have. That I'm odd, and what the word visit means. 😂